Degree of Difficulty is Directly Related to Pricing
Some clients are tough to represent.
It’s not because their case is tough or because they are in the wrong. It’s not because they are morally bankrupt or they just don’t fit in with our expectations for what an ideal client should look like. These situations pose challenges but they are challenges that most attorneys with a little experience have learned to handle.
The clients that are particularly difficult – the ones attorneys hate to represent – are the folks who call fifteen times a day to double check on work you were contracted to handle.
Let me give you an example:
One of my clients (call him Mitch) recently handled a real estate closing for one of these difficult individuals. The closing was straightforward. Mitch gave his client an hourly rate for processing the documents related to the closing and title work. He also provided an estimate for the amount of time he thought it would take to complete the deal. The client shopped around and eventually chose Mitch (after beating him up over price to the tune of a 15% reduction in his hourly rate). While he wasn’t thrilled with this deal, Mitch took it.
This client called Mitch literally everyday during the three months it took for the transaction to close. She also stopped by his office on several occasions. Most of the meetings with the client consisted of her questioning Mitch’s expertise at every opportunity. And these weren’t deal-related smart questions. They were questions related to Mitch’s work style, knowledge and choice of staff.
The aggravation this client caused Mitch and his team was certainly not worth the fee he charged. In fact he wound up reducing his final bill because the client was unhappy with .2 and .3 showing up on various places on the invoice.
How could this be avoided?
Over the years, we’ve found that “price buyers” – people who are looking for discounts on the services of a capable attorney – are always the most difficult clients to work with. They tend to focus their time and attention on the minutia of the legal work and not on the deal points that are critical. This is because they have conditioned themselves to beat people up to get better deals.
The best way to avoid having this happen to you is to avoid these clients altogether. When it comes to clients YOU get what THEY pay for. That means that if they pay for your expertise- and they pay handsomely – they will respect your opinion and take it to heart. They will focus on the outcome and not the means to an end.
You can reinforce this by setting a fair but firm price upfront. Base the price on the value for the client. Help them understand that the value they receive will exceed what they pay for your services by a wide margin. If they don’t agree, or they just don’t get it, don’t work with them.
Price buyers are not nice buyers. Stay away from bargain shoppers. People should be wary of discounts in legal work and parachute sales. Too much is riding on the outcome to go with a cheap solution.
Print
Email
