Chief Judge Christopher Edwards (left) and Kyle Timmons (Courtesy photos)

Do you want to be "that lawyer" who sues clients for fees, or "that lawyer" who works hard but walks away from unpaid fees to avoid suing clients? Amend your future fee contracts today and avoid the misery of being either kind of "that lawyer."

Here are two useful clauses to include in your fee contracts. First, an arbitration clause in your fee contact is commended to you by the Supreme Court of Georgia and the State Bar of Georgia. Second, a client complaint clause in your fee contract is enforceable under an important Court of Appeals decision. We also guarantee you will be better looking. Keep reading to find out how!

First, include a Georgia Bar Fee Arbitration clause in your fee contract. The Supreme Court of Georgia's "Specific Aspirational Ideals" suggests such a clause: "As to clients, I will aspire … [t]o fair and equitable fee agreements. As a professional, I should … [r]esolve all fee disputes through the arbitration methods provided by the State Bar of Georgia." Clients and lawyers can contractually submit to mandatory binding fee arbitration by the Bar's Committee on Arbitration in the fee contract. To be arbitrated, the disputed fee must be over $750 worth of legal services performed in Georgia by a Georgia lawyer, must be within the previous two years, not already fixed in amount by law nor court order, and not already the subject of pending litigation. The full text of Georgia Bar Rule 6-204 can be found online at https://www.gabar.org/handbook/#handbook/rule549. The Georgia Bar Fee Arbitration staff fields questions with alacrity at 404-527-8750.

What should your fee arbitration clause include? The fee arbitration clause must state all fee disputes shall be resolved solely, exclusively, and finally through the arbitration methods provided by the State Bar of Georgia, under Georgia Bar Rule 6-204. Rule 6-204 requires your fee contract arbitration provision follow three simple but strict rules.

These three rules ensure that the client and lawyer mutually consent to the fee arbitration clause. If your client fails to pay your fee, or if your client disagrees with your fee, the Committee on the Arbitration of Attorney Fee Disputes will render an enforceable decision, at the request of the client or the lawyer.

Second, include a client complaint clause in your fee contract. Your case at arbitration will be much stronger if you follow the guidance of Loveless v. Sun Steel, Inc., 206 Ga. App. 247, 424 S.E. 2d 887 (1992). In Loveless, a client complaint clause was included in the fee contract, stating "any complaint regarding the legal services provided or the amount charged therefor must be definitive, in writing and received by [lawyer] within 30 days of billing or it is waived." Id. at 248, 424 S.E.2d at 889. This client complaint clause creates an estoppel barring evidence of client complaints that are not definite, written, and timely. This clause won summary judgment for the lawyer in that litigated fee dispute because no definite, timely, written complaint was received by the lawyer from the client. Georgia Bar arbitrations follow Georgia law, so under Loveless, this clause may be argued at arbitration to create the same contractual evidentiary estoppel as in litigation. ("During arbitration proceedings, the general rules of contract construction apply." Sweatt v. Int'l Dev. Corp., 242 Ga. App. 753, 755, 531 S.E.2d 192, 194 (2000); "Contracts are to be governed as to their nature, validity, and interpretation by the law of the place where they were made." Convergys Corp. v. Keener, 276 Ga. 808, 811, 582 S.E.2d 84, 86 (2003)). This clause is more helpful if your practice sends monthly or periodic billings, but it should still apply upon final billing that is not met with a timely, definite, written complaint.

Professionalism is its own reward but, like any job done well, highly professional lawyers tend to have the greatest financial success in private practice. The most professional lawyers, who read and follow the Supreme Court's advice, are generally happier and have the best client relations. Professional lawyers are also better-looking, because clients, colleagues, judges, and even adversaries, are happy to see them.  If this article has been helpful to you, please take half an hour to read and contemplate the other useful pointers written to you by the Supreme Court of Georgia, called "Specific Aspirational Ideals" at https://www.gabar.org/aboutthebar/lawrelatedorganizations/cjcp/lawyers-creed.cfm. The best, brightest lawyers and judges among us wrote these Ideals to tell you what works to be happy, successful and better looking. (The authors thank Rita Payne and Tom Humphries of the Georgia Bar Committee on Arbitration for their helpful refinements.)

Christopher C. Edwards is the chief judge of Superior Court of the Griffin Judicial Circuit and now serves on the Board of Governors and on the Board of the General Practice and Trial Section of the State Bar of Georgia.

Kyle Harris Timmons is a graduate of the 2017 class of Mercer Law and currently serves as Judge Edwards' staff attorney in the Griffin Judicial Circuit.