How Widespread Is Unethical Billing?

Aside from a few sensational disbarments and criminal prosecutions for overbilling, most evidence of billing irregularities is anecdotal. In order to provide a more precise assessment of the scope of the abuse of time-based billing by attorneys, I conducted nationwide surveys of outside counsel in 1991, 1995, and 2007. The large majority of respondents to all three surveys ' 82% in the most recent survey ' indicated that time-based billing was their dominant method of billing.

16 minute read September 28, 2007 at 02:42 PM
By
William G. Ross
How Widespread Is Unethical Billing?

As most consumers of legal services are well aware, time-based legal bills present many opportunities for inefficient, careless, and dishonest lawyers to inflate legal fees.

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