My co-blogger wrote here the other day about the different classifications of toxic clients, as described by Adrian M. Baron in his blog, The Nutmeg Lawyer. This reminded me of my Being Solo column in the Oct/Nov 2007 edition of GPSolo Magazine which describes the different stages of slow paying clients.
Here they are - read the rest of the column here to discover ways of dealing with this problem.
The Five Stages of Paying a Lawyer’s Bill
In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross wrote the ground-breaking book On Death and Dying. Kübler-Ross theorized that there are five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It has been my experience that the slow-paying client goes through similar stages when faced with a legal bill, as follows:
Denial. “This couldn’t be my bill. The charges are way too high. You couldn’t possibly have done that much work for my little matter (a $500 million real estate development project).”
Anger. At this stage you’ve already explained the bill to your client (on your time, of course), so there’s nothing left for your client to do but get angry at the situation. “Lawyers are too expensive! What a setup! They’ve got a scam going and there’s nothing anyone can do about it!”
Bargaining. I don’t think I have to explain this one. “Okay, okay, so couldn’t you take a little bit off? Come on, you’re making a lot of money here, what’s a few thousand dollars less?”
Depression. You don’t hear from your client. For weeks. Finally, you work up the courage to call your client. “What do you want?” he asks, as though you were the enemy.
Acceptance. You’ll know that you’ve reached this stage when there is a check on your desk (and it clears once you’ve deposited it into your bank account).
Stumble It!
This I do not miss. Retirement has some advantages.
Posted by: Steve Cotton | June 25, 2009 at 09:47 PM