I wouldn't continue doing work for a client who didn't pay me or hadn't paid me in weeks or months. I send out a monthly invoice and I have this hope that the client pays me. I put my full trust in them to pay me just as they put their full trust in me to rely on me to fix their broken website. If they don't, than the next time they ask me to work on their website, I can send them a reminder to pay that invoice before I continue doing any work. This is how I know I will always be paid. If they were to not pay on multiple occasions or "forget", than I know I'd have a problem client on my hands. So far, I've only had to send a reminder to one client to pay her invoice before I would continue doing any work on her website. She had missed the invoice email I originally sent.

According to what you say, this means that I can hire anyone and not pay them, but according to the contract we came up with: Regardless of whether I pay or not, they have to do the work for me. No one in their right mind would ever sign this or abide. Most contracts come with this assumption that payment shall be received and work shall be done in order to receive the payment. If no payment is received, than it makes no sense to continue doing the work. This sounds highly illegal. They breached the contract therefore eliminating the other party's responsibilities to hold up their bargain on the contract as well.

As for lawyers.. there are a bunch of them who actually specialize in this specific type of law, and may be known as contract lawyers, small business lawyers, or even lawyers who specialize in freelance work, who help individuals or small companies from getting screwed. There is a lawyer for everything. And yeah, you have to find an affordable one, and possibly negotiate with that lawyer too, but I'm pretty sure most of them have a fee range and it all depends on how much paperwork you do and how much paperwork they have to do.

If we're talking thousands of dollars owed to a company or individual, than it is well worth it to pay that lawyer a few hundred dollars to try and retrieve that money, at least, in part to what is owed. In some cases, you can probably get the lawyer to ask for extra money to cover the court and attorney fees. For work that remains undone, no one can force the client to pay that. But to do work for a client and then take them to court? He's in a situation where the client has already stopped paying before the work was ever complete.

As for his client running out of money? I don't care. He doesn't care. Why should he? I can't walk into a Walmart store and take something and walk out because I don't have the money. No one cares about my money problems. The only thing they care about is that I purchased that product legally with money. That store had to pay for that item and then they resold it to me for whatever price they charged. This is the social contract of society. This is no different from freelancing, contract or not. You don't pay, you don't get. This guy has to pay his rent. He has to pay his bills. Does the company care? Yet they still want work done? Yeah, screw that. They breached the contract which revokes all his responsibilities to them.