Playbook, law firm
A client is looking at our bill and wants to know why
A legal bill is unlike almost any other invoice a person receives, because it is a record of somebody's time rather than a price for a thing. It arrives with a narrative, a schedule of third party payments and a balance that may already have been met from money the client paid in advance. Most of what a client wants explaining is how that document is built, which is publishable. What they usually ask instead is whether their own bill is right, which is not.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for billing and invoices holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Time is recorded in units of a few minutes against a named fee earner at a grade, so a bill lists dozens of short entries rather than one line, and the shock is the count rather than the rate.
- Disbursements are money the firm paid out on the client's behalf, not part of the fee at all, and a client who reads them as profit is objecting to a court fee they would have paid anyway.
- Interim bills delivered during a matter behave differently from a final bill in most jurisdictions, including how and by when a client may challenge one, and that difference is set out in the terms of business rather than on the invoice.
- Money paid on account sits in the client account and is applied to a bill only when the bill is delivered, so a client can be looking at an invoice that is already partly settled from their own funds.
How it arrives
- why are there so many six minute entries on my bill
- what is a disbursement on my invoice
- i paid money on account where has it gone
- is tax charged on the court fee as well as your fee
- can i pay my legal bill in instalments
- who do i speak to about an interim bill
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The billing clauses of your terms of business | How often bills are delivered, what a bill covers, when payment falls due, and what happens if it is not paid. Clients agreed to this at the start and read it for the first time when the bill lands, so index the version they actually signed rather than a summary. |
|---|---|
| How time is recorded, in plain wording | What a unit is, that it is charged against the grade of the person doing the work, and which activities are recorded at all. Write it for somebody who has never seen a time ledger, because the number of entries is what prompts the message. |
| The disbursement schedule, by work type | Court fees, search fees, counsel's fees, an expert's report, an agent's charge, and which of them carry tax and which do not. Set out separately from the fee so the assistant can explain that these are payments passed through rather than earnings. |
| Where a bill query goes, and how it differs from a complaint | Who reviews a bill, what the client may ask to see, and the route your jurisdiction provides for having costs assessed. Firms treat a costs query and a service complaint as different processes, and merging them in an answer costs a stage. |
The reply
Our bills list work in short recorded units against the fee earner who did it, which is why a single month can run to a page of entries [1]. Anything shown as a disbursement is money we paid out for you, such as a court or search fee, and it is set out separately from our charges [2]. Where you have paid money on account, that is applied when the bill is delivered. I cannot see your file or your invoice, so if a figure looks wrong, leave your name, your email and the matter reference and the person who issued it will go through it with you.
It explains the shape of the document before anything else, because the objection is nearly always to the number of lines rather than to the total. Naming disbursements as money already paid out reframes the part clients most resent. The refusal at the end is specific about what it cannot reach, and it asks for a matter reference rather than for the client to retype the bill.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor quotes a figure, an invoice number or a date from a bill they have received, or says the amount is not what they were told to expect.
I cannot open your bill or your file, so I would only be guessing about that figure. Leave your name, your email and the matter reference and the fee earner who issued it will take you through the entries.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say a bill looks correct or reasonable, because that is a view on work the assistant cannot see and it will be quoted back.
- Never state what has been paid, what is outstanding, or what is sitting on account for anybody, since none of that is visible to it.
- Never agree that a charge will be written off, reduced or held over, which is a decision for the fee earner and the firm.
- Never describe an interim bill as a running total when your jurisdiction treats it as a bill in its own right with time limits attached.
Questions
- Can it tell a client what their outstanding balance is?
- No. It has no connection to your accounts or your practice management, cannot look up a client and cannot see a ledger. It explains how bills are built and hands the specific question to the person who issued the invoice.
- Most of these messages are really about the number of entries. Does explaining units help?
- It helps more than anything else you could publish. A client who understands that a two minute email is recorded, and why, argues with the practice of time recording rather than with their own fee earner, and that conversation is much easier to have.
- Should it offer a payment plan when somebody says they cannot pay?
- Only if you publish one, in your own words, with the route to ask. Improvising terms on a delivered bill is a commitment the firm did not make, and inability to pay a legal bill often arrives alongside a complaint, so it should route rather than negotiate.
Keep reading
- Everything for a law firmFee structures, consultation terms and onboarding checks are answerable. Anything applied to a caller's own facts is legal advice.
- Handling billing and invoices in generalInvoice copies, tax numbers, purchase order references. Nearly all of it is account specific, so the honest handling is process plus a clean handover.
- Delete everything you hold about me, sent to a solicitors' firmRetention periods, conflict records and identity evidence outlive a matter, so this is the one request a firm cannot simply agree to.
- Can I book an appointment with a solicitor this weekA time with a fee earner depends on a conflict check, the right department and a court diary, none of which a chat window can settle.
- Office hours are the easy half of this questionReception opens before fee earners are at their desks, court takes a solicitor out for a day, and completion day runs on a banking deadline.
Try it on your own material
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