Ethics of Client Billing and Fee Collection: Balancing Financial Interests and Fiduciary Obligations
Recording of a 90-minute CLE video webinar with Q&A
This CLE course will discuss what the ethical rules of professional responsibility permit, require, and prohibit attorneys from doing when pricing their services, documenting fee arrangements, billing clients, and collecting delinquent balances. The panel will outline practical approaches for avoiding ethical violations, legal liability, and financial loss.
Outline
- Areas ripe for ethical missteps
- Fee agreements
- Timekeeping and charging expenses
- Billing forms
- Common ethical challenges and best practices for law firms
- Resolving billing disputes
- Charging interest on overdue bills
- Withdrawing from a representation due to unpaid bills
- Using a collection agency
- Filing a lawsuit against a non-paying client
Benefits
The panel will review these and other key issues:
- What ethics rules govern the billing and fee collection processes?
- What are some best practices counsel can use to collect past due fees while complying with ethics requirements?
- What options do practitioners have for resolving billing disputes with clients?
Faculty
Carole J. Buckner
Senior Counsel
Klinedinst
Ms. Buckner's practice focuses on legal ethics, professional responsibility and the law of lawyering, including... | Read More
Ms. Buckner's practice focuses on legal ethics, professional responsibility and the law of lawyering, including advising lawyers and law firms, and rendering expert opinions. She also serves as an expert consultant on issues involving legal ethics including legal fees, billing, fee arrangements, conflicts of interest, fee sharing, referral fees, unauthorized practice of law, withdrawal from representation, modification of fee arrangements, client trust accounting, and other issues.
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Jan L. Jacobowitz, Esq.
Founder and Owner
Legal Ethics Advisor
Ms. Jacobowitz is a legal ethics,... | Read More
Ms. Jacobowitz is a legal ethics, social media, and technology expert who is the founder and owner of Legal Ethics Advisor. For over a decade, she was the Director of the Professional Responsibility and Ethics Program (PREP) at the University of Miami's School of Law. Under her direction, PREP was a 2012 recipient of the ABA’s E Smythe Gambrell Award---the leading national award for a professionalism program. Ms. Jacobowitz provides legal ethics consulting, opinion letters, and CLE training to law firms and legal organizations. She also serves as a legal ethics expert in litigation matters. Recently, Ms. Jacobowitz has been involved in cases involving issues such as attorney fees, conflicts of interest, and the unauthorized practice of law.
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Ronald C. Minkoff
Partner
Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
Mr. Minkoff is a partner in the Litigation Group and Chair of the Professional Responsibility Group. He is also one of... | Read More
Mr. Minkoff is a partner in the Litigation Group and Chair of the Professional Responsibility Group. He is also one of New York State’s leading practitioners in the field of attorney ethics and professional responsibility, representing attorneys in a wide variety of matters including law firm partnership disputes, disciplinary cases, legal fee disputes and legal malpractice and professional liability cases on behalf of both plaintiffs and defendants. Mr. Minkoff also provides ethics opinions and advice to a wide variety of law firm clients.
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