My mother needed to hire a lawyer recently.?ÿ She showed me the bill.?ÿ There's a charge for every phone call and email.?ÿ?ÿ I understand the billing of time for the actual work that he performs, but the billing of time for short phone calls when the lawyer informs my mother of the progress and results surprises me a bit.
I can't even imagine the reaction I'd get if after performing a survey, I then charged the client 0.1 hr for calling or emailing them to let them know that it was done and what I did, and that the rate for this is $300/hr.
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We bill by the 1/4 hour. If I get a phone call, it disrupts me from what I'm already working on, and often times takes a few minutes to get back on track. So yes, if I remember to note a 5 minute phone call on my time sheet, it's getting billed as 1/4 hour. We don't itemize every phone call or email, they just get lumped into the overall description of the work that was done on the invoice. Be nice if my billing rate was as high as an attorney's...
I'm pretty sure most of us surveyors are pretty creative when it comes to preparing invoices, especially hourly ones.?ÿ If you're not creative with your invoicing?ÿyou need to get started.?ÿ There is an art to realizing 300 bucks an hour.
I think the big difference is we surveyors?ÿhave clients; attorneys merely have a string of victims.
When talking on the phone to an attorney about a client's situation I try to keep it as short as possible. I have one who's very elderly father lives next door to me. Even then the conversation is short.
?ÿDid your Mother agree to terms discussed verbally?ÿand/or sign an agreement/contract before employing the Attorney? If not she can dispute the charges.
A lawyer died and arrived at the pearly gates.?ÿ To his dismay, there were thousands of people ahead of him in line to see St. Peter.?ÿ To his surprise, St. Peter left his desk at the gate and came down the long line to where the laywer was, and greeted him warmly.?ÿ Then St. Peter and one of his assistants took the lawyer by the hands and guided him up to the front of the line, and into a comfortable chair by his desk.?ÿ The lawyer said, ??I don??t mind all this attention, but what makes me so special??
St. Peter replied, ??Well, I??ve added up all the hours for which you billed your clients, and by my calculation you must be about 193 years old!
"they" can bill in 0.1 /hr increments, but don't have to.?ÿ It's similar to police.?ÿ They can utilize judgement with each situation.?ÿ Sadly it seems like your Mum was dealing with a bill happy attorney, or just not directly involved so the staff just log the items as another 0.1hr charge to tally for the total later.?ÿ?ÿ
They even charge when answering an email
They even charge when answering an email
I've had clients ask me to take their attorney off the email chain because they were charging to read them.?ÿ