Privately owned businesses, with and without in - house counsel, and publicly owned corporations, have legal matters that are suitable to be performed by smaller and midsized firms that may be billed
using alternative billing methods.
This newly revised third edition of the highly acclaimed Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour: Strategies that Work, provides you with tools you can use in your practice to implement and
evaluate alternative billing methods, including real case studies of lawyers and firms successfully using alternative billing to deliver value to both the client and the lawyer.
In fact, what we call «pricing» today is an evolution that stretches back nearly 30 years, when the American Bar Association formed a Task Force
on Alternative Billing Methods in 1987.
I continue to believe, however, that clients
want alternative billing methods in order to have lower overall fees, not because they believe their lawyer is worth more than his or her hourly fee.
Downward price pressure from clients, excessive competition in the market, the rise
of alternative billing methods, and other market factors will force law firms to lower their overhead and drive them toward more cost effective software solutions.
But there are many many more that can be changed to a fixed fee or
alternative billing method.
To be successful at making a change from the billable hour to
alternative billing methods, you must be clear about the benefits to you and to your clients, and the consequences for failing to make the change.
You need to increase the value of your legal services, which probably means reduced fees and
alternative billing methods.
However, lawyers interested in
alternative billing methods should see Beyond the Billable Hour, edited by Richard C. Reed and published by the ABA Section of Law Practice Management (1989).
Privately owned businesses, with and without in - house counsel, and publicly owned corporations, have legal matters that are repetitive in nature or largely standardized that can be performed by smaller and mid-sized law firms that can be billed using variations on hourly rate billing and
alternative billing methods.
The majority of law firm partners favour the traditional hourly rate model as a more accurate way of billing, despite a continued push from clients to use fixed fees and other
alternative billing methods, according to Legal Week research.
«Less Cost, More Value: Case Studies Illustrating the Use of Technology and
Alternative Billing Methods» by Carolyn Dillinger (OC Bar The Bottome Line) >> READ ARTICLE
From those efforts sprang the industry's first pricing book, Beyond the Billable Hour: An Anthology of
Alternative Billing Methods, published in 1989.
Webinar - Artificial intelligence, GDPR,
alternative billing methods, LPOs... The legal profession is changing.
I would add that if you haven't embraced
an alternative billing method, keeping track of the time you spend texting could also be difficult.