Attorney Bills

Extending last weeks discussion - Do lawyers pad their bills? Many do. 

"Fraudulent billing is a common practice in many large law firms."

I suspect the most common way is by overstating their work. In the linked article, when a small educational foundation called up a law firm with a simple question they were billed $885 for a one minute phone call. $85 for the call and close to $800 for research. Research which was never done. 

Another commonly used fraudulent billing technique is to bill two clients, or more, for the same work. When lawyers use forms they put together they often charge every client who uses the form for the work in creating it. Many, maybe most, lawyers do not even believe this is wrong even though the ABA does. 

My lawyers clearly overfilled me on a regular basis. I tried very hard to get them to detail the work they did but never got anywhere.  

An older but still relevant paper highlighting 16 egregious cases of fraud was done by Catholic University of America.

There is profound corruption on many levels within the justice system. Fraudulent billing is how many lawyers begin their career in crime.