Anger

I am angry, very angry.The anger is almost consuming and definitional.

About six weeks ago I learned that I had made an inadvertent billing error for a client for whom I’d done a helluva lot of good work, in terms of building his client base, getting him about $20,000 in free top drawer legal counsel and raising $250,000 for his company from my oldest friend. When I learned of this error, I immediately acknowledged it and suggested that we handle it by having my firm continue to work for him without billing until it was resolved. I thought that was a reasonable resolution.

However, this client almost immediately fired us for “massive accounting errors” and because “the work you do doesn’t help us at all.” The number’s about $11K, which, in this economy, I just don’t have. Now, this billing error occurred 18 months ago and involved some duplicate hours inadvertently billed, as well as some “duplicate” checks sent to my firm from the client. The latter, at the time, I didn’t think about when they came in as the client often split his fees into two tranches.

It was, in any event, my error. However, as I said earlier, it was an inadvertent one. Even at my age and my experience, I never saw the vitriolic response coming.

Now I’m a smart fellow and I say that immodestly. One of the smartest things I know is that I know what I don’t know. I took the full amount and wire transferred it to my attorney’s Trust account and sent all the billings and bank statements to my account for review. I was somewhat dilatory, to the tune of about six weeks, at the outset of this matter because it took me time to try to do the review myself and I was figuring the client would remain with me on the terms I suggested.

But that clearly was not to be and this has weighed on me for weeks. I am remarkably angry with myself for making this error. Make no mistake about it, it was my error and though it’s taken some time to resolve, I took action to resolve it. The economy isn’t helping any, of course, but that’s not an excuse.

I am equally, if not more so, angry with the former client who I now view as nothing more than a low-rent, overbearing, bullying son of a bitch who defines ungrateful. Think about it: A capital raise of $250,000 would normally have generated a finder’s fee of between $12,500 and $25,000, on which I demurred. The legal fees which were demurred because I asked my attorney to handle the client’s issues saved the client not only about $20,000, but also, quite literally, his business. All of this to say nothing of the business he got generated directly from my efforts. Of course, it was also my error not to bill this fellow for about $5000 in services I provided for him as the economy became more challenging over the past couple of years and to reduce my hourly rate to accommodate that economy.

What have I learned? Well, from a practical perspective, my accountant’s going to do all my billing. From a professional perspective, I will never again provide a client with services that are free. In this world, it no longer makes sense to do that. One can get into enough trouble from trying to “do the right thing” or acting honorably; let alone going outside the box and giving things away.