No written contract? That's your client's violation, not yours.

The burden was theirs.

NY GEN. BUS. LAW ART. 44-A · WRITTEN CONTRACT REQUIREMENT

Under the statewide Freelance Isn't Free Act, once your work for a hiring party reaches the $800 threshold (alone or aggregated over 120 days), the hiring party must reduce the deal to writing: names and addresses, an itemization of services, the rate and method of pay, and the payment due date. A client who skipped that step violated the Act, and a client who refused a written contract after you asked for one can owe statutory damages for that refusal on top of everything else. "Nothing was signed" is their confession, not their defense.

Your deal exists anyway.

New York contract law has never required a signature ceremony for a services agreement of this kind. A contract can be formed by emails, texts, a scoped proposal followed by "sounds good," an invoice paid without objection last month and unpaid this month. What matters is evidence of the essential terms: what work, for what price. Courts, agencies, and, most importantly, the client's own lawyer all know this.

Reconstruct the agreement this week.

• Pull the thread where scope and price were discussed, and the message where the client said yes.
• Collect proof of delivery: files sent, links delivered, the work live on their site or feed.
• Gather every invoice and every response to one, including silence: dates of sending matter.
• Screenshot everything on platforms you don't control (DMs, Slack workspaces they own) today.
• Write a short timeline while memory is fresh; it becomes the spine of a demand letter or testimony.

What your claim can look like.

A covered freelancer who was never paid can assert the unpaid fee, double damages for nonpayment, and attorney's fees under the Act, plus the written-contract violation, plus ordinary breach of contract. Stacked in an attorney demand letter, the exposure usually dwarfs the invoice, which is exactly the pressure that gets invoices paid. See what the demand letter contains, or the full playbook in what to do when a client won't pay.

Going forward: make them ask you.

For the next gig, a two-paragraph email stating scope, fee, and due date, sent before you start and acknowledged by the client, satisfies you both practically and preserves every statutory right. You are also entitled to simply ask for a written contract; under the Act, requesting one is protected activity, and punishing you for asking is retaliation.