How do you determine your fees?

No doubt you consider your overhead, how much you want to earn, and how much other lawyers charge.

But there’s something else you should consider:

How much is it costing the prospective client who doesn’t get the benefits and outcomes you offer?

How much are they spending in direct costs, lost opportunity costs, and emotional costs?

If a business owner isn’t collecting money owed to them, how much are they losing each month?

If a estate planning client doesn’t have the protections they need, how much are they putting at risk and how much could it cost their estate if they die or become incapacitated?

If a family law client is seeing a therapist to deal with unresolved emotional issues, how much are they spending each month?

When you know what the prospective client is spending or risking, you can show them how your services provide a better value.

People make “buying” decisions based on emotions and then justify those decisions based on logic.

If you can show them how hiring you actually saves them money, the logic becomes undeniable.

How to take a quantum leap in your practice

If you have clients who willingly pay the fees you charge, whether that’s hourly or flat fee or some other basis, it seems clear that you are worth what you charge, at least to those clients.

Ah, but I’m not asking if you’re charging more than you’re worth, in case that’s what you were thinking. I’m asking if you’re charging less than you’re worth, or, more accurately, less than the market will pay.

If you charge $350 per hour (or the equivalent), what if you could get as much work at $450 per hour? What would that do to your bottom line? Who says you couldn’t get $550 per hour?

C’mon, you know you’ve thought about this before?

When you set up shop, you looked at what other lawyers were charging and set your fees somewhere in the same neighborhood, right?

You have to stay competitive, right?

Then, when other attorneys raised their fees, you (eventually) raised yours.

Something like that?

Well, if “average” is okay with you, I understand why you would do this.

But what if you want to earn more than average? What if you’re worth more than the average?

There’s only one way to find out.

Increase your fees and see if the market will pay more.

You can do that with your existing clients. If you lose some, you might make up for that loss by the increased fees paid by the ones who stay, plus the higher fees paid by new clients.

If you lose 20% of your clients but you get 20% more from everyone else, you’re way ahead.

The other way to do it is to hold the line with existing clients (for now) and charge new clients the higher fee.

“What if clients won’t pay more?”

What if they will?

What if you don’t lose any clients?

What if you could increase your income by 30% with the stroke of a pen? What if you’ve been under-charging your clients for a long time?

Before you twist yourself into a knot agonizing over this decision, I have one more thought for you:

Raising your fees might actually help you attract more clients.

It’s true. There’s no competition at the top. The most expensive lawyers in town don’t usually have a shortage of clients.

Yes, there are other factors in play, but how much a lawyer is worth is subjective. If you charge more, in the eyes of many, you’re worth more.

Chew on that for awhile.

This may help you figure things out

There is a very good chance that you’re not charging enough for your services. By enough, I mean the amount your services are worth and what good clients would be willing and able to pay.

Why do I make this assumption? Because when I consult with lawyers and we talk about their fees, almost all of them are on the low side. That, plus recent surveys which show that two-thirds of solo lawyers earn a gross income of less than $200,000 per year and 28% earn less than $100,000 (again, gross income), tell me I’m right.

If you have been following me for awhile and have moved away from offering the same basic, “commodity” services most lawyers offer, in favor of higher-level, better-paying work, you’re offering more value and you should be paid for it.

How much more? Perhaps double or triple.

It’s exciting to think about doubling your income without doing anything more than increasing your fees. But you might be afraid to do it, thinking that most of your clients would leave.

Don’t let that fear stop you.

You can minimize the risk of a wholesale exodus by doing it over a period of years.

If you increased your fees 20% starting next year, yes, you might lose some clients. My guess is that it would far fewer than you imagine, perhaps very few or none at all, but if you do lose some clients, two things would happen:

1. No matter how many clients you lose, if the rest of your clients pay you 20% more than they had been paying, your net revenue for the year would increase, and
2. Any clients who leave would make room for new clients who will pay your higher rate.

If you increase your fees by 20% per year, in five years your income will double, not including compounding.

Too much? Too soon? Okay, start by charging new clients the higher rate. Once you’re comfortable with this, once you see clients are still signing up, you can begin phasing in higher rates for existing clients.

(For contingency fees, you can “raise your fees” by increasing the minimum size of the cases you accept.)

Look, I’ve seen lawyers (and accountants) who haven’t increased their fees in ten years. That’s not a professional practice, that’s a charity. You are entitled to charge what you’re worth and what the market will bear. You don’t have to settle for less.

How to ask for, and get higher fees

Is it okay to charge some clients less than others? Why yes it is, thanks for asking. Here are some situations where you might want to do that:

• New clients, to encourage them to sign up with you instead of another lawyer
• Returning clients, to encourage them to come back or to hire you for something else
• Old clients who have been with you a long time, to reward them for their loyalty
• Bigger clients, who give you more work or bigger matters
• Clients who are easier to work with, pay on time, never complain
• Clients who send you lots of referrals or who go out of their way to promote you
• Clients who do something you support, as a way to help their cause
• Clients who give you a big retainer up front, especially if it is non-refundable
• Clients referred to you by some of your better clients or referral sources
• Clients who are family or friends (yeah, sometimes you gotta)

In fact, sometimes it makes sense to give some clients free services, but that’s a subject for another day.

Be careful, though. You don’t want your other clients to find out that some clients pay less than they do. Unless you do want them to know. If you want all of your clients to know they’ll pay less if they always pay on time, for example, then spread the word.

Another way to look at this subject is to charge more for clients who aren’t on this list. If they are slow-payers, for example, they pay a higher rate.

The point is, you don’t have to charge every client the same amount for the same work (unless there’s a law or a bar rule that says you do, in which case you should think about moving).

Go through your billing records and client list and see who might warrant a lower or higher fee.

The lawyer’s guide to stress-free billing and collection