I hate writing this–and I needed to run this by other lawyers in my firm first. But it’s my blawg and I promised to be honest. And this post is instructive. One theme of the blawg is that clients (including GCs and client reps)are customers who are wonderfully human and, right or wrong, they demand more than just good, more than even perfect, work. Great work is not enough:
In late 2003, a long-standing client, one of the largest and most successful privately-held companies in the U.S., asked us to develop and obtain an environmental permit (a relatively complex one) for one of its water-based facilities. It was my project, to be performed by me, one of our best associates (a young lawyer we’ll call “Steve” who can work at any law firm) and a paralegal. Our contacts were (1) the company’s GC, (2) the assistant GC and (3) a managerial representative out in the field.
The project went well and the client rep repeatedly told me that our work was “excellent” and “top drawer”.
In October 2004–when the permit work was 80% complete, had cost about $75,000 in fees and expenses and filing time was near–the GC, after receiving the invoice for September’s work, called Steve, congratulated Steve on his good work and made this request: “Steve, we are near the end of our fiscal year, and there is pressure on me to keep costs on all projects down; as you finish this up, can you and Dan try to keep the fees as low as possible? I would appreciate it.” A reasonable request from one of our best and favorite clients.
A week later, the on-site manager and the assistant GC–I now think unbeknownst to the GC–asked us to go down an additional path on the permit, which took some time and jockeying around. We spent much time dealing with county and municipal officials to accomplish this new objective, which cost an additional $10,000 in one month, even after writing off some of our fees.
When it came time to send out the bill, we emphasized to Steve that he must call the GC, and remind him about the about the extra work which resulted in the extra billing–all legitimate, but directly contrary to what the GC had asked the month before. In other words, directly contrary to his expectations.
In November I got an angry call from the GC and assistant GC (apparently the assistant GC had not mentioned the extra work to the GC). I apologized profusely and offered a reduction to the bill–something I had never had to do in 20 years. We finished up our work and did not hear from the client until almost a year later.
The Lesson: Even the GC said right up until the end that the work was great, but it just didn’t matter. The GC’s expectations were thwarted when he got the bill without getting that call from Steve. To this day, I don’t know why the call wasn’t made (I should have made it myself). Steve thought he didn’t need to make the call because the client had asked him to do more work–Steve was “right”–and not making the call was very expensive for my firm.
Steve no longer works for us. And I learned a big lesson.