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1. Posted by Ellen shea - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 8 hours, 24 minutes ago

   Absolutely agreed with Turow-
   Right out of law school in 2006 and worked at Insurance Defense for NY Firm - billing 2400 hours minimum - it was the most miserable working environment and counterproductive for quality work - now at a small Plaintiff’s firm, doing well, perfecting the craft plus the best congenial working place - I would definitely have sought other work outside legal field with the billable hours at 2400

2. Posted by John Bredehoft - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 7 hours, 3 minutes ago

   I agree as well, but I just don’t know what to put in its place.  A blended fee based on the many factors permitted, ethically, to be evaluated may provide some satisfaction—but will be very difficult for a client to evaluate or to plan around.  Flat fees make sense in some tasks, but not in others.  And the use of a billable-hour calculation as the sole determinant of a fee penalizes attorney efficiency.  All that being said, after almost 25 years as an attorney (and practicing in firms of all sizes, from an international Wall Street megafirm to a two-lawyer civil rights shop to a regional 500-lawyer firm to my current post at a 130-lawyer firm), I am more concerned with the focus on, and glorification of, the billable hour, than I am with the hourly-rate system itself.  Lawyers must be community leaders, concerned school parents, and volunteers, as well as attorneys and counselors.  Any suggested alternatives?

3. Posted by Joseph R. Martan - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 6 hours, 35 minutes ago

   No question - the billable hour has to go.  You better believe it is a concept standing in direct opposition to attorney competency and efficiency.  It encourages churning out needless work merely to meet a quota.  Yet I’ve known too many attorneys who have been given the “you’re just not working out” speech because they resolved files with summary judgment motions or a half-hour of good hard negotiating while mediocrities who deposition a file to death are rewarded with partnerships.  Corporate firms and insurance defense firms are the worst practitioners of this travesty.  However, the legal profession has only itself to blame.  Partners want bigger six-figure draws.  Silk-stocking firms engage in these idiotic prestige contests to see who can pay a greenhorn newly licened attorney from a handful of prestige schools more and more money as a starting salary.  And pity those souls who work in the sweatshops that require a 2300, 2400 or 2500 hour a year “quota.” So long as this is the mantra that governs the profession, the profession forfeits its right to be called a profession - it has degenerated into a very grubby, very bottom-line oriented business where the attorney is actually worse off than the kid with just the high school diploma working on a factory assembly line - the kid at least probably has a union contract that pays him overtime after so many hours.

4. Posted by Carter - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 5 hours, 45 minutes ago

   Charging for time is a horrible business practice. No one wants to pay for “effort” or sheer time spent on a project. I wouldn’t pay a farmer for trying to grow crops, or for the time it took him to grow a tomato. I pay him for the final product.

   Lawyers are estopped from complaining about the system. We have created it and perpetuate it. Want to see better, more efficient methods emerge? Get rid of the government enforced monopoly that the bar has enjoyed for so long. I enjoy practicing law, but have no right to prevent other people from competing with me. Open competition would go a long way toward alleviating the complaints of this article and these comments.

5. Posted by Tim Hughes - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 5 hours, 37 minutes ago

   I am not sure the problems are with billable hours as concept or billable hours as executed.  I would love to have a practice where I could wait to the end like Edward Bennett Williams and send a single line item bill for whatever the file “was worth”, but that simply will not fly now.  Nevertheless, there needs to be some connection between value added, time spent, and compensation.

   I have my own firm.  I try to counsel my clients up front about what to expect and also how unpredicatable the process is.  If my opponent notes 15 depositions when 5 would suffice, why should I not get paid for the effort to respond?  If I quote a flat fee for the case, then my compensation and profitability depends on the reasonability of opposing counsel.  Bad business bet there for sure.

   If someone spins their wheels without advancing the ball, I give the client a credit or write off some time.  In this sense, while we purely bill hourly, I try to keep the client’s interest front and center and look at the relationships as always being cultivated and long term.

   Owning my own small two attorney firm obviously is a different world than many others.  I have been in bigger national and regional law firms where billing pressure, competition, and inflated hours were apparently part of modus operandi.  What really needs to happen is for clients to hire lawyers based on competence, ethics and relationships rather than the knee jerk internally justifiable response of hiring a huge law firm that bills the hell out of every case.

