Has anyone dealt with something like this? I'm not sure what my options are.
client won't pay for completed work. I've been dealing with this for about 7 weeks now and the situation isn't improving.
The contract was signed 20 months ago. I have a copy of the original agreement. The total amount in dispute is approximately $57,000.
Do I have a strong case? What should my next steps be?
Just want to point out — the statute of limitations might be a factor here. In some states it's as short as 1-2 years. Don't sit on this too long.
Coming back to this thread because the title and the actual question have drifted apart and new readers get confused.
On the unpaid completed work part: the single most useful thing you can assemble is the acceptance trail. Not the contract, the acceptance. The message where they said this looks good, the deployment, the invoice that went unchallenged for weeks. Non payment disputes very often turn into quality disputes once money is at stake, and the acceptance trail is what stops that pivot.
Agreed. And a note on late fees, since it comes up in every one of these threads.
If your contract has no late fee or interest clause, you generally cannot invent one after the fact and expect it to stick. What you can usually still ask for is the principal, and depending on the situation there may be interest available by other routes. Adding a made up penalty to the demand mostly gives the other side something easy to argue about instead of the amount they actually owe.
Put the fee clause in the next contract instead. That is the real fix.