Death Wish

We have a client who doesn't want to pay his bill and is therefore looking for things to complain about in hopes of getting out of paying for the final installment on his legal fee. Today, he tried to claim that the recommendation letter that I edited for him was "full of grammar mistakes" that the letter writer had to correct.

I'll pause for just a moment while Finbar and Hulio pick their jaws up off the floor.

I, of course, take this as a personal affront. I pulled my copy of the letter as I sent it back to him to be printed on letterhead and signed, and I compared it line-by-line with signed letter brought in to us today. There were *zero* corrections made to my grammar. Instead, the moron had changed the phrasing in three locations so that it minimzed the work done by the client. In fact, at one point, he took out he required language (that the person applying for adjustment be of "extraordinary ability") and replaced it with the Phrase of Death ("Mr. X shows great promise"). I had a brief moment of Schadenfreude, envisioning the moment when Client Cheapskate gets his denial letter from immigration because it's not enough to show "great promise" in the visa category he's applying for. Unfortunately, the letter will have to stand as it is, since we can't force someone to write something they don't want to or don't think is true. Which means that it's now my problem because I'll have to try and dance around it in my accompanying motion.

Grammar mistakes indeed.