Paper retention agreements vs the old handshake era in Phoenix

Back in 2009 I ran a small agency out of Mesa and we did a client deal on a napkin at a diner. Fast forward to last month, that same client tried to claim we never agreed to a kill fee, so I had to dig through 15 years of emails to prove it. Now I use a one page retainer template with clear scope lines for every project, no exceptions. Paper might feel stiff but it saved me from a $6,000 argument. Anyone else switch from casual deals to formal docs after getting burned?

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felixlee16d ago

That napkin story hit close to home, man. I lost a retainer dispute back in 2011 over a verbal scope change, and it cost me about the same as your kill fee mess. Since then I keep a simple one pager in my drive and honestly, the extra five minutes of paperwork beats a month of angry emails every time.