“Fools believe silence is a void needing to be filled; the wise understand there’s no such thing as silence.”
Michael J. Sullivan, Age of Myth
Client: Why do I want to pay for two lawyers to be in this meeting?
Sometimes clients call lawyers and announce what their legal budget is for a proposed project. New lawyers sometimes struggle to handle the situation because the scope of the work is uncertain or the proposed budget is insufficient to do the job properly.
Some years ago I went off on a cruise and took the opportunity to have some renovations done at my house while I was away. George did a great job on the drywall, but when he sent me the invoice, he made one tiny little mistake. Instead of giving me the invoice for the construction work, he sent me an invoice for his “other business” which, unbeknownst to me, was producing racy videos. He was quite embarrassed when I asked him what a “panty teaser” was and what it had to do with my ceiling. I never did find out whether my house was the setting for his cinematographic masterpiece.
When I practised law in Mississauga, Ont., our fees were cheap compared to the Toronto firms, and kind of expensive compared to firms in places like Guelph, Belleville and Kingston. I occasionally wondered whether my clients might prefer to deal with firms in smaller cities at lower rates. Then I would reassure myself that doing so would be terribly inconvenient for them and that they would rather pay more to deal with me.
Now I am not so sure.
Many years ago, Maurice called me to complain about a legal bill that he had received. Fortunately, it was not me who had drawn his ire, although I was his primary legal counsel.
Maurice’s accountant had convinced him to go to a meeting with Peter, a very sophisticated tax lawyer, to discuss something called the ‘Quebec Shuffle.’
Near the end of my career, at a time when I frequently congratulated myself (since no one else would listen) about how brilliant I was at dealing with clients, I lost a long-standing client who I will call Charles. I should have fired Charles years before and was holding onto for some twisted sentimental reason.
Long ago, when it came to billing, lawyers addressed precedents in one of two ways:
Many of you will be familiar with the old saying (sometimes attributed to John Adams and other times to Winston Churchill) to the effect that “if you are not a socialist at age 20, you have no heart, but if you are still a socialist at age 30, you have no brain.”
I never met a lawyer who loved to docket their time, but I have met a number of lawyers (myself included) who were very good at it. I met many, many more lawyers who were not so good at it.
Maybe someday we will be completely rid of the billable hour, but even if that comes to pass, it will still be important for lawyers to be able to analyze how they are spending their time, if only to understand how to set fixed fees.
So, there we are. We all hate docketing. We all need to be good at it. Here it is. Fully explained. In small words. At last.