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I'm in the middle of an ongoing legal issue with a former client for whom I carried out private online tutoring over the course of just under a year, starting June 2019. My relationship with this client has collapsed totally, and she is not replying to my requests for payment for work carried out across April and May this year. I have been able to speak to a solicitor for a free half-hour consultation, who suggested that I have a good case. I am looking for further advice on the quality of my claim against this client, as well as some extraneous legal issues that I will mention towards the end of my post.
The context is that in June 2019, I was contacted unprompted by a potential client looking for a tutor for her daughter. The client had found my contact details on a number of tutoring directories, and had decided to contact me directly to negotiate an ongoing tutoring arrangement. That same day I agreed to offer teaching to her daughter via Skype on an ad-hoc basis for a set rate per hour. This agreement was made in writing, albeit informally, via email that same day. It was also verbally agreed that I would charge for all necessary preparation time at the same rate, an agreement which was put in writing two months after the beginning of my relationship with the client. I built a good relationship with the student and her mother, and the two of them spoke to me extremely well of my teaching.
I would invoice on a semi-regular basis, taking a rough average of hours worked over the relevant period, always rounding down to the nearest hour. Every invoice was paid almost immediately with no questioning from the client. On multiple occasions the client would round up the fee slightly, and on one occasion paid a bonus of around £180. Every time I invoiced, I would specify that I had worked a total number of hours of teaching and prep, something the client had always tacitly agreed to by paying the required fees.
I recently decided to end my tutoring relationship with this client after I realised that this was no longer the right arrangement for me. After school lockdown began, I was asked to step in as effectively a full-time tutor, offering multiple hours over five days a week. During that time, I noticed a number of issues that made it harder to do my job. One was that the student became increasingly disrespectful, taking a poor attitude in classes and challenging my expertise in ways that were not appropriate. Another was that the student actively began to avoid doing the necessary work before lessons, relying on me to simply give her the answers. At one point she even asked me to send all of my teaching notes, in a transparent attempt to avoid having to take her own. Eventually it became impossible for me to tutor effectively, and I emailed the client with my decision at the end of May, sending a full invoice five days later.
It soon became obvious that the client was ignoring the invoice. Two weeks later I got an email asking for a full breakdown of all of the charges for the two months I was charging for, as well as all of my teaching notes for the past year. I provided an Excel file with all of the time logs from our Skype calls, the applicable fee, and a small portion of the prep time I had done. This showed that I had done enough work to charge for a certain amount more than my invoice - I had rounded down my invoice amount by around £95.
The issue arose when the client replied, saying that she had never agreed to pay me for every minute on Skype, but only for 'agreed hours of teaching'. Her point is that during some of the time on Skype, I do things such as arranging further classes, which she never agreed to pay for. She also noted that I had charged a cancellation fee when the student was obviously unprepared for a class, so I had to cancel. She therefore demanded that I send a whole year's records to verify my charges. She also demanded that I send a full year's teaching notes, as requested by the student. She argues that I am contractually entitled to send them because she believed she was paying for time as well as any of my resources. She says that I do not send my records and my notes, she will ask the student to make an estimate of how much work I've actually done over the past year, and pay me on that basis.
My counterargument is that it's clearly reasonable to charge for all of my time spent working for her, including arranging further classes which is an inevitable part of the job. I also said that she can verify my charges by looking at her own Skype logs, so I have not sent a full year's records despite her demands. Also the demand to send notes has nothing to do with the charges, and she has no right to them, so I have refused to send those either. I did agree to waive the cancellation fee she mentioned. Moreover, I have charged for very little of the actual preparation time needed, and I have provided examples of this to the client. I have said that I'll work with her on finding a solution, even going to mediation if needs be, but I have not received any response.
I have contacted the client many times outlining my position, but she is consistently ignoring my emails. In my last email I imposed a deadline for the end of this week to pay the outstanding amount, after which I will prepare to take legal action. That will involve an official letter of claim, in which I will invite the client to take part in the mediation service before going via the small claims track. This has not prompted a response either.
I'm wondering if anyone can advise on my legal position based on what I've said. How strong is my claim against this client? How seriously will her argument be taken that I've charged for time she never agreed to pay for? How prejudicial is her lack of response to my emails, or indeed my tacit refusal to send full records on the basis that she has enough info to verify my charges?
One last question - this client is a former barrister who was disbarred for ignoring a CCJ after a contract dispute. She has in fact been bankrupted twice, according to the Gazette. These days she works as a lecturer at a university that teaches law, which once suspended her in line with the conduct that led to her disbarment. It is this same university that I am due to begin the GDL at this year. In this circumstance I am worried that she might be able to sabotage my chances of securing a scholarship as an act of revenge. I'm also wondering if the university would want to know about this dispute between a member of staff and an incoming student.
