Our 5 Top Posts on Billing -- From Foundations to Floundering
The beauty of a blog is that it is always brimming with new, brilliant tips and information. That also means older posts can get lost in the shuffle.
Today, we're going to try something we haven't done in a while. We're going to take a look back at some of our best posts on a topic near-and-dear to every small firm's heart: getting paid. From billing blunders, to the annoyances of alternative fees, here is a listing of what you need to know as a solo or small firm practitioner.
1) 10 Tips for Solo Practitioners to Collect Fees
We'll start with the professor. Guest blogger and CSU Chico Professor Jennifer K. Halford, Esq. shares ten tips on how to successfully bill clients. These tips form the foundation of best billing practices that will (hopefully) lead to fewer collection nightmares.
2) 3 Ways to Handle Invoicing and Get Paid
Do you only have one or two clients per month? Perhaps a dedicated billing system isn't worth the time or expense. Do you run a high-volume practice? Maybe a full-fledged practice management suite is in order. In this post, we discuss three alternative tools to draft invoices.
3) Beating Billing Blunders: Time Tracking Tips to Help You Get Paid
Even with the best tools, and best practices, mistakes happen. Sometimes you wait to enter hours until the end of the day (or week). Other times, in a rush to get to other work, you'll merely note "doc review" for a time entry. We discuss these mistakes, as well as others, in hopes that you can avoid the common pitfalls.
4) Small Firms Can Learn from DLA Piper 'Churn That Bill, Baby' Mess
In this post, we use the billing scandal of the year as a model of how not to handle billing disputes. DLA Piper's dispute made the headlines of every major newspaper and blog (including ours) when emails joking about bill churning were made public. Instead of litigating disputes (and falling into e-discovery traps), we give you tips to handle those inevitable disputes.
5) Not Many Lawyers are 'Very Satisfied' with Alternative Fees: Survey
Alternative fee arrangements were a hot topic in the industry recently, but lawyers who employ such arrangements haven't been satisfied with the outcomes, according to a recent survey. We discuss some of the drawbacks of these arrangements and why you might choose to stick to the oft-criticized, yet still-in-vogue billable hour.
Of course, we can't cover all of the bases of billing in one post, even in a recap such as this. If you've got unanswered questions, we'd love to hear from you on Facebook.
Related Resources:
- Another Way for Clients to Pay Fee Free! Attach Money to Gmail (FindLaw's Strategist Blog)
- 5 Ways to Collect Unpaid Fees From Clients (FindLaw's Strategist Blog)
- Should You Swap Legal Services for Interest in Client's Business? (FindLaw's Strategist Blog)