6. Posted by Patrick Fabian - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes ago

   Is the attorney’s 80th hour in a week as effective as the first? I don’t think so. Perhaps the client should demand a declining billing rate scaled to where that hour fits in the weekly work load. Full rate for the first 30 hours, then a reduction of say 2.5% for each hour over that. The high billable hour requirement cheats both the client and the attorney. Real change in the hourly load will not come about until clients start demanding it.

7. Posted by Hon. James J. Brown - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 4 hours, 20 minutes ago

   I agree with Scott Turow.  I was in a large firm in the mid-1980’s and it ate me for lunch.  I went back to the Department of Justice and have now been an ALJ for 12 years.  I have a balanced life and have time to play golf and write.  See:  www.jamejbrown.com.  I just recently completed a new novel:  “Will The Laugher Stop? BABYBOOMERCHRONICLES” coming from AuthorHouse.Com in late September.  How could I do this with the ball and chain syndrome of billable hours.  Thanks and LOL, Judge Jim Brown

8. Posted by Tom Singer - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 3 hours, 55 minutes ago

   Scott is right about the evils of the billable hour, but the evils of the contingent fee may be even greater.  Unfortunately, no better alternatives seem to be available.

9. Posted by James Rueffer - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes ago

   I agree with Patrick Fabian regarding the diseconomies of scale for the amount of productivity achieved for each additional hour worked.  My brother is a good air-traffic controller and my dad (retired) was a good firefighter, but, I would darn sure pay a higher price for the services of another ATC’er or firefighter who is in the first 8 hours of their workday than my dad or brother, if either was on their 12th or 16th hour of a shift.  The same statement can be made for workers in the trucking industry that we share the roads with, the doctors that treat us, pilots, teachers and so on down the line.  The difference is that most of those professions have some limitation on the number of hours someone engaged in that profession can work.  As much as I detest attempts to control a free-market economy with a Friedman-like zeal, until the person or company paying the bills for the attorney can somehow see the declining value of work produced hour after hour I don’t think the system will change absent some guidelines from the ABA.  Even that probably won’t happen until some associate burns out in just a spectacular-headline-grabbing-shock-the-conscience blaze of pyrotechnics.

10. Posted by CambodiaWayne - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 1 hour, 44 minutes ago

    I use a combination of Flat-Fee, Hourly, and Contingent.

    I practice immigration law. 

    My least favorite is Hourly.  Doing the billing is not fun and time consuming. 

    I usually bill hourly for two hours for an initial consul on any case to get a feel for it.  then, I quote a Flat-Fee.  I give the client an option of paying a contingent fee which is 3 times the Flat-Fee. 

    I prefer the Contingent Fee because it allows me to do the best on the case and feel good about it while I am doing it.

    ON a Fla-Fee, or Hourly, I am always very nervous before the hearing.  I create an extra pressure on myself in that I would feel bad if we are not successful and they have paid me already.  I know this may sound unusual to most of you out there.  But this is how I used to fee.

    Like Carter above, I feel that people should get a tomato when they pay for one.

    With the Contingent-Fee, I feel okay on the eve of the hearing and during the hearing as I know I have done my best and both my client and I share in the risk of the outcome.

    When I worked with a big firm (240 lawyers), they did not bill this way—only Hourly.  Cases would get expensive and a lot of time was spent discussing billing.  My supervisor jockeyed to tack on extra hours for himself—time needlessly spent as he had no experience on the issues we were dealing with and really just complicated things and cost more time for the client.

    I like it now, in my own small practice, where I can bill with the comfort of feeling and knowing I am doing the right thing, the best thing for both my client and myself.

11. Posted by InHouse - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 48 minutes ago

    I practice in-house.  A while back I inherited a fairly ordinary case.  The external firm had assigned 17 different people to work on the matter in the first month.  They had almost depleted the entire year’s projected budget before the end of the second month.  I had the privilege of taking over management of the case during the third month--which is when the invoice for the first month finally arrived.  I insisted on a reduction in the headcount and a revised budget.  The firm had the audacity to extrapolate the amounts charged in the earlier months and propose that as a reasonable budget for the year.  Let’s just say that I didn’t respond favorably.