With all of this in mind, could anyone give me some pointers on the quality of my claim against this client, and offer any advice on what they think I should do next? This is an extremely complex and long-winded issue, so I'd like to say thanks in advance for any help.
The context is that in June 2019, I was contacted unprompted by a potential client looking for a tutor for her daughter. The client had found my contact details on a number of tutoring directories, and had decided to contact me directly to negotiate an ongoing tutoring arrangement. That same day I agreed to offer teaching to her daughter via Skype on an ad-hoc basis for a set rate per hour. This agreement was made in writing, albeit informally, via email that same day. It was also verbally agreed that I would charge for all necessary preparation time at the same rate, an agreement which was put in writing two months after the beginning of my relationship with the client. I built a good relationship with the student and her mother, and the two of them spoke to me extremely well of my teaching.
I would invoice on a semi-regular basis, taking a rough average of hours worked over the relevant period, always rounding down to the nearest hour. Every invoice was paid almost immediately with no questioning from the client. On multiple occasions the client would round up the fee slightly, and on one occasion paid a bonus of around £180. Every time I invoiced, I would specify that I had worked a total number of hours of teaching and prep, something the client had always tacitly agreed to by paying the required fees.
I recently decided to end my tutoring relationship with this client after I realised that this was no longer the right arrangement for me. After school lockdown began, I was asked to step in as effectively a full-time tutor, offering multiple hours over five days a week. During that time, I noticed a number of issues that made it harder to do my job. One was that the student became increasingly disrespectful, taking a poor attitude in classes and challenging my expertise in ways that were not appropriate. Another was that the student actively began to avoid doing the necessary work before lessons, relying on me to simply give her the answers. At one point she even asked me to send all of my teaching notes, in a transparent attempt to avoid having to take her own. Eventually it became impossible for me to tutor effectively, and I emailed the client with my decision at the end of May, sending a full invoice five days later.
It soon became obvious that the client was ignoring the invoice. Two weeks later I got an email asking for a full breakdown of all of the charges for the two months I was charging for, as well as all of my teaching notes for the past year. I provided an Excel file with all of the time logs from our Skype calls, the applicable fee, and a small portion of the prep time I had done. This showed that I had done enough work to charge for a certain amount more than my invoice - I had rounded down my invoice amount by around £95.
The issue arose when the client replied, saying that she had never agreed to pay me for every minute on Skype, but only for 'agreed hours of teaching'. Her point is that during some of the time on Skype, I do things such as arranging further classes, which she never agreed to pay for. She also noted that I had charged a cancellation fee when the student was obviously unprepared for a class, so I had to cancel. She therefore demanded that I send a whole year's records to verify my charges. She also demanded that I send a full year's teaching notes, as requested by the student. She argues that I am contractually entitled to send them because she believed she was paying for time as well as any of my resources. She says that I do not send my records and my notes, she will ask the student to make an estimate of how much work I've actually done over the past year, and pay me on that basis.
My counterargument is that it's clearly reasonable to charge for all of my time spent working for her, including arranging further classes which is an inevitable part of the job. I also said that she can verify my charges by looking at her own Skype logs, so I have not sent a full year's records despite her demands. Also the demand to send notes has nothing to do with the charges, and she has no right to them, so I have refused to send those either. I did agree to waive the cancellation fee she mentioned. Moreover, I have charged for very little of the actual preparation time needed, and I have provided examples of this to the client. I have said that I'll work with her on finding a solution, even going to mediation if needs be, but I have not received any response.
I have contacted the client many times outlining my position, but she is consistently ignoring my emails. In my last email I imposed a deadline for the end of this week to pay the outstanding amount, after which I will prepare to take legal action. That will involve an official letter of claim, in which I will invite the client to take part in the mediation service before going via the small claims track. This has not prompted a response either.
I'm wondering if anyone can advise on my legal position based on what I've said. How strong is my claim against this client? How seriously will her argument be taken that I've charged for time she never agreed to pay for? How prejudicial is her lack of response to my emails, or indeed my tacit refusal to send full records on the basis that she has enough info to verify my charges?
One last question - this client is a former barrister who was disbarred for ignoring a CCJ after a contract dispute. She has in fact been bankrupted twice, according to the Gazette. These days she works as a lecturer at a university that teaches law, which once suspended her in line with the conduct that led to her disbarment. It is this same university that I am due to begin the GDL at this year. In this circumstance I am worried that she might be able to sabotage my chances of securing a scholarship as an act of revenge. I'm also wondering if the university would want to know about this dispute between a member of staff and an incoming student.
With all of this in mind, could anyone give me some pointers on the quality of my claim against this client, and offer any advice on what they think I should do next? This is an extremely complex and long-winded issue, so I'd like to say thanks in advance for any help.
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