Billing & Pricing

Erosion of Rate Growth: Am Law 50 Drives the Decline, Peer Monitor Reports

One of the more notable trends in recent months has been the signs of weakness in rate growth. The first few months of 2015 did…

Peer Monitor June 29, 2015

Law Firms Seeing Boost in Transactional Business, Peer Monitor Report Shows

Transactional practices are becoming increasingly important sources of growth for large law firms, helping to offset persistent weakness in litigation, according to a new report…

Peer Monitor June 22, 2015

In Defense of Efficiency

As we’ve observed on this blog, the anticipated “paradigm shift” in legal service is proceeding much slower than most observers expected. It is proceeding and…

Ralph Baxter June 16, 2015

Four Scalability Trends Impacting Law Firm Staffing Ratios:  How Do You Compare?

Adjust. Adapt. Repeat. This has been the mantra of many corporate staffing models that scale talent to meet industry innovations and technological advancements. Why should…

Jessa M. Baker June 08, 2015

Lessons from a Few GCs

I recently had the opportunity to attend the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in San Diego. Like so many of these events, the content as…

Bill Josten May 13, 2015

AFAs Arising: Differing Perspectives on the Billable Hour

The billable hour—it has become the double-edged sword of the practice of law over the last few years. On the positive side, as metric-based on…

Bill Josten April 22, 2015

Canadian Perspective: Billable Hour Morphing into Alternative Fee Arrangements

It may not be in its final hour, but more and more lawyers are conceding the billable hour is being put in its “proper place”…

Jennifer Brown April 01, 2015

Three Basic Questions: A Roadmap to Client Satisfaction

Achieving client satisfaction requires more than doing excellent legal work and reaching a satisfactory outcome. It requires the lawyer to deliver service in a way…

Ralph Baxter March 31, 2015

The Inherent Client Conflict of Interest Caused by Hours-Based Billing

For some time I have been troubled by the potential conflict of interest that hours-based billing causes between the lawyer and the client. The more…

Ralph Baxter March 10, 2015

RULES of Law Firm Profitability, Part 2

In my previous blog post, I discussed the basic levers of profitability, which are commonly referred to as RULES—Rates, Utilization, Leverage, Expenses and Speed. I…

John M. Westcott, Jr. February 11, 2015

RULES of Law Firm Profitability, Part 1

Law firms of all sizes are constantly trying to fine-tune the basic levers of profitability, which are commonly referred to as RULES: Rates Utilization (high…

John M. Westcott, Jr. February 04, 2015

Challenges and Solutions for Electronic Billing

It has become clear that, for law firms, not only is electronic billing here to stay, but adoption by corporate clients will continue to accelerate.…

Thomson Reuters Institute May 07, 2014