Red Flags

Most of us have a strong gut for the clients we should avoid, and we take them on anyway. Red Flags turns that instinct into an objective checklist. Your firm defines its flags once in Settings; this section is where you check them off on a lead or a case, and the checked flags roll up into a single risk score displayed right alongside the record.

A bad client is expensive in every direction: they don’t pay, they file grievances, they leave nasty reviews, and they make you and your staff miserable. The point of a flag list is to catch those clients early, and to keep catching them. Check for red flags not only before you sign someone, but especially after the case is underway: the worst clients are often the ones who held it together just long enough to get through the door.

This is the firm’s private assessment of the client. It is internal: never part of the client’s case file, and never visible in the client portal.

What It’s For

Red Flags is a decision tool, not just a record. The score is built to be acted on:

• On a lead, whether to take the client on. As flags add up, the icon climbs from green through a dumpster fire to a full storm labeled “Don’t Do It.” Catching this before the retainer is signed is the cheap moment to walk away.
• On a case, whether to withdraw. The same score on an open case tops out at “Time to Get Out,” so a client who turns out worse than they looked is surfaced while you can still act.
• Across your marketing, which campaigns bring good clients. Each lead source and referral is rated by the average risk of the clients it brought (in Campaign Flow and the Referrals analytics), so you can see which campaigns send paying, low-flag clients and which send dumpster fires, and spend accordingly.

The same flags feed your reporting, too. Once you have history, the Red Flags area in Settings ties each flag back to what that kind of client actually billed and collected, so your weights come from your own experience rather than a guess.

The Five Categories

Firms usually build their flag list from five kinds of risk. A single behavior often trips more than one, and that’s fine: the categories are a way to think, not hard buckets. Flags can be objective (didn’t fund the full retainer) or subjective (gives the staff the creeps).

Financial

A risk to your financial stability: the client can’t or won’t pay. The most basic flag there is. If a client can’t come up with the initial deposit, they probably won’t replenish the trust either. Other common ones: the client wants you to start work before signing a retention agreement and funding the retainer; the client haggles your fees or wants a firm price commitment; the client treats the case as a “slam dunk” that shouldn’t take much work.

Resource

A risk to your ability to do the work, because of the demands the client places on your time. The client who contacts you right before a major deadline, who shows up late or cancels with no notice, who carries a strong victim mentality about the case, or who needs constant hand-holding.

Malpractice

A threat to your license, and the category to hold firm on. The obvious ones: the client fired their last attorney, is suspicious of your motives, or has posted nasty reviews of other attorneys. The subtler ones: the client is slow to hand over documents you’ve asked for, or flatly refuses some, and the client who runs hot with anger. There’s heavy crossover here, since a looming deadline or a victim mentality threatens your license as much as your schedule.

Temperament

The loose cannon, the client whose behavior sends ripples through the whole firm. Anger issues, a history of drug use, prior arrests for violent behavior (not necessarily a flag if you’re a defense attorney), or someone suing “for the principle of the matter.” Subtler signs: a no-show for the initial consultation, or a client who feels free to harass your staff and then insists the messages weren’t nasty.

Strategic

The category firms overlook in the heat of the moment: the client who keeps you from your firm’s own goals. If you represent the construction industry, taking on a client who’s suing a construction company is a serious flag even when that company isn’t yours and the new client is your best friend. Strategic flags protect goals like growing referrals (a client who distrusts lawyers won’t send you more), or focusing your practice on a particular clientele, or profitability (the client who argues every line of the bill). A strategic flag never means an automatic no; it means have reservations and think twice.

Which Flags Appear

A flag type is either generic (offered on every lead or case) or limited to specific case types. The record’s case type decides which unchecked flags are offered, but a checked flag never disappears. If the case type changes, or the flag type is later retired in Settings, a checked flag stays visible: it records a fact you observed about this client.

Checking a Flag

Check a flag and it opens up: a notes field for what specifically you observed, and a boost checkbox for an especially serious instance. Boosting doubles the flag’s weight. (The difference between a client who tried drugs decades ago and one with a current, active problem is a boost.)

A checked flag also carries its provenance, drawn from the record’s history: who checked it and when, and who boosted it, so a risk call made months ago still has a name and a date on it. The flag shows its point value right on the row.

The Score and Its Weights

Each checked flag adds its weight to the score. A default-weight flag adds 1 point, a boosted one adds 2, and because weights are percentages set in Settings, a 150% flag adds 1.5. The score is recalculated as flags are tripped through the sales process and the life of the case, and the flag icon next to the lead or case wears it: green at zero, then orange, red, and dark red as points add up. At 4 points the flag gives way to a dumpster fire, and at 5 or more a full storm, the client you should think very hard about.

Not every flag deserves equal weight. A client who refuses to sign a retainer until you start work is a bigger risk than one who just needs extra hand-holding, and the weights let you say so. They start at 100%. Once your firm has history, the Red Flags area in Settings shows each flag’s real-world impact on what you billed and collected, and offers updated weightings based on your own data.

Where You’ll See It

Red Flags appears on a lead and on a case, using the flag list you configure once in Settings. Catching flags at the lead stage, before the retainer, is the cheap time to act on them, but the value is in checking all the way through: most bad clients reveal themselves only after the work begins.