Fire a Client Day” - March 1st

by Tony Wilson

Let’s fire all our problem clients on the same day and prevent those heart attacks of the future!

There is something very unnerving about firing a client. Clients don’t drop from the skies like leaves in November. You have to spend years developing a client base. You have to cultivate relationships, build alliances, buy lunches, give presentations and, if you’re lucky, harvest the fruits of your non-billable work when the client actually walks into the office to hire you.

But as time goes by, you find that you haven’t done any weeding, because after 20 years, you’re still working for a dork or two. All your other clients are fine, but you can’t stand the problem client with the Type “A” personality that wants the work done yesterday, doesn’t appreciate the fact that you slaved through your weekend and missed your kid’s hockey game to finish it, doesn’t take your advice (especially when it’s the right advice), doesn’t like the fact that you had the audacity to take holidays, didn’t want to hear that you had other clients with deadlines, is outraged that your secretary went home at 5, and challenges your bill! The problem is, because you’re insanely expected to take on more work in this wacky profession, you sheepishly put up with it.

It’s easy to ignore the warning signals, isn’t it? The dark cloud that follows the client in for a meeting and the cold mist that follows him out. The eerie organ music that somehow plays from another office when she phones. The sound of barking dogs when the file is opened. The computer doesn’t “ping” when he sends an e-mail, it just breathes mechanically and says the word “Luke…”

These are the clients who have uncanny knack of turning an enjoyable day at the office into a miserable one. They can raise your blood pressure and your cholesterol with only one phone call and can wreck a good night’s sleep with just one e-mail. I have had a few of these clients over the past 20 years, and if I drop dead of a heart attack before my time, it’ll be be-cause I’ve had a call from a follower of the Dark Side who I should have sent to a Galaxy Far Away long ago.

So here’s my solution. Prevent that triple bypass of the future and set them free. Fire anyone who regularly causes lost sleep, too much stress, ruined weekends or an erratic heartbeat. Fire the ones that don’t take your advice and blame you when things go south. The anxiety isn’t worth it. The self-doubt isn’t worth it. And the heart attack isn’t worth it. Share them around. Give them away.

Make March 1st of every year “Fire a Client Day”. It could be on the CBA Calendar, like “Law Day” and every year at the same time, lawyers would hold firm meetings where the only item on the agenda would be whether Mr. Pain-in-the-Rear was really worth the heart palpitations or the increased life insurance premiums. If not, it’s hasta la vista, baby!

Just imagine the reaction of these (former) difficult clients; shipwrecks without ports, roaming the seas anchorless, lawyerless and totally befuddled that someone actually fired them for a change; all of them desperately begging to become someone else’s (former) problem client and promising to never yell at the secretaries again!

With the usual Professional Conduct Exceptions (Chapter 10 of the Handbook if you really must know), we can choose to work for who we want to work for, and even the Law Society says you have the right to say “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish” to a client you’re simply tired of fishing with.

Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson

This article was published in the February 2006 issue of BarTalk. © 2006 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved.