Most professionals and companies that provide services pay before starting their business or when they start providing their service. However, many times the lawyer’s clients believe they are approaching a law firm without having to pay. What’s more, some citizens believe they are doing the lawyer a favor just by having the opportunity to learn about his case, which is so interesting and with so many details that a great lawyer will do it if he accepts it.
The main problem For lawyers who start working without having first received the fees, it is that after many preliminaries, comings and goings, consultations of documents, phone calls, emails, multiple WhatsApps, off-site practices, transfers, consultations that end at four in the afternoon or at eleven o’clock evening: perhaps the client decides to leave his post for later or tells us that a neighboring lawyer, his lawyer relative or colleague, fraternity, club or football team, is leaving to take “is that it was offered! “.
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If this happens and happens frequently, we will have used many hours of our schedule to work without paying. And unless we’re acting like an NGO or we’re rich, it’s not a way of doing things that optimize our company’s resources and profitability. We could have spent that time on the files of clients who paid us consideration for our services or hobbies.
The first question
Some lawyers charge for the first consultation and others do not. It depends on our specialty, on many other circumstances and on the fact that we understand that the client is likely to entrust the matter to us. In this first consultation is when we have to inform the client of the price of our services once we know what would be the order. maybe we need More dataexamine documents, etc.
We should probably charge fees for this previous study, at most if we write a dictatorship.
Other requests
If, in addition to the first consultation, there are others, even if in writing or by telephone, we do not hesitate to charge further consultations. Even if the client promises us that he will leave his case to us.
There are clients who come to our office three or four times making sure their case is ours “You’ll bring it to me!” and one day we don’t know any more about them.
just a call
From “one call” we can continue to call our colleagues, opponents, administrations, courts, lawyers, experts, etc. several times. And it will no longer be a call but more conversations in person or by phone.
“Then there are the potential customers who accept our commissions but have not yet signed the quote or the professional order sheet”. (Photo: E&J)
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We must inform our client of the cost of these procedures and have them transferred to our account.
Just paperwork and then more paperwork
Sometimes it seems that after the first consultation it is only necessary to perform a small procedure, as our client has explained his problem to us. However, one procedure can lead to another and anotherand in the end we will verify that we are working harder than if we were going through a complete procedure.
The initial commissions we calculate must be requested from the client, subject to their subsequent settlement.
friends and relatives
Our friends, relatives, close people, etc., can push us to serve them in long consultations, even with the examination of documents in which we spend a lot of time and effort. In these meetings, often virtual through the mobile phone or a videoconferencewe will feel like we are doing a favor for free. So we will think:
“If I tell him clearly about my account, he might get angry!”
Yes, I accept your payouts
Then there are the potential customers who accept our commissions. but they haven’t signed the quote or the professional order sheet yeteven if they promise to do so. And why don’t they sign? Because they are thinking about it, the decision is not just theirs, they are consulting with other lawyers, they may not be able to afford our services, they think they will give them a loan and deny it, etc.
There are also people who sign the order sheet but don’t pay us. What do we do? I have several such cases and I have included a clause in the contracts so that if they entrust the case to us and then terminate the contract, they have to pay part of these taxes.
ask my lawyer to leave
Some citizens come to our office and after the first consultation they propose to ask the professional permission of the colleague who until then is their lawyer. Before applying for authorization, the customer must sign the order sheet and transfer our rates.. It wouldn’t be the first time a lawyer asks for leave, shows up in the car, and then the new client backs off or simply doesn’t respect his financial consideration.
A budget and an order sheet
So that there are no problems, we are clear with the customer from the first moment. Our experience will help us calculate the commissions for the order that the customer wants to place us, or we believe he will, and even if it is a rough calculation, that prospect must sign the order sheet. It is not necessary to completely close the rates, as it is possible to request an initial fee with the details of the services they include. Also we can set some fixed rates and other variable ones depending on the circumstances.
We avoid surprises and let the customer talk about his true intentions towards us.
Use
This article is the eighteenth in the series. Tips for highly effective lawyersby the author Louis Romero Santos. You can visit his profile by clicking on this link to see the rest of the content.
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