Cutting Off Contact
I had a client come to me to do his will. He insisted it would be simple because he never married or had kids. I met with him as usual and went through everything he needed in his will, and I explained my hourly rate and how long a will usually took to draft and sign. He came back in a few weeks, signed his will, happily paid his bill, and left. And that’s when the nightmare truly began.
First, this guy was very rich and, second, he could not name a single friend who he trusted to be a backup executor. As soon as he got home, he immediately wrote a long ranting email to my boss. He claimed he had been massively overcharged for his will. He said he had only spent half an hour in my office, so he should only have to pay for half an hour and that there was no reason he should be paying for my time.
He claimed he would go to the law society and all those kinds of threats. My boss called him and told him to bring in all of his will and power of attorney documents and he would issue him a refund. The conversation went like this…My boss said, “I don’t have time to deal with petty garbage like this. This is a document stating that you are willingly destroying your will and POAs. Sign it, and I’ll give you this check for all your fees back.”
The client said, “This isn’t a petty issue to me.” My boss countered, “This is a petty issue to everybody.” The client said, “I’ll tell all my friends and family never to work with you.” My boss said, “Good. I don’t want to work with your friends, I don’t want to work with your family, I don’t want to work with anyone who cares what you think of me. Luckily, I don’t think that will be a problem. Go find another lawyer.”
So the guy signed the document and my boss dragged the shredder out into the middle of the lobby and shredded all of his documents in front of him and then went back to his office. The guy slunk out and never contacted us again.
Story credit: Reddit / Kitskill