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Redaction on Pricing Legal Services

By William C. Cobb
August 25, 2009

In my past articles in various publications I have discussed the options in alternative billing. The article herein takes that discussion a step further with information from Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC). How does a law firm or in-house counsel do it and what steps can taken to create a competitive advantage with alternative billing?

Up through 1992, as a member of the Alternative Billing Task Force of the ABA Law Practice Management Section, I had written many chapters and articles on the various approaches to alternative billing. We were intent on moving the legal profession off of hourly billing to value billing, which included blended rate, contingency, or fixed-price billing. We have seen changes occur, but slowly. It took the current economic situation to make clients finally get fed-up enough with high-cost leverage and partner compensation to say “no more.” Referring matters to high-cost, highly leveraged law firms, where the model was based on hourly rates, has become obsolete. Clients are no longer satisfied with the old business model of law firms (hours times rate equals value added).

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