[suresk]

It is worth noting that there are reasons beyond enforceability for having written contracts - making sure both parties are on the same page about important elements of the contract such as scope of work, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and payment terms.

I'm not implying that this is what happened here, but it isn't at all uncommon for two parties to verbally negotiate something like this in good faith and come away with different understandings of subtle, but important, elements.

Writing it down doesn't prevent this entirely, but it goes a long way to clearing up possible misunderstandings.

Certainly, nobody deserves to go unpaid for their work, but anyone starting work without a clear written understanding of the facts is setting themselves up for all sorts of problems.