Problems Getting Paid? Learn How To Get Paid In Full And On Time
You didn’t spend all that money on law school to work for free. Collecting your fees is the lifeline of your firm but it can be a difficult task. It is imperative for your practice to ensure you get paid in full and on time. Is your firm following the right path to securing compensation while staying within ethical guidelines? To optimize your firm’s intake Ed Poll, author of Collecting Your Fee: Getting Paid From Intake To Invoice, recommends these best practices:
1) Set Client Expectations
Making sure your clients understand what they are getting into is the first step to ensuring payment. If you do not discuss legal fees and your firm’s billing procedure up front you are setting yourself up for issues when it comes time to collect.
2) Have Your Clients Agree To Your Fee Structure in Writing
Create a written fee agreement (a.k.a. engagement letter) to help your clients understand what exactly they are agreeing to by using your services. The written agreement should include that (1) you, the lawyer, agree to take on the client, (2) you agree to represent the client competently under Model Rule 1.1, (3) the client agrees to tell you the truth and to respond quickly by supplying document and other information as the matter moves forward, and (4) the client agrees to pay the bill according to the terms of the agreement. Once complete, both you and your client should initial the fee provision as a way to ensure a clear outline of expectations from the beginning.
3) Stop Work If Your Client Fails To Honor The Fee Agreement
Whatever the terms of your fee agreement are, don’t ignore them. If you do, you are sending a message to clients that the agreement is a lenient guideline rather than a contracted agreement.
Bonus Tip: Use law practice management software to keep track of your work for each case or matter and you can easily invoice and collect payment from your clients right through the software. You will delight your clients and gain their utmost confidence by providing a secure client portal for sharing important case documents, events, and messages without the pain points of lost emails and faulty fax machines.
Learn More About Collecting Your Fees Within Ethics Rules …
Join Ed Poll on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 at 11:00 am PDT / 2:00 pm EDT, for a complimentary webinar, Having Problems Getting Paid? Collecting Your Fees Within The Laws Of Ethics, to understand the best policies and practices that prevent fee collection from becoming an issue. You will learn how to:
• Improve your client relationships and set fee expectations to increase timely bill payment
• Use best practices to approach the topic of payment with clients
• Model and implement an effective collection process with your clients
• Increase client contact frequency with status reports to guarantee payments
• And more!
Space is limited so reserve your spot for this informative and free webinar now.
This webinar is provided by MyCase web-based law practice management software. Get a 30-day free trial of MyCase now.
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