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Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practice of law fun. Now today we’re going to take a quick look at communicating billing. in high conflict cases.
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Scott Benton: Today, in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle, as far as the log your time portion goes, we’re going to look at communicating billing in high conflict cases. Communicating with your clients through billing entries is going to be an important part of your practice as an attorney, whether your case is low conflict or high conflict.
However, because of the highly pressurized environment that tends to occur with high conflict cases, It’s going to take more skill and focus than usual for you to manage your client’s expectations and concerns about their billing. So we really want to spend a little bit of time talking about the use of honesty and transparency in your billing practices when handling high conflict cases.
But first, what do I mean by high conflict [00:02:00] cases? High conflict cases tend to be characterized by intense emotional involvement, or complicated issues, or sometimes they involve embattled family members. When it comes to billing, high conflict cases tend to require more time and effort, and your clients are going to be scrutinizing every single detail on your bills.
Clients in high conflict cases more than likely demand transparency, and they might react more intensely than they normally do to what they perceive as overbilling or from billing entries that are just unclear or confusing to them. More than ever, you’re going to want to use clear, descriptive billing entries, and definitely avoid block billing. Block billing prevents clients from really understanding those billing entries and being able to question them because they look like vague charges to them.
Block billing is where you lump a number of tasks together into one billing entry, which usually is not very clear, instead of listing out [00:03:00] smaller step by step chunks that show how much time it took to do each individual task.
In all cases, you should probably just avoid block billing altogether. Block billing reduces transparency and clarity, and it has a higher likelihood of frustrating your clients, which can lead to a fee dispute later on. And remember that even if you win the fee dispute hearing, you still lose an entire day of productivity and billing.
So It behooves you to not do anything to get yourself into a fee dispute. On the other hand, detailed entries can demonstrate the complex and dedicated work it takes to manage high conflict cases. So you want to set up the client’s expectations by clearly listing out the legal work you complete and explaining why specific tasks took the amount of time that they took, especially when you find yourself in an emotionally charged case.
Now there are a few things you can do to help manage those client expectations and help prevent problems from really flaring up where billing is [00:04:00] concerned. Keep in mind that you’re in a highly dynamic environment when you’re working on high conflict cases.
You want to anticipate questions. Clients in high conflict cases are much more likely to scrutinize their bills, so because of that you always want to be ready to explain those charges in detail, what they are, why they took the time that they took to complete, that sort of thing. So it’s always good to preempt any concerns they might have.
You want to address potential billing issues early on by providing regular updates on case progress and estimated time span. You can also call them directly before they get their bill and let them know what to expect. Be sure to include any discounts that you’ve given them, if discounts were given.
Another helpful tip is to be clear right from the start about the nature of high conflict cases in general.
You can explain how the complexity affects the amount of time that’s required, which increases the cost. With high conflict cases. If errors are made in the billing process, you really want to get in front of those right [00:05:00] away.
You want to acknowledge the mistake and make those corrections. When you do this, this builds and preserves the trust that you have with your client and it reduces tension. When you write your billing entries, you want to use clear, descriptive billing language. So that means that you don’t want to use any legal jargon, so that clients who don’t really have any legal training or legal background can understand the work that was performed.
It’s also helpful to provide context. Clients appreciate knowing how a specific task moves their case forward. Remember, they’re always looking for value. When they look at their billing statement, they’re looking for value. They want to make sure that they’re spending their money wisely.
And don’t forget to communicate regularly with your supervising attorney about the case’s progress and any billing concerns that you might have. If there are any adjustments that need to be made, your supervising attorney will be looking over your billing entries to ensure they include transparency and clarity before ending up on the billing summary that’s sent out to the client.
In the event that a billing dispute occurs, which are [00:06:00] usually much more about the value of the legal services that were performed or The lack thereof, you really want to be prepared by being well documented and hopefully you’ll avoid these kinds of conflicts.
The good news is that detailed time entries will be your best defense. So if you get into a fee dispute hearing, then your detailed billing entries will help protect you, they’re going to help protect your work, and they’re going to help protect the firm that you work for from claims of overbilling if claims of overbilling are made.
This is another reason why you always want to go out of your way to write clear billing entries, but you also want to stop and correct any mistakes along the way. Now, if a client disputes their bill, you want to be humble and honest with them in addressing the mistake, and you want to offer to make any immediate adjustment whenever mistakes are identified. Correcting errors without hesitation helps to maintain the long term trust bond that you’ve built up with your clients, which is also critical to maintain in cases where you’re dealing with a lot of heightened emotions.
Overall, when you’re managing the billing [00:07:00] entries in high conflict cases, it requires a sharp focus on honesty, transparency, and clear communication. When billing is done effectively by using strong communication skills, this alone will help to reduce disputes, it’ll build client trust, and more importantly, it’s gonna strengthen the attorney client relationship.
I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast.,thank you so much for checking out this episode. And if you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch with us. You can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs we have available for law school students.
If you like, you can apply to come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes.
Until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place, one client at a time.
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