Generally there are methods by which to successfully defeat all of these defenses. The greatest problem is waiting too long to enforce your contractual rights. With the passage of time clients file for bankruptcy, become insolvent or close their shops. Even if you succeed in obtaining a judgment there may be nothing left to satisfy it. Prompt enforcement of your claim is paramount.

1.    The no close/no pay defense is invalid unless it was disclosed to the abstractor at the time the abstractor accepted the order from the client. Most abstractors do not work with written agreements but rather oral agreements. In those instances in which there is a written contract involved...strike the no close/no pay clause from the contract before signing it. When the parties are performing under an oral contract the search order becomes strong evidence of what type of work was ordered , and what the terms of payment were. In this case make certain that the amount of your fee and the date of payment are mentioned in the search order. If there is a no close/no pay contingency mentioned in the search order...insist that the client remove it, and give you a revised search order before performing the search. If the client attempts to raise the no close/no pay policy at a later date, he is simply attempting to modify or amend the existing contract. In most states the defense is not valid unless the abstractor agrees to the subsequent modification.

2.   Not having signed a price agreement may be strong evidence that there was no agreement, but it is far from conclusive. It is primarily a matter of the evidence to support the claim. In the absence of a written agreement which would possibly foreclose payment, the court may rule that a reasonable amount is the proper amount.  In the alternative the abstractor may not be in a position to prove the pricing term In which case he will win on the issue of liability, but will be awarded only nominal damages of $1.00. If the client accepted the abstractor's work after receiving the invoice for the abstract, it is evidence that the client agreed to the price. This evidence becomes much stronger each time the abstractor repeatedly sends a bill for a specific amount, and the client ignores it. 

There may be a contract implied in fact in which there is never a word of its contractual terms spoken between the parties, and their conduct of performing the search and the client's acceptance thereof may be determined by the conduct of the parties.

There are also equitable remedies available such as unjust enrichment...a contract implied in law. In which case the client is liable for payment of a reasonable fee if the client accepted the abstract when the client knew or should have known that the abstractor expected to be paid. In this case a reasonable amount of payment becomes operative. The reasonable amount of the fee could be proved through a variety of means, including an industry stadard or prior course of dealing between the parties. Express contracts and implied contracts cannot coexist. However, if the lack of a pricing term in an express contract is fatal to the contract...the contract implied in law can be asserted.

3.    Proof of having ordered the search may be easier than the client thinks. The written search order would be the best evidence. However, the client's use of the abstract would also work well. It would simply be a matter of serving a subpoena on the title insurer and lender to prove that the abstractor's search was the basis for issuance of a title insurance policy. In addition to paying the abstractor...the client will most likely lose his client.

4.   The absence of the individual that ordered the work or his/her lack of authorization to order the work is not the end of the argument.  The issue is the extent to which authorization to order the search existed...not whether or not the individual is still employed by the client. There are a number of different types of authorization under the law of agency. Most of us are acquainted with express authorization in which the client has clearly appointed the individual as the client's agent/employee for the purpose of ordering the search. However, the client may have clothed the individual with sufficient apparent or inherent authority to order the search if the client has placed the individual in a position to reasonably create the impression that the individual is properly authorized.  There is also the matter of ratification of the individual's order of the search if the client has accepted and used the abstractor's work.

       If he has accepted the abstractor's work the client may also have waived his defense or in the alternative be estopped from asserting it. I recently litigated a case against a car dealership. The defendant claimed that the individual who signed the contract was not authorized to bind the defendant to the contract. However, the defendant had accepted services from my client for many months. The court ruled that the client had benefited from my client's services, and was therefore estopped from denying the validity of the contract.

5.   "We never received the bill." This is an easy defense to overcome. In Connecticut there is a rebutable presumption that if correspondence is properly addressed and properly posted it is presumed to have been received by the defendant. The burden of proof is shifted to the defendant to prove that he did not receive it. The only time that I have seen the presumption rebutted is when the the recipient had moved the location of his business at the relevant time, or the the proponant failed to establish proof that would give rise to the presumption.

    I remember a case in which compliance with a contract cancellation was at issue. The contract required timely notification of non renewal or the contract would automatically renew for another 5 years. The defendant asserted that he had mailed a timely cancellation, but the only evidence he could produce was the self serving testimony of the defendant and a fax copy with a much later date in the fax signature at the top of the page. The defendant's witness testified that he had properly addressed and posted the letter of cancellation, but on cross examination it became apparent that he had not placed the letter out of his control in the mail box. He had placed it in a location within his office for a later mail pick up. The court opined that that his testimony and the fax copy of the letter were evidence, but not proof of  the presumption.

The more the abstractor protects himself in the terms of the search order he/she receives, the easier it will be for him/her to obtain payment.  If the client is not responding to the abstractor's invoices, the final invoice should be sent certified mail return receipt requested with copies of the ealier invoices attached to it.  

The above is Connecticut law, but most of these precepts have evolved over several centuries of common law, and exist in various forms in most states. Some have been codified into statute.