<p>So if you incurred heavy legal fees in the preparation of documents for a big real estate project that cratered, you’d consider it a sign of weakness if the attorney offered to discount those fees?</p>
<p>missiepie, not necessarily. Were you and the firm expecting some of the fees to come out of the proceeds of the project that fell apart?</p>
<p>Missy, once you offered to settle the debt at a reduced price, you are negotiating and should not be offended that you got a counteroffer. That’ s the way it works. Seems to me the client is the one who has the gold in this situation.</p>
<p>Yes, I would. Your services are worth your price whether the project comes to fruition or not. You did the work for an agreed upon price and I assume the outcome was never at issue in the pricing or performance of the project.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, you may have had to negotiate to get a cent out of a failed developer today, it’s the approach that seems problematic to me. DH, as a management consultant recommends lots of things that clients never implement but he expects to get paid for his work.</p>
<p>
The collection agencies we have used have been useless. They can’t do anything we can’t do. The only time we send them to collections now is if we basically just write it off and send it only to annoy a client that we know is never going to pay. Bascially have somebody else harass them for awhile. Usually, threatening to add late payment fees works. If that doesn’t, threatening to send to collections does. If that doesn’t, because the client knows there’s nothing a collection agency can do, then we’re never going to collect.</p>