Law Department Management Blog
Always curating my blog, I went back to early 2009 to see since then what this blog has about alternative fee arrangements. Almost three dozen came to light.
Of course, a number of the posts had to do with metrics (See my post of Sept. 13, 2006: percentage of matters handled under alternative fee arrangements; Dec. 7, 2009: 55% of survey respondents to Hildebrandt said they have used AFAs; June 14, 2010: data from France on AFAs; Aug. 5, 2010: data from Kerma Partners; and Oct. 22, 2010: survey data on AFAs.).
Arguments for and against alternative fee arrangements abound (See my post of Nov. 17, 2006: survey finds that predictability favors alternative fee arrangements; Jan. 13, 2008: delay saps attractiveness of alternative fee arrangements; Sept. 7, 2008: alternative fee arrangements and conflicts; May 6, 2009: you learn when you negotiate an AFA; Jan. 28, 2010: obstacle to AFAs is software and managerial supervision; March 16, 2010: Baer’s four objections to AFAs and my counters; March 24, 2010: alternative fees and transaction costs; April 6, 2010: less resistance in law departments, more perceived at firms; May 26, 2010: failure to pursue AFAs could be dereliction of GC’s duty; June 1, 2010: six boundary conditions; June 2, 2010: mindsets valuable for AFAs; June 9, 2010: three more mental concepts; Oct. 7, 2010: accounting has problems with AFAs; Dec. 21, 2010: scorn for AFAs; Dec. 26, 2010: law firms can profit more under AFAs, but your costs can go down; April 30, 2011: alternative firms over fees; and June 10, 2011: AFAs are not simply a budget;).
Definitions and specific examples multiplied (See my post of May 6, 2009: 6 alternative fee arrangements; May 19, 2009: firm gives clients a choice; July 24, 2009: two offerings by a firm; Feb. 22, 2010: Linklater’s internal pricing group could aid AFAs; June 13, 2011: not to be believed AFA; and June 19, 2011: example of AFA.).
As for the remain posts, there were about, shall we say, alternative ideas (See my post of May 24, 2006: matter types assumed to be accurately described for alternative fee arrangements; July 25, 2007: larger departments more able to explore AFAs; Sept. 22, 2009: discussion is not more valuable than implementation; Jan. 25, 2010: ROI is best for AFAs; Feb. 8, 2010: segment work to move toward AFA; Aug. 5, 2010: do AFAs save money; and Nov. 23, 2010: law departments aren’t forceful in RFPs.).