I got a little bit of rejection recently. It’s nothing special, really. I fought hard for a client, and despite the results I achieved, they ended up switching lawyers before the real battle started. Although it’s nothing new, it still stung. I thought I had built a relationship. I cared about the client and his family, and I still do. I hope everything works out for them. I’m worried about them, though I think they are in very capable hands.

It’s one thing when someone hires a con-artist who promised them the moon. It’s another when they hire a well-regarded attorney who will probably do a great job. It’s happened, just as it will continue to happen so long as I continue to be honest about myself to each and every person who walks in the door, and there will always be a bad feeling somewhere deep down. Will the new lawyer, with his army of associates and staff, be there to fight for bail at 5:00 a.m. jail court? Will he do the work himself, or will he farm it out and pad the bill to justify partnership? Will it matter? Is that what they want?

Occasionally, I see how troubling it is that my office is on the first story. Some people get upset about how I don’t make the receptionist answer the phone if I’m in the office. Normally, the receptionist and the paralegal don’t even figure into the equation, as every client has my cell number. That’s the kiss of death for many prospective clients. There’s no mystique, and plenty of people love mystique.

The toughest thing may be that there are some people who don’t care about that. There are some people who look for things that are probably excellent indicators of legal acumen. They look for thing like decades of past success or huge, favorable verdicts. With those people, I may never win. Ten years from now, they’ll be looking for the guy with a quarter-century of experience. I’ll lose. In twenty years, they’ll be looking for the guy with fifty years. I’ll lose again. If I’ve just won a kidnapping trial, they want the guy who just won a murder trial. Some people want to play games I’ll never win. It may just end up a longevity competition.

The truth is that some people need someone other than me. It isn’t that I wouldn’t do a better job than the person they chose, but rather that they’d feel happier with the person they chose. Pretending that every client who doesn’t want me isn’t the kind client I’d want is just sour grapes. That approach leads to a career-long dead end. Truth be told, sometimes rejection is a good sign.

Although it may feel better in the short term to shrug off rejection knowing that some scumbag lawyer lied and cheated his way onto a case, in the long term, seeing the ones who got away competently represented is a sign of one of the best things that could happen to me.

It means that people are referring me good clients. It means I’m not getting people who show up because my website says I’m aggressive or caring or because I claim to offer payment plans. It means I’m in good company.

Contentment as a criminal defense lawyer means being a big fish in a big pond competing fairly to fight my heart out for people who trust me. If rejection is part of the equation, it’s worth it a million times over.

Screw this, I give up. The saying I’m actually going for is something to the effect of this: sometimes opportunities are better left un-seized. No good? Oh well, good thing I didn’t quit my day job to become an motivational speaker. I think I’ll just defer to Thomas Edison, who is rumored to have said something about how most people miss opportunity because it’s dressed in overalls and looks like work.

I’m writing this because after I wrote about a potential new client’s family asking a question that removed me from their list of potential new lawyers, I got a trackback to a post discussing how I’d missed an opportunity to educate and give context the client lacked. I read the post and left thinking the author, someone named David Ward who may or may not currently be a licensed attorney but who runs something called the Attorney Marketing Center, hadn’t read the post at Simple Justice through which he found mine.

Scott Greenfield’s post at Simple Justice ended with these words about the lawyer who may have gotten that client with questions aplenty:

And even he will end up ruing the day he answered these inane questions, because these are the clients from hell.

I don’t mind work, but as a lawyer, I like legal work. If an opportunity is wearing overalls and looks like legal work, I’m all for it. If it looks like endless hours of fielding questions that are unproductive and suggest months or years of potential conflict as the representation continues, I’d rather pass.

For all I know, I lost a great client. Or I may have narrowly dodged a lot of irritation. Scott hit the nail on head in his post by suggesting that every client isn’t the client a lawyer necessarily wants. If the relationship begins with an uphill battle, there’s an elevated likelihood that may be the case.

David’s post seemed to suggest that lawyers can just snag any client with a little education and ride off happily into the sunset with the fee in hand. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but I think that a lot of the time, an opportunity isn’t the right fit.

Sometimes, it’s just an opportunity for hassle.

Occasionally, I get a referral with several degrees of separation. Those prospective clients tend to have questions. Lots of them. Often, the consultation feels a bit like a job interview. I try my best to be brutally honest.