    If there was ever a doubt whether some firms are driven by billable hours and revenue streams, this example should answer that question.  I am probably harder on law firms than many other in-house counsel, but I have seen abuses like this too many times.

    What is the solution?  On my side of it, manage the case from the beginning.  Set expectations.  Outline the budget and the work it is based on.  When the matter takes a different direction than projected, make adjustments.  Communicate.  Communicate.  Communicate.  If there is a surprise in the amount of a bill, figure out why and address the cause.  Some matters will have a high cost, but it should not come as a surprise.  Some matters will have a low cost, and the cost should be contained.

    Flat fees, contingent fees, and other alternative fee arrangments can be useful sometimes, but there is nothing inherently wrong with hourly rates.  They simply have to be managed.

12. Posted by Mary Libby Payne (Ret. Judge) - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 44 minutes ago

    Amen to that!
    However, I remember in the 1960’s we were billing by the task and starving to death.  Billable hours helped us evaluate our worth.  Those who billed by the hour made a decent living.  We must have “overlearned our lesson.”

13. Posted by Terry Hall - 11 months, 1 week, 2 days, 8 minutes ago

    I disliked the hourly billing world when I was in it.  Sometimes I knew my time was not being spent productively and didn’t record the time, and sometimes I accomplished a great deal in a short time but couldn’t charge accordingly.  Now I quote a flat fee and describe how I expect the matter to proceed, then tell the client I will alert them immediately if something arises which makes me think the fee needs to be re-negotiated.  This has worked very well, and every year I am better able to predict time and fees accurately and prepare for unforeseen changes.  The client knows what to expect and if I ask to renegotiate (rarely) the client usually already is aware of what is prompting the change in course.  I benefit from efficiencies and effective negotiations, and clients appreciate the predictability of cost.

14. Posted by Robert L. Ferguson, Jr. - 11 months, 1 week, 1 day, 15 hours, 59 minutes ago

    I disagree with Mr. Turow.  The problem is not the billable hour.  The problem is professionalism.  I have been practicing 34 years and have billed by the hour for most matters.  I am the senior member of a law firm with 16 lawyers.  Like many, I dislike the task of completing time sheets just like I dislike the task of completing expense reports, or balancing my check book, but these are tasks that must be done.  The billable hour is a reasonable way of keeping track of the time we devote to one client’s cause or another client’s cause.  If we set a fair rate and charge for our time it is a reasonable method to conduct business and receive a fair value for the time we devote to the client’s cause.  Hourly rates should be reasonable.  Lawyers can make a comfortable living charging reasonable hourly rates and devoting reasonable hours to their practices.  Associate salaries that far exceed what federal and State Court judges earn are part of what is driving the “billable hour.” Do law firms need salary caps like the NFL?

    I said that the problem is professionalism.  Sure, it’s a business, but first it is a profession.  In my firm we do not require 1800 hours from attorneys.  We charge by the hour for most matters because we are involved in litigation in many cases.  We charge fixed fees whenever the matter suits, but that largely depends upon the client and the repeat nature of the task.  Once you are familiar with the task you can set a fixed fee and, I agree, that is better.  However, nothing in litigation is repeat or entirely predictable.  Litigation is dependent upon how knowledgeable the client is, whether there are competitive or emotional issues involved and how professional your opponent is.

    Professionalism is the key.  Lawyers should spend time mentoring their colleagues.  Not only teaching them skills to achieve professional excellence for their clients, but also to be leaders and examples for other lawyers on how to work competently and efficiently for the client’s cause without rancor, ill temperament, hardball tactics or other unprofessional behavior.  We stress this in my firm.  We also devote substantial time to mentoring.  I have associates attend depositions and trials with me simply for the experience and the exposure to a process they need to learn.  I do not charge clients for an associate attending a deposition with me, unless it is an extremely complex case and there is an important function that the associate fulfills.  I do not charge a client for an associate attending trial with me when it is for a learning experience.  Certainly there are some lengthy cases that justify more than one attorney and we charge for their time, but they also relish the opportunity for the learning experience.  Even if there just for a learning experience, I require that the associate take an active role in the trial, handling the direct or cross of certain witnesses.  We require our attorneys to take part in professional and community activities.  We stress the importance of professionalism far more than the “billable hour.” The problem is that not enough members of the bar have the devotion to their “profession” to see the importance of these