TCBA’s Fee Arbitration Committee Your Resource to Resolve Billing Disputes

By Michael P. Taubman

Inevitably, every lawyer’s career will involve an uncomfortable discussion with a client disgruntled over the bill. All engagements do not end well, leaving attorneys with clients who withhold payments or demand a return of money. In Utopia, all lawyers perform their best, and clients always pay their bill. Our Tulsa County Bar Association created the Fee Arbitration committee for the dystopian reality in which inharmonious parties find themselves. Our TCBA provides a free service for lawyers and clients to resolve disputes over fees. The Fee Arbitration committee is comprised of twenty (20) lawyers licensed in practice for more than five (5) years, together with five (5) lay persons, who investigate, review, deliberate and render binding arbitration decisions. Our Fee Arbitration service requires the voluntary participation of both the attorney and the client. By contrast, California requires attorneys to submit fee disputes to binding arbitration while clients may elect whether or not to participate.1 When lawyers and clients volunteer to submit their dispute, one of the attorney members conducts an investigation, interviewing the parties, receiving evidence, and reports their findings to the full committee for deliberation. The discovery and evidentiary processes are largely informal, consisting of the investigator asking the parties to volunteer their information and documentation. The committee meets monthly to review and deliberate investigator reports, and the Chair reports the decision to the parties, who may then proceed to enforce their judgment in Court, if need be. Over the past 7 years, 65% of the attorneys that have complaints filed against them declined to participate in the Fee Arbitration committee process, leaving clients further aggrieved and forced to pursue other alternatives. Some client complaints are clearly unjustified; however, there are instances where the lawyer failed the client. Lawyers have control at the outset of the engagement to define the terms and conditions of their services, but many do not. Too often, the Fee Arbitration committee learns that no written fee agreement existed, leading to miscommunication of expectations between the attorney and client. As the Captain would say, “What we got here is… a failure to communicate.” 2 No system is foolproof, and a better fool seems always in the offing. The Fee Arbitration process does not guarantee a client will not file a complaint, but the OBAPRT does not help to resolve fee disputes. When you find yourself at an impasse over your fees, consider bringing it to the Fee Arbitration committee. If the price doesn’t convince you (it’s free!), the potential time saved and expediency of the process should.

1 See California Bus. & Prof. Code §§ 6200 et seq. 2 See Strother Martin as Captain in Cool Hand Luke, Jalem Productions, 1 Nov. 1967.