Greetings from the private sector. Many of you knew me from the 11 years I spent in the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel. I became the head of the office in July 2013 and retired as of Feb. 1. I am now back to being just another lawyer, staffing the New Haven office of Geraghty & Bonnano.

I came across an article about the “7 Habits of Financially Successful People” on the website of a media consumer expert. One of these characteristics is to be actively involved with one's money, to pay attention to it and to know what it is doing. This brought to mind one of the most common issues in grievance complaints I encountered in the disciplinary counsel's office—failure to attend to billing clients who are on hourly fee arrangements.

These complaints would come from a client who had paid a retainer (really an advance payment of a fee), usually not a large amount, say $1,500, with a retainer agreement providing that the lawyer would bill against the amount paid at a modest hourly rate. More often than not, the fee agreement promised monthly invoices or some other regular billing.