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Things must be returning to normal in the legal world, at least in some places. Last week I reviewed a legal bill where the attorney billed to attend an in-person court hearing. However, as it turned out, the other attorney was a no-show. The attorney noted that the other attorney (or the attorney’s secretary) had...

Invariably, whenever I write a post about a lawyer getting disciplined for an ethics violation involving fee billing, I will get emails. Mostly from individuals with comments or questions about lawyer discipline. And so it was that after my post about an lawyer who got a six month suspension for overbilling, I received emails from...

Some time ago, I had a doctor come to me for help sorting out a large legal bill he had incurred with a large law firm.  He had a Medicare billing problem and had gotten into some trouble with the feds.  Although he incurred several hundred thousand in legal fees from this law firm, the firm did little to resolve his...

With almost daily report of law firm layoffs and/or reductions in compensation, it looks like the COVIS-19 pandemic is going to have the same effect on the financial health of the legal industry as did the Great Recession in 2007-2009.  And if what happened in the Great Recession is any indicator, law firm clients will...

[Note to readers: This is the second part of my blog post on how to discuss fee bill issues with your attorney. If you did not read the first post which was on August 16, I suggest you do so before reading this post. ] Communicating with Your Attorney My prior post left off with...

I belong to a practice section of my state bar that I call the "Does Anyone Have a Form I Could Use" practice section. I call the practice section by this name because most of the posts on the section listserve are from attorneys asking other attorneys if anyone has a particular form document that...

In this post as well as a follow-up post, I want to discuss the sensitive subject of how to discuss fee bill issues with your lawyer. I say that this is a sensitive subject because I find that while many individual clients are often downright angry about their high fee bills, many are at the...

Electronic filing (e-filing) of documents with state courts  is sweeping the country. If it is not yet in your state, chances are that it will be soon. Here is a list of the status of e-filing in state courts in the states. Preceding the implementation of e-filing programs, seminars and written material have been provided to lawyers...

  The Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company of Kentucky (LMICK) is a malpractice insurer for lawyers. As a proud, long time member of the Kentucky Bar Association, I am on LMICK's newletter mailing list. In a recent LMICK newsletter, I noted that several pages were devoted to legal billing issues. Coming at it from a "risk management"...