A recent NLJ story, “Patton Boggs Issues Flurry of Fee Suits,” reports that Patton Boggs is putting a tighter on clients to pay their legal bills on time as the firm continues cost-cutting measures and entertains a potential merger.  At the same time, the law firm is suing to collect unpaid legal bills, filing the latest lawsuit this month in a series of fee disputes in Washington-area courts.

Big law firms don’t often take fee fights to courts.  But since June, Patton Boggs has filed four suits in District of Columbia and Virginia courts seeking nearly $2 million.  The firm’s general counsel, Charles Talisman, acknowledge it was rare for a law firm to sue a client.  “The ethical rules require that we exhaust all other possibilities before we bring a case against a client,” Talisman said.  “We do our best to follow that.”

Separate from the litigation, Talisman said Patton Boggs was tightening up its billing practices after a “poor collection year” in 2012.  For example, most new clients were paying bills within 45 days – a quick turnaround, he said.  “We’ve made conscious efforts to get our bills out more quickly, to be a bit more conscientious about following up with clients if they’re late in paying.”

Patton Boggs, Talisman said, was “more focused now on making sure our clients pay their bills than perhaps we were in the past.”  However, he said, the recent spate of litigation did not reflect a change in the firm’s policies on when to sue clients over alleged unpaid invoices.

The nearly $2 million at stake in the suits filed this year is relatively small compared with the firm’s bottom line, representing less than 1 percent of the $317.5 million in gross revenue earned during 2012, according to NLJ affiliate The American Lawyer.  Patton Boggs has struggled financially in recent years.  Gross revenue dropped by 6.5 percent between 2011 and 2012, according to The American Lawyer.