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All attorneys have an ethical obligation to provide a “sufficient explanation” in their billing entries. See ABA Formal Op. 93-370 (1993) at p. 3 (attorney must provide a “sufficient explanation in the statement so that the client may reasonably be expected to understand what fees and other charges the client is actually being billed”). This...

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...

Recently, I made a stab at getting caught up on my reading. Included in my pile of reading material from the past several months was a newsletter from the Lawyers Mutual Insurance Company of Kentucky (LMICK). The reason I had put the LMICK newsletter aside to read when I had time was that I noted...

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...

“One of the most egregious forms of overbilling in many law firms is the almost infinite amount of time that is expended upon research into even the most minute legal issues.” William G. Ross, The Honest Hour, (Carolina Academic Press) at p. 113. Have you ever hired a lawyer based upon the lawyer’s claimed expertise in the...

Ah, the beginning of a new year. And with the beginning of a new year often come a request or notice from your attorney that she is going to raise her hourly billing rate. As I often come across this issue in reviewing legal bills in cases or other legal matters which drag on for years,...