Webwork - 12:41 pm on Feb 10, 2004 (gmt 0)

Your facts are a bit mussy so, as a lawyer, it's hard to comment - except to say that the "par for the course" comment by another poster is a bit juvenile. Once you get to know any number of professionals you will find that most professionals are just that: professionals, serious about their work and their reputation. What happens is that when any member of any profession "is bad" it tends to stick out since the media delights in feeding the public's apparently insatiable appetite for news about "good people gone bad". We all know how intelligent we - the public - are when it comes to consuming media. Why, we - the public - are so far down in the hole that instead of actively creating interesting lives for ourselves we choose to sit passively each evening watching "reality TV". Life as an oxymoron!

Now, as to "the facts" 1) Was your friend an employee or not at the time of "the contracting"? This might make for actual or apparent authority to bind his/her princiapl. 2) Is he/she still an employee? If so, it sounds like a sandbagging. 3) Did you ever communicate directly with "the lawyer" prior to or during the creative process? What was said and by whom? 4) Do you know "exactly" what your friend said, to whom and when? 5) At any point during the creative process or "negotiations" was specific compensation discussed, such as the hourly rate, billing procedures, fixed price for the entire process, etc? 6) Just how much of a professional are you? How many sites have you designed, for pay, for others prior to this job? If the answer is "many" then the failure to contract may may this look more like a "favor for a friend" and trying to break into a new field - websites for lawyers - than an actual contract job. If the answer is "few to none" then the inference is that there's serious grounds for doubting that this was, in fact, a work for hire under any definable terms. If you can't clearly define the terms of "the contract" - that is, if there wasn't a clear meeting of the minds - then you won't have much luck enforcing "the contract". You might have some luck under "quantum meruit" but don't ask me to explain that term. You've got a lawyer who will.

Webwork, Esq. - my other full-time job