Attorneys have ethical obligations in every aspect of their profession, including the way clients are billed for services. Ethical billing practices ensure that both the attorney and the client reach a level of satisfaction that is fair to both.
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RPC 1.1 -- COMPETENCE
Attorneys should make every effort to bill their clients according to their experience and expertise in a particular area of the law. It should be expected that newer attorneys will be less competent to handle many types of cases that more experienced attorneys have been handling for many years. An attorney’s billing rate should reflect that difference. That does not mean that a newer attorney cannot adequately represent a client in an area of law that they have little experience in. However, it is probable that a newer attorney will spend more time familiarizing themselves in those areas of law where their experience has been limited, and the client should not be penalized for the attorney’s learning curve. After all, the attorney is benefiting from gaining such knowledge.
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RPC 1.2 -- SCOPE OF THE REPRESENTATION AND THE ALLOCATION OF AUTHORITY BETWEEN THE LAWYER AND CLIENT
The simple relationship of this Rule to billing practices is this: The attorney should not bill the client for anything that is outside the scope of the representation. The client has the right to control the objective for the representation and the attorney can control the means toward said objective. If the scope of representation changes, there should be an indication of such change in writing.
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RPC 1.3 -- DILIGENCE
Diligence should also relate to billing practices. An attorney should strive to record time billing contemporaneously, or as close in time as possible, to the action performed. This will not only ensure that the client is billed fairly, but will ensure that the attorney is properly credited for work performed.
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RPC 1.4 -- COMMUNICATION
Just as an attorney should keep a client reasonably informed about his or her case, an attorney should keep the client informed as to his or her bill. If clients are being billed by the hour for a case, the client should receive an itemized billing statement each month. This will aid the attorney in collecting his or her fees regularly and ensure that the client has an up-to-date accounting of the services performed on the client’s behalf.
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RPC 1.5 -- FEES
The bottom line here is reasonableness; reasonableness in the billing rate, amount of billing and sharing of fees.
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