The legal myth that we are busting today is surrounding handshake agreements. “I don’t need to put it in writing cause I trust my clients and my clients trust me.” You actually dishonor your clients when you don’t have it in writing. It’s unprofessional and quite frankly, a hotbed for disputes.
So the myth that, you’ll be safe if you don’t have a written agreement because you trust your clients, is unfortunately false. I’m sorry to tell you, not everybody is nice, not everybody is reliable, and not everyone is trustworthy. It’s all good and well to say, “Well, if they’re not happy, I just won’t work with them again.” The problem with that is they might owe you lots of money, and if you don’t have anything written down, it’s very difficult to then untangle the legal mess afterwards.
It is a myth that working on a handshake is a good idea and it actually disrespects your client and your business and yourself. It’s like, I played basketball with my son, the other day
for the first time ever, I’m not very sporty. We started playing, I wasn’t half bad, before we knew it, I had ten and he had zero. As we went along, he went, “No, Mom.” Then he would tell me what the rules were, because he didn’t tell me the rules at the beginning. So I just started off with free for all. Of course, I had to get any advantage I could take, because he’s young and fit and healthy and I’m a bit slow.
As we went along he was telling me about all these rules and he said, “Mum, I’m only gonna play with you, if you play by the rules,” and I said to him, “You didn’t tell me the rules at the beginning.” So he said “no, I didn’t tell you the rules at the beginning, cause I didn’t know “you would be so tough.” So he was telling me the rules as we went on, and as I was told what the rules were, my behavior changed and the whole game changed.
Being clear can be a game changer, in fact it’s one way to minimize client complaints, if you let them know what to expect from you and you also tell them what you expect from them.It has been an absolute blast busting legal myths to protect your business, so you can have the lifestyle that you deserve. My name is Cathryn Warburton, I am the Legal Lioness, and If you want to know more about legal myths being busted, pop on to my website ‘legallioness.com’.
