“Firms in which two thirds of their large corporate clients are in a long-term relations on average charge $4.07 less per hour for partners and $1.60 less per hour for associates than firms in which only one-third of their large corporate clients are in the long-term relations.” Laura Empson, ed.,…
Dan Williams of t-Mobile earns a big thanks for telling me about the so-called Laffey Matrix. The matrix is a table of hourly rates for outside attorneys and paralegals prepared by the Civil Division of the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. The rates are intended to…
Thinking about fixed fees the other day with a law firm’s Executive Director, I thought of a funnel for fee estimates. The funnel starts early in a matter with the law firm giving a broad but reasonable range for what it thinks its fees might be. Thereafter, at intervals determined…
“Firms with partners who sit on the boards of directors of corporations that are not their clients are able to charge a higher price than firms without these types of ties.” The authors who pointed out this correlation (Brian Uzzi, Ryon Lancaster and Shannon Dunlap) write in Laura Empson, ed.,…
Three authors (Brian Uzzi, Ryon Lancaster and Shannon Dunlap) present tabular data in Laura Empson, ed., Managing The Modern Law Firm: New Challenges New Perspectives (Oxford Univ. Press 2007) at 99. The table shows data for five groups of 133 law firms during 1989-95 organized into quintiles by number of…
If I were a general counsel, when I look at billing rate increases of my favored incumbent firms (See my post of April 16, 2009: incumbent firms with 11 references.), I would want to see two trends. One trend should be a lower pace of rate changes than in general…
General counsel may feel besieged by solicitors – a pun lurks there on the English term for non-litigation lawyers and the common meaning of those who solicit. One view, however, is that “In many firms, regardless of size or reach, the ratio of rainmakers is low, estimated by firm leaders…
“I like in-house lawyers to stick to their side of the deal. It is simply unfair when the client expects you and your team to jump to a teleconference on a Sunday, and then pays your bills several months later and after many reminders. It is disrespectful.” Partners feel their…
The gigantic law firms that circled the globe always talk about how valuable they are in a huge transaction that requires lawyers to combine from multiple countries. Of course, there are huge deals that require legal advice in many countries, and of course when there is a blue moon it…
Saul Ewing, a Philadelphia-based firm, launched its “cost certainty commitment” in June 2009. Many law firms have agreed to work on various types of matters for a fixed fee, but I cite this particular one because of the publicity surrounding it and because of its specificity. A partner describes the…