Auden Grumet

This is one of those examples of "...you can't please all of the people all of the time". This is the first negative client review I have EVER received, and, just like virtually every complaint I have ever received from a client - which have been extremely few over my 17 year career - it involves money/billing. My engagement agreements are EXTREMELY detailed and informative and I ALWAYS provide notice to prospective clients exactly how my time will be billed (I have a sample Engagement Agreement posted on my website). Thus, my billing/fees should come as absolutely no surprise to this [former] or any other client (and this client signed one of my standard agreements). I usually provide substantial courtesy reductions along the way in all matters - e.g. even though I could technically bill .1 hours for every email I send or receive (because the agreement specifies that .1 is the minimum billing increment for any particular task), I almost never do so for each email I receive/review or prepare in any given day. Rather, I will bill a .1 for exchanging numerous emails on a particular day (though I do sometimes bill .1 hrs for receiving or preparing a short email from/to a client or other party if that is the only task on that day). But that is the nature of hourly legal work, and again, I am VERY transparent up front - and before being retained - with the nature of my time entries/fee bills. So yes, at my [then] hourly rate of $255, the charge for reviewing or preparing correspondence from/to a client may very well have been $25. There are no secrets there and any prospective client should be well aware of that at the outset. As for billing time for preparing a fee bill, that too is clearly disclosed and explained in writing at the outset. Notwithstanding the fact that I always reduce my actual time for this task on the bill, it is justified by the fact that in matters in which a client wishes to have any hope of recouping his or her fees from a defendant or other party, it is necessary to track and prepare very detailed billing records. And it takes a LOT of time to do so. This may be an unfortunate reality of our American legal system, but it results in a Catch-22 of sorts: on the one hand clients understandably do not want to be billed for time preparing the fee bill itself, and yet on the other, they want to have the best chance possible to recoup their legal fees in the event a court awards them (or they are factored into a settlement). Again, there is nothing nefarious or unfair here. As for using "templates", if in fact I used such a document, it was created by ME! Here again, clients want the billable time to be minimal, and then complain when an attorney does not recreate the wheel, so to speak, but uses a letter HE has carefully crafted in the past to build upon! Would this [former] client prefer that I spend even more time drafting a letter from "scratch" when I could utilize a letter I have previously written in another matter? I don't think so. Moreover, while I most certainly do not bill any time that is not actually spent on a task, there is an implicit cost/value in the efforts, education, experience, etc. that must be factored into the value of anything an attorney creates. Regarding the "favorable review", on the very rare occasions that a client is dissatisfied with a fee bill [and has a reasonable basis for it] and that is the only complaint that they have, I may offer to "write off" or reduce the disputed fee/bill with a view towards making them satisfied. So yes, I may have said something along the lines of "I assume this will make you a happy/satisfied client, in which case, I ask that you write a TRUTHFUL AND ACCURATE favorable review". But it is conditioned upon it being an accurate representation of the client's experience. Last but furthest from least, suffice it to say I have NEVER had a client accuse me of forgetting anything - even a client who thinks my bill is too high.