Whereas the majority of people only care that someone they trust told them to call me and that I have a nice office, suits that fit (more or less), and a bar number, some people need numbers. They want numbers about my experience, my practice, the system, and their case. It’s because numbers make an unscientific decision like hiring a lawyer seem somewhat scientific. It’s a complex decision, and the idea of boiling the process down to comparing statistics comforts some people.

Unfortunately, a little knowledge can be a bad thing. A numbers-obsessed prospective client can easily end up worse-informed than someone who doesn’t ask any questions. The problem isn’t the information, but their perspective. Information, especially numbers, can be misleading without context. I saw that first hand a little while back.

I often have people come to me claiming their current lawyer won’t return phone calls. They complain their attorney is generally unavailable when they need advice. Seeking a new lawyer, one particular client in that situation came to see me and brought family members. They had a barrage of questions for me. The last question was how many clients I had.

They wanted an exact number, so I told them. At the time, the number was fourteen. I immediately realized they weren’t going to hire me.

The number startled them. They asked me how I kept them all straight. Fourteen seemed like a huge number to them. Without a frame of reference, I might as well have told them I was too busy to handle the case. No spiel about half of those cases being appellate or post-sentencing matters where I was just waiting for a ruling would’ve taken the sting out of the number fourteen. Even if I had explained that some of the cases were civil traffic matters with final hearings set that week, it wouldn’t have mattered. Nothing short of shit-talking about other lawyers and their caseloads would’ve helped the least bit. Fourteen seemed too big to them, and I instantly knew I’d lost the client for that reason. I was right.

Curious, I looked up the lawyer I think they hired. They didn’t stick with the one they had, who’s actually great. The guy they chose had a great website. That’s about it. It boasts that he’s handled “thousands” of cases in ten years of practice. Assuming “thousands” means at least two thousand, I calculate that to be over two hundred cases a year.

I’m a lawyer, not a mathematician, but I have a tough time seeing how that ends up with a caseload anywhere near fourteen. I suspect that’s impossible. Over forty seems more likely. I wonder how he answered their caseload question, or if they asked him at all. Maybe his website was just too nice.

Every client seems to dream of the once-a-mega-volume lawyer with an unbelievable amount of experience who decided to pare his practice down to a select few cases. Although that’s not completely unheard of, it’s unusual. I’ve yet to see it on such a grand scale and in under a couple decades of experience.

A little math would’ve made them see that fourteen isn’t that much. A little math would’ve made it clear that thousands of clients in a decade, something indicative of the experience factor most people consider very important in a lawyer, is a lot more than fourteen.

What makes the numbers game a game is the fact a lawyer can make something more frightening than the number fourteen turn into something appealing simply by presenting it differently. Most people won’t do the math. They’ll be impressed with thousands of cases worth of experience in ten years, and they’ll worry about being one of fourteen.

The knowledge the family sought should have served them well, but they presumed things based on numbers they didn’t understand. That’s why playing the numbers game is tough. Asking a lawyer about caseload isn’t a bad thing, but a point of reference or a little calculation is much more important than all the raw data in the world. In the end, hiring a lawyer is more than just a numbers game.

The typical situation in which I encounter such logic involves a client who believes a witness is a liar. His unshakable belief in the witness’s dishonesty has led him to believe that every other bad thing the witness might say about him is convincing proof that the witness is a liar. He fails to understand that the only reason he believes the witness’s statements will help him is because he is starting with the belief the witness is a liar. The jury does not begin with that belief.

Let’s say I have a client with an assault case. The victim says the client pointed a gun at him. The victim also says the client had done it before and to other people, not just him. When I move to preclude testimony regarding other instances of misconduct, the client wants it to come in. “It’s proof he’s a liar, that other incident never happened.” Even if the other people want to come and testify it happened, the client remains steadfast. “It’s proof they’re all liars, those other incidents never happened.”

The client’s logic, or lack thereof I suppose, is based on the fact he is so firm in his belief they are liars that he is incapable of seeing that the jury does not start with the assumption that the victim is a liar. The statements will not reinforce for the jury the fact the witness is a liar because the jury isn’t starting out with that belief. Instead, the statements will impact whether the jury develops that belief in the first place. In many instances, what my client sees as his best evidence may actually be what convinces the jury to believe the exact opposite of what he wants.

To see that, all it really takes is a step back. It’s always easier said than done, unfortunately. Even smart clients get stuck in these situations because it’s too close to home. They believe whatever it is they believe too firmly, and bias colors their logic. I’ve heard some lawyers call it “bias-logic,” presumably because it’s logical only if you hold the same bias. For some clients, there’s no cure. Luckily, that’s why they have a lawyer.

To get a client released from custody, I needed to get her accepted into an approved rehab facility. She could only get into the approved rehab facilities by doing an intake appointment. The facilities only set intake appointments for people who are out of custody.

Initially, I would encounter similar situations and become angry. I assumed they were caused by incompetence and thought the people in charge would fix it if they knew what they’d done. Although my anger began to diminish as I encountered those situations over and over again, it flared back up when I finally realized that the people in charge often not only knew what they’d done, but did it for a reason.

These days, when I see a Catch-22, I assume some bureaucrat planned it. I’m right more than frequently than you might think. I regularly see just how far the government will go to create an unfair situation that ensures a certain result without actually having to demand that result. Government incompetence, though pervasive, isn’t universal. Sometimes, things that appear to be incompetence are actually cleverness, albeit evil bureaucratic cleverness.

It would’ve been too easy for the government to just say that it didn’t want my client released. We all know that’s what it wants, but people might get upset if it came out and said it. It figured out a creative way around that problem.

Creating a Catch-22 may seem needlessly complex, but it usually gets the desired result. At the very least, it ties up a defense lawyer for a little while, and it doesn’t make it look like the big bad government is refusing to release people who need to be released. It’s a win-win-win situation for everyone except the real human being involuntarily caught up in the system.

I almost feel as if I should be impressed by the irritating creativity the government musters from time to time.

I should never view any non-work-related plans as concrete. As hard as that’s been for me to swallow, with my current practice, I know that it’s true. I represent a fair number of clients each year, and at any given time, many of their cases are at very different stages. I’m never at a point where I have no clients, so there’s always somebody who’s my responsibility. My clients, as well as courts, prosecutors, law enforcement agencies, and all kinds of other unexpected people, therefore have the potential for creating urgent work for me at any time. If something comes up that falls within the scope of my duties as counsel, I have to make the sacrifice and get back to work. If I can’t do the work when it needs to get done, then I shouldn’t have accepted the fee. For that reason, although I spent two years planning what I had hoped to do this year, work still interfered tremendously.

I was going to take all of this past July off so I could ride my motorcycle all over the country. I worked my ass off for a long time to have that month free, but my plans just didn’t work out. I ended up having to leave my bike in Boston and fly back to Arizona to go back to work for a couple of months before finishing my vacation. Why? A court vacated a hearing set after my return. There was a possibility the client would be released at the hearing, and the court’s next availability after the hearing it was vacating wasn’t for quite some time. The court said it could push the hearing back, resulting in weeks of additional jail for my client, or it could set it right in the middle of my vacation, potentially resulting in my client’s release weeks earlier than we previously thought possible. The decision to change my plans was easy, but it was still tough to do. Luckily, the sacrifice paid off with my client’s immediate release following the hearing.

Taking uncertainty into account isn’t the end of it. Sure, I don’t know if I’ll ever buy a non-refundable ticket again. And if it doesn’t seem like a total scam, I imagine I’ll always buy cancellation insurance too. But I’ve also learned that planning often starts well in advance of the vacation. What do you do if an in-custody client insistent on trial wants to hire you, and you know his trial date is going to fall right in the middle of your vacation months down the road? In jurisdictions like Maricopa County, it’s easy to anticipate trial dates. They’re always about 120 to 150 days from the arraignment, so if you’re taking a few weeks off, you can be pretty certain based only on a summons whether or not you’re going to be available for the eventual trial. If you have any reason to believe your client’s liberty may be affected by your vacation schedule, you need to disclose that. In my practice, if I’m not working, then I’m not making money. Vacationing also costs me clients both during the time I’m gone as well as months in advance.

I haven’t even gotten to the most difficult part. Of all the hassle of trying to get some time away to relax, the part that’s taken more getting used to than anything else is the fact that any vacation I take is probably going to include some work. Because I have clients at all times, and because a great deal of my schedule is beyond my control, there is probably going to be work to do. As a rule of thumb, I just assume that every client being investigated gets arrested right after I leave town, that every client waiting for charges receives a summons with an initial appearance date right after I leave town, and that every motion I’ve filed gets set for a hearing right after I leave town. In eight days of my vacation, I probably stopped the bike on the side of the road in at least as many states to try to get something reset. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but it was what I had to do. It’s the price of being a criminal defense lawyer with a small firm. I doubt these things are ever going to change, but if any of the other lawyers reading this have any ideas that won’t hurt any of my clients, I’m all ears.

Despite all of this, I had a great vacation. I’m convinced that the most important thing to remember for any private criminal defense lawyer trying to take time off is the fact that nothing will be perfect. Any vacation will be especially expensive for me because of the nature of my job, and I may have to work during my time off or even change my plans entirely. In the end, though, I look at it like this: would I rather be back at the office somewhere in the middle of an eighty-hour week, or would I rather be fishing during a beautiful sunset or riding over a curvy mountain pass, about to return to reality for a little while before getting back to fun and relaxation? Putting it that way, the answer is obvious to me.

I’ve noticed recovering addicts like to stress the importance of living one day at a time, of not letting setbacks cause them to give up and ruin all of their progress. Tomorrow’s a new day. Learn from today’s mistakes and move on. Never give up. Even the most inspirational success stories are filled with relapses. Rich addicts can check themelves into fancy rehab facilities each time they hit rock bottom. Poor addicts mostly find themselves in shackles. Getting clean is a process, and typical addicts amass drug priors before finally conquering their demons.

Priors often result in enhanced sentences. They also bother prosecutor and judges. “Your client just isn’t learning his/her lesson,” they say. Judges and prosecutors shake their heads and point out all of the chances the addict had. Everyone pretends to know how hard it is to get clean, but when it comes to sentencing, it’s always about priors. Sometimes, it makes me think about a demon most people are likely to understand a lot better.

As a society, we are hardly the pinnacle of fitness. Americans are fat, and lawyers are no exception. All of the lawyers reading this can probably name dozens of seriously overweight fellow members of the bar. Many might be prosecutors and judges. You probably know attorneys who fill their office fridges with frozen lean cuisine dinners. They read weight loss books, have gym memberships they rarely use, and jump on every new appetite suppresant that hits the market. They clearly want to lose weight, but they struggle with it. They eat salads at lunch, but they go home and devour a pint of ice cream after a tough day at work. They can’t quit eating, or they can’t commit to exercising enough. I’m sure all of you know the type. You’ve probably seen many of those who did manage to lose a lot of weight fall off the wagon and gain it all back.

There are judges and prosecutor who fit that description. In fact, some of the judges and prosecutors I see throwing priors at my clients and shaking their heads in disgust at what they apparently view as weakness fit that description to a tee. When they act like my clients could’ve just quit and callously flaunt drug priors in their face, I want to analogize relapse and the resulting priors to weight loss. I’ve never done it because I can’t seem to figure out a way to say it to them without being extremely insulting.

I think about my clients’ lives. Some were born with fetal alcohol syndrome. Maybe they were addicted to crack too. They were molested as a kid or beaten within an inch of their life by their dads every time they messed up. They turned to drugs to escape a miserable life of pain and suffering, and they got caught. They tried to stop using. They really tried. They were poor and uneducated and alone in their struggle. They got sober, but they relapsed when their mom died, they lost their house, or they found out they’d gotten hepatitis or HIV or who knows what from years of drug use.

It absolutely disgusts me when overweight prosecutors and judges act like prior drug convictions are anything other than understandable relapses, just like the ones I’m sure they’ve had. The client’s trying to break a crack addiction after a life of hell, and someone who makes a good salary and can’t quit eating donuts is throwing moments of weakness in his face?

I think it’s a good analogy. I’d love to use it, but the people who deserve to hear it would sooner have me held in contempt than take a good look at themselves and feel some empathy. It’s sad for them, but it’s sadder for my clients. If more people thought about relapse and priors as analogous to weight management, something they’re far more likely to relate to, I think I’d see a lot fewer aggravated drug sentences.

Before I had any real experience, I looked all over the place for guidance about caseload. I spoke with public defenders and met some who had 30 open felony cases. I met some with 60. Several public defenders who handled misdemeanors as well as felonies told me they typically had over 100 open cases at any given time. Relying to some extent on the stereotype of the overworked public defender but mostly figuring they had experience and paralegals and secretaries I didn’t, I decided the absolute max for me should be a fraction of the minimum for them.

I also spoke with lawyers who built their practices around court-appointed clients and only occasionally took a private client. For the most part, they blew the public defenders away as far as numbers go. One lady bragged to me about having 400 appointments in one year alone, some of which were capital cases. I was extremely disturbed, and believe it or not, that isn’t the highest number I’ve heard. A month or two ago, I contacted a court-appointed lawyer before taking over a case from him. He was irked that I called and wasted his time, and he informed me that he had no clue who the client was anyway because he has 1200 different clients on his caseload.

Public defenders and turn-and-burn contract lawyers weren’t the place to look, but the people who had my dream practice were no better as a guide. They had very few clients, but they were all bigger cases. If I’d have taken so few clients, I’d have starved with the types of cases I did in the beginning. On top of that, they handled the kinds of cases I had no business touching fresh out of law school. Without any perfect example to follow, I did my best to set limits on my caseload and hoped that one day I’d be busy enough to worry about that kind of thing.

As with many of the elaborate plans I laid in beginning, my efforts largely turned out to be a waste of time. I didn’t realize just how different each case and each client really can be. I could have guessed that some would be more demanding than others, but I never would have realized how much of the difference isn’t apparent without experience.

I’ve had “easy” DUI cases kill over a hundred hours. One of my first jury trials should have been a straightforward burglary case, but I must have ended up interviewing fifty witnesses, many of whom suddenly popped up on the eve of trial. After a few years, I’ve gotten better at guessing from the initial consultation and the discovery whether it’s going to be an unusually demanding case or client. I don’t have delusions of grandeur though; I still regularly underestimate cases and quote flat fees that end up way too low in the long run.

It’s also tough to realistically assess your own efficiency when you haven’t done something before. How long does it take for you to read and digest medical records? Bank statements? Accident reconstructions? I realized pretty fast that I’m generally quick figuring out a familiar document, but that a little change in the format can double or triple my time.

No case management policy is going to be a substitute for experience. No amount of experience is a substitute for a little more experience. Most lawyers assume they’ll know when their caseload is too heavy because they’ll be rolling in money. They think they’ll see the huge bank account balance and hire an associate. In the real world, it isn’t unusual for a lawyer to be buried under an excessive caseload while barely getting by financially. A law license is a license to practice law. It isn’t a license to print money, no matter what marketers say.

Setting a cutoff number or creating a formula for deciding when to begin rejecting cases isn’t a bad idea, but it’s anything but a guarantee. Managing caseload, like the law in general, is practice. It’s never time to kick your feet up and quit thinking about it. As depressing as that may seem, at least it’s comforting to know you’ll keep getting better.

A long docket this morning, and I bet at least one inmate will ask to speak to the judge, hoping he’ll sweeten the deal and take the defendant’s side in plea negotiations. The judge won’t, of course, he’ll give his usual speech.

But think about it the other way around. Imagine if the judge weighed in on our side, pressured the defendant to take our deal. That possibility, I trust, makes it clear why a judge must remain neutral.

Although I’ve never practiced in Texas, the post seems to suggest there’s one big way things differ between Arizona and Texas. Here, we have something called a “Donald” advisement. We also have settlement conferences. Every county superior court I’ve appeared in does both. Maricopa County Superior Court goes so far as to order that the parties in every single case participate in a settlement conference. The judges even set deadlines for it.

In State v. Donald, Arizona’s court of appeals made it so a trial court can order the state to reinstate the original plea offer in certain circumstances. The defendant may not have been properly advised about what he faced losing at trial. What we call a Donald advisement is simply telling a defendant on the record what the plea agreement is and what his exposure is. It should be simple, but it can be a very coercive thing. Sometimes, the numbers alone make it that way. Sometimes, judges can’t help but offer their opinions. They may emphasize the benefit of the plea or even tell the defendant it’s a generous offer. At least one judge tries to get defendants say why they won’t accept the offer.

Settlement conferences can be even more coercive. Usually, it starts with the parties meeting with the judge in chambers and explaining their positions. The judge, who fortunately can’t be the trial judge without the consent of the parties, typically picks a side. Sometimes, the judge tells the state the offer needs to improve. I’ve had judges attack prosecutors for making ridiculously harsh offers or even call prosecutors’ supervisors to complain about office policies. On the other hand, I’ve also had plenty of judges tell me they think the offer is fair and my client should take it.

On the record, the judge usually gives a Donald advisement and tells the defendant his opinion about the plea. The defendant gets to talk not just with the judge, but with the prosecutor. Clients usually love settlement conferences. They can ask questions and tell their side of things, and it can’t be used against them because it’s in the context of plea negotiations. It can put the defense lawyer in an awkward position, though, especially when the plea really is a great deal and everyone but the client sees that.

A settlement conference can look a lot like a set up, and whenever I think the hearing is going to result in pressure on my client, I tell him in advance. I explain that he can talk to the judge all he wants, but most settlement conferences result in pleas. It’s worst for the defense lawyer when the plea has a huge benefit. When the client is facing life and has a deal to a few years, you really don’t want to make a record of how crappy the plea is. Talking your client out of a lifesaving offer in open court is an ineffective claim waiting to happen. Watching other people pressure the person who has put their life in your hands is terrible though. It’s all about balancing the various factors at play and using professional judgment.

When D.A. Confidential asks us to imagine if the judge weighed in on the state’s side and pressured the defendant to take its deal, I don’t have to imagine at all. Any Arizona criminal defense attorney is going to know exactly what it’s like.

Starting out in law, a mentor told me one secret to success in criminal defense was showing up on time. Making it to every hearing before it’s supposed to start, he said, would already put me one big step ahead of all but a select few of my colleagues. He told me fellow members of the bar set the standard quite low. Was he right?

On one hand, showing up on time really is pretty unusual for criminal defense attorneys. You know there’s something wrong when courts have to post signs telling lawyers their 8:15 a.m. hearings will be reset if they don’t show up by 10:00 a.m. Courts actually do notice when you’re punctual, and it makes a good impression. On the other hand, showing up on time has probably caused me more headache than good overall.

In most Arizona courts, the defense lawyers call their own cases during regular law and motion calendars. The lawyers line up in the well, like cattle awaiting slaughter, or they check in with the bailiff and sit around until they hear their number. Regardless, most courts will not try to hear a case without the defense lawyer present unless the docket is almost over and every other lawyer who is actually present has had their case called. In courts with long dockets, you might have all morning to swing by and do your hearing.

I don’t mind the system, but it becomes burdensome when you have a habitually tardy client. Imagine you have an 8:00 a.m. hearing and show up right on time. The client, unfortunately, is nowhere to be found. When you call, he says he’s running three hours late.

You can call the case, and the client will get a bench warrant. When he shows up, the court usually won’t take him into custody. The court will set it that afternoon or some other day for another hearing. You’ll have to attend, and your decision to call the case and get out quick earlier will have ended up killing another big chunk of your time. Your client will probably be late to that too, and you may waste three or four more big chunks of time before the court realizes these hearings are punishing everyone except for your client.

If the court does take your client into custody or tells him the bench warrant stands until he’s arrested, you may have even more work to do. You will have to file a motion to quash or a motion to modify release conditions. You may have to fill out a detailed information sheet or go through the hassle of setting it for a hearing on your own. Courts often get irritated when lawyers don’t wait for their clients, as it makes more work for them as well.

In reality, the only thing a lawyer can do is to wait for the client. When he rolls in hours late, you call the case, the court hears it, and it gets set for another hearing for which the client will almost certainly be late. The court has no clue that you waited hours for him, and unless you’re a petty, unethical jerk, you’re not going to make a record about how you were there on time but your client was late.

Clients know this, especially in Maricopa County. Every morning, I hear frustrated lawyers standing in the hallway and yelling into their cellphone about how they have a 10:00 a.m. trial and they told the client to be on time. Threats are pointless, though, as clients know as well as anyone that they can show up as late as they want and only the defense attorney is going to suffer. Threatening a bench warrant isn’t exactly the most professional thing to do, though it may be the only effective way to make a chronically late client show up anywhere close to on time. After they realize the threats are empty, they revert back to being late.

So what’s the solution? As far as I can tell, there isn’t one. I will keep showing up on time, and certain clients will keep showing up at their leisure. I can convert my fee arrangements to hourly billing, but it’ll still needlessly waste a lot of my time. I’ll just get paid for wasting it. When the options involving screwing the client and making more work on one hand versus grinning and bearing the brunt of the client’s discourteousness on the other, it’s pretty clear which option I have to choose.