As Our Clients See Us

In his promising new blog, Brian Ivanovick , gives some advice to small business people on dealing with their lawyers.  I found his advice on billable time the most interesting:

Lawyers make their living by tracking something called billable hours. That means every interaction with the client is billed. If you just want an opinion about some non-legal facet of your deal - seek out the advice of friends and colleagues first. Your network should be able to give you some guidance when it comes to how to solve non-legal issues. As mentioned above, a mentor is another perfect place to turn. Treat your lawyer as a specialist - not as a sounding board. Remember that you’ll pay for literally every minute of their time.

When you’ve decided to enter a contract with another party, I would suggest that you come up with a detailed agreement in principle before you get the lawyers involved. Then employ your lawyer to codify your intentions in legal speak. A lawyer is absolutely necessary - but only involve them when you and the other party understand exactly what you want to accomplish.

Pretty sad that our predominant business model discourages our clients from talking to us, isn’t it?  (BTW, I had some problems with the direct link to the post.  It is broken, go to the blog and scroll down for the Lawyers and Contracts post.)