Is the Hourly Rate Dead?

Beyond the daily headlines of layoffs and reductions in force, the current Recession/”Depression” has made another impact on the legal profession: raising more questions about the viability of the billable hour. The Association of Corporate Counsel's Value Challenge is one of the most prominent examples, as it pursues developing a Value Index that will evaluate law firm billings against corporate clients' perceptions of value and efficiency. However, the skepticism is hardly all on the client side. Lawyers for years have complained of the “billable hour blues” and the necessity of measuring their professional life in time increments. The presiding partner of one of the largest national law firms even suggested in a major business publication that the billable hour should be killed, saying that because of it, “clients feel they have no control. There is no correlation between costs and quality.”