Don’t bill for time spent by first year associates, increase dramatically the time spent on educating young associates and bill only by fixed or flat fees … these are three different approaches to providing more value to clients and greater certainty to the cost of legal services for clients that are highlighted in a current article in the ABA Journal.
Does any or all of these new approaches increase the cost of doing business? Possibly. Do they increase satisfaction of your clients. Definitely. Do they increase your revenue? Quite probably.
These approaches are worth considering and perhaps adopting for your practice.
The challenge in our industry is that i) most lawyers don’t think they have anything of value to sell; ii) lawyers tend to be focused on the here and now, wanting to take as much money out now as possible, leaving little value in the law practice; and iii) have little or no desire to think about legacy …This makes it difficult to focus on succession.
I’m not talking about the legal aspects of succession, but rather the business aspects of it …. why/when/how … As our practice ages, we may see a movement not only toward the ABA’s "second season," but also personal legacy within the profession.
Mike McKee, a reporter for the San Francisco Recorder once again underscores the hostility that California lawyers have against the current malpractice insurance disclosure proposal.
Still, the question I asked earlier in this series has yet to be answered by the Board of Governors! Why is it that shareholders of law professional corporations do not have to disclose that they do not have malpractice insurance? Or, at least meaningful malpractice insurance? All they need to do is sign a piece of paper saying that they will be responsible for the first $50,000 of a malpractice judgment. There is no financial statement required, no verification of financial ability and no insurance policy required under the current rules; nor is there any such requirement under the new proposed rule!
And why is this fair in the minds of the Governors supporting this proposal?
In Law Firm Fees & Compensation: A LawBiz® Special Report, I discuss several formats for billing legal services. Jeff Bleich, President of the State Bar of California, discusses one of these formats, the billable hour in his April column of the California Bar Journal. He raises the specter of the “billable hour trap.” He maintains that the profession must change its fee structure and move away from the current policy of billing by time. He reflects the thinking of many lawyers who are feeling the pressure of working long hours.
Because of his comments, I began to think about this subject in a way different than I have ever done in the past. I want to share some of my revelations as, perhaps, a catalyst for your further consideration on what clearly is a very important issue. (more…)
Sole and small firm practitioners have more at stake than insurance in the current debate at the California Board of Governors over mandatory disclosure of malpractice insurance coverage, much more! Their very existence is threatened. Perhaps that is an overstatement. What is clear, though, is that the economic well-being of this group, and the very survival of many individuals in this group, is being threatened. (more…)
The season is over for 2 elite basketball programs. But, for neither, was this a losing season. Both won more than 30 games this year, against some very good teams … and all of the Final Four teams, for the first time in NCAA history, were ranked #1 in their respective regions.
Are there any lessons to be learned from this excitement for lawyers and law firms? (more…)
