Lawyers: Do You Eat Your Own Dogfood?
My husband recently started a new position at a technology company that, like many others, eats its own dogfood, i.e., it uses the product that it makes. For lawyers, our dogfood is our advice to our clients. But how many lawyers "eat own dogfood" when we draft retainer agreements for our clients?
This article, NY Panel Finds Fee Clause Violates Public Policy (law.com - 10/12/06) describes the decision in Ween v. Dow, a case that came about because the lawyer who drafted the retainer agreement with his client didn't eat his own dogfood. On its face, Ween seems like a run of the mill collection action by an attorney against his former client for a $74,000 balance of attorneys fees. But the client opposed the collection motion, arguing that the fees were unreasonable. Further, the client challenged the attorney's claim for fees in connection with the collection action, arguing that the provision in the retainer agreement that provided for collection of fees violated public policy.
The court deferred action on the reasonableness of the fees, finding that sufficient issues of fact justified denial of summary judgment. But the court attacked the provision of the retainer agreement allowing the lawyer to recover fees for a collection action against the client. From the article:
In this matter, we find ... the very nature of the provision ... to be unfair and unreasonable," Nardelli wrote, noting that there was no similar provision for the client to possibly recover attorney fees from the lawyer in the event of a successful fee challenge. "Aside from its lack of mutuality," the judge continued, "the clause, even if not so designed, has the distinct potential for silencing a client's complaint about fees for fear of retaliation for the nonpayment of even unreasonable fees."
Virtually no attorney would advise a client to enter into a contract where one side could recover fees for collection actions but the other could not. Yet when it comes to their own agreements with clients, these same attorneys reject the same advice that they'd give to their clients in any other circumstance, and draft provisions that favor one side - the attorney. (As an example, a reciprocal provision in a retainer agreement would permit clients to recover attorneys fees in the event that the client sues the attorney fo a refund, alleging that the attorney's fees were unreasonable or in violation of applicable ethical rules).
To my mind, the attorney's failure to treat a client in an agreement with him the same way as he would if representing the client against a third party ticked the judge off, causing him to invoke the eloquence of a Renaissance philosopher:
Sir Francis Bacon, in commenting on the essence of the attorney-client relationship, stated that " [t]he greatest Trust, between Man and Man, is the Trust of Giving Counsell. For in other Confidences, Men commit the parts of life; their Lands, their Goods, their Children, their Credit, some particular Affaire: But to such, as they make their Counsellors, they commit the whole: By how much the more, they are obligated to all Faith and integrity'"
The quote is one that all of us lawyers should remember, but the judge needn't have gone back so far in history. It would have been enough to tell this lawyer to eat his own dogfood. Are you eating yours?
If I may be so bold. . . since you have I think pretty much said all there is to say on this subject of asking clients to sign one-sided retainer agreements (you really "nailed" it) I'd like to ask a related question about a similar subject I have been posing to my fellow lawyers for years in regard to the way they run their law firm businesses.
Carolyn, you know what I mean when I say your law firm is your Mule. But sadly, few other lawyers "get it".
A RHETORICAL QUESTION FOR EVERYONE ELSE
Would you ever let one of your clients invest in a business that doesn't have a marketing plan, no documented policies or procedures, no formal budget review process, or even any written goals?
THIS NEXT QUESTION IS NOT RHETORICAL
How much more money could you put in your pocket, how much less stress could you have in your life, and how much could you increase the value of your services to clients if you invested even just a couple of hours learning some of the professional law firm marketing and law firm management skills they never taught you in law school?
Respectfully,
RJON ROBINS
Related: how many lawyers don't have a last will and testament, living will, durable power of attorney, advance health care directive, and living trust--yet sell these products to their clients?