Law.com Subscribers SAVE 30%
Call 855-808-4530 or email [email protected] to receive your discount on a new subscription.
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. Clients, judges, legal scholars, and even many lawyers have assailed hourly billing for providing lawyers with an incentive to work beyond the point of marginal utility and for generating fraud. Indeed, the padding of legal bills is practically the 'perfect crime' because it usually is almost impossible to detect. The high number of hours that many law firms demand of their attorneys is widely believed to have encouraged billing abuses. In order to promote better accountability, clients have increasingly scrutinized legal bills, often with the assistance of legal auditing agencies, and are often requiring lawyers to abide by guidelines that prescribe detailed procedures for billing practices.
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. Respondents to all three surveys had a wide range of seniority and types of practices. The first two surveys were returned by attorneys from the full spectrum of firm sizes. Although the third survey was directed at lawyers in all sizes of firms, nearly all of the 251 respondents reported that there were 25 or fewer lawyers in their firms. While the 2007 survey therefore is based almost entirely on attorneys in relatively small firms, the results of the most recent survey are generally very similar to those of the first two surveys.
Although the results of all three surveys do not support the view of clients and commentators who have alleged that billing abuse is rampant, the surveys do indicate that questionable billing practices are all too common.
This premium content is locked for Entertainment Law & Finance subscribers only
ENJOY UNLIMITED ACCESS TO THE SINGLE SOURCE OF OBJECTIVE LEGAL ANALYSIS, PRACTICAL INSIGHTS, AND NEWS IN ENTERTAINMENT LAW.
- Stay current on the latest information, rulings, regulations, and trends
- Includes practical, must-have information on copyrights, royalties, AI, and more
- Tap into expert guidance from top entertainment lawyers and experts
Already a have an account? Sign In Now Log In Now
For enterprise-wide or corporate acess, please contact Customer Service at [email protected] or 877-256-2473
Major Differences In UK, U.S. Copyright Laws
This article highlights how copyright law in the United Kingdom differs from U.S. copyright law, and points out differences that may be crucial to entertainment and media businesses familiar with U.S law that are interested in operating in the United Kingdom or under UK law. The article also briefly addresses contrasts in UK and U.S. trademark law.
Strategy vs. Tactics: Two Sides of a Difficult Coin
With each successive large-scale cyber attack, it is slowly becoming clear that ransomware attacks are targeting the critical infrastructure of the most powerful country on the planet. Understanding the strategy, and tactics of our opponents, as well as the strategy and the tactics we implement as a response are vital to victory.
The Article 8 Opt In
The Article 8 opt-in election adds an additional layer of complexity to the already labyrinthine rules governing perfection of security interests under the UCC. A lender that is unaware of the nuances created by the opt in (may find its security interest vulnerable to being primed by another party that has taken steps to perfect in a superior manner under the circumstances.
Removing Restrictive Covenants In New York
In Rockwell v. Despart, the New York Supreme Court, Third Department, recently revisited a recurring question: When may a landowner seek judicial removal of a covenant restricting use of her land?