Clients do not like being nickeled and dimed. They can get their heads around paying $750 an hour, but charging them for photocopies annoys them.
Back when I participated in the management of a law firm, I used to look for ideas on how to annoy clients less. My greatest management idea was never implemented. I proposed to my partners that we add $1.00 or $2.00 to our hourly rates, eliminate the photocopying charges to our clients, and advertise that we were the only law firm in Ontario that did not charge for photocopies.
They thought that my idea was stupid. If it were such a clever idea, all the big firms would be doing it, they said. It was unfair to clients for whom we made few photocopies and favoured clients for whom we made many copies, they said. The clients did not care about the photocopying charges, they said. It was not how things had been done since time immemorial, they did not say, but they certainly meant.
I licked my wounds and moved on. I quietly wrote off photocopy charges on my client files where they seemed excessive, or when I knew that the client was particularly sensitive to them.
Some years after I retired, I had the opportunity to refer a family member to a commercial leasing lawyer. They loved his attention to detail and quick service. They got his bill (which was in the range of $5,000) for reviewing a commercial lease, commenting on it, and assisting with the negotiation. They paid it in full without question. In fact, they were so happy that they asked me if they should also use him for their more general commercial needs.
And then he sent another invoice for $75.00 plus HST, representing 6 minutes of his time. They called me and asked what that was about, and I explained how lawyers sometimes just charge whatever amount is recorded in their billing software, with nary a thought as to how the client will perceive it. The bill covered an email or two on clean-up matters or reporting that had not been recorded at the time that the previous bill had been sent.
They were not pleased. The lawyer never got another file from them.
By contrast, of my former partners reviewed every invoice leaving her department, to ask herself how a client would react to it, whether the junior on the file took too long, if any time was misspent, and most importantly, whether the client received value. She was awash with clients who praised her to the heavens.
I used to tell junior lawyers, that before they signed an account, they should get up from their chair, sit in the client chair on the other side of their desk, study the account, and decide whether, if they were the client, they would be happy to pay it.
Young lawyers who think that they do not know anything about marketing should be taught that the simplest marketing is not to vex your existing clients, so that they will keep coming back. Nickle and diming them annoys them.
Stop doing that.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.