Anothers view on Problem Clients

South Carolina Lawyers Weekly posted an article in January 2003, by Mark Bassingthwaighte. Mark has a nice section in his article concerning developing business plans for law firms about problem clients. Here is what he has to say:

            “Also, consider the "problem client." These clients tend to occupy more of your professional time (and sometimes even personal time) than other clients. Problem clients also tend to occupy excessive staff time and often create fee collection problems. I have heard some attorneys observe that problem clients create 80 percent of their stress and take 80 percent of their time, but generate less than 20 percent of their income. Viewed in this light, problem clients are not worth the effort that they require. If you can significantly reduce your stress and time load simply by no longer working for problem clients, your loss of income, reduction in stress and newfound time is well worth your efforts. The highlight of this strategy is that your newfound time can be used for personal time, or for seeking better clients who can pay and are not a problem.”

I have to say that while there is no empirical evidence to support the claim, I have to agree that problem clients create 80% of the stress, take 80% of the time and generate less than 20% of the income. As I noted previously, successful law firms are built on solid decisions concerning which clients they choose to represent. Success can often be measured not in the clients that a law firms takes, but in those it does not accept.