Peter N. Jansson

My husband and I hired Jansson Munger McKinley & Kirby to advise our software business as we prepared to launch a product. We worked with Eric and Peter Jansson and paid nearly $9,000 in legal fees. Early in the engagement, we provided written documentation explaining how our software worked and h...ow we planned to operate it. The firm acknowledged receiving it. We had already done substantial research ourselves, and most of the guidance we received confirmed information we had already found. There was some legal analysis in the materials, including in the file we received at the end. What we still needed was the firm’s judgment on how the law applied to our software and what we should do about the questions our own research had left open. One recommendation did not account for a process we had already described, and the guidance did not explain what we would need to change or why. We raised those concerns and disputed a specific outstanding balance. We explained our reasons and asked the firm to review its charges and to pause billing while it did so. After ending the engagement, we were open to re-engaging the firm to complete the work if we could agree in writing on what it would deliver, how we would know the work was complete, and what the maximum total cost would be, including fees already incurred. When the firm later described our position as a refusal to pay, we corrected that description in writing. We had disputed a specific charge and asked the firm to review it. The firm offered a full refund during the dispute and we appreciated that the offer was made. However, that email contained strong references to our shared Christian faith. That correspondence made us feel that questioning their bill put our faith under scrutiny, and we came away from the refund discussion feeling that accepting the offer would do the same. We found this to be very inappropriate in a professional billing discussion. We wanted to be able to consider the refund and ask what work the charges covered without feeling that either decision reflected on our character as Christians. We ultimately chose to pay the full amount billed, because we had agreed to the firm’s rates. The firm quickly accepted, and we paid in full and requested our file. The firm sent us our file, which we then reviewed carefully. We had hoped the additional material would answer the questions we had been asking. The file contained early outline notes but no written answers to the questions we had raised. We were told the remaining analysis had yet to be written down. For our business, that was the most frustrating part of paying nearly $9,000. If we were hiring any counsel, Christian or otherwise, for a similar software project again, we would do as much research as possible, bring a very short list of questions our research left open, and ask for a fixed fee to answer them in writing. We would also ask what each answer would cover and how it would account for the way our software actually works. Based on the work we received, the cost, the use of our shared faith in a billing discussion, and how our concerns were handled, we would not hire Jansson Munger McKinley & Kirby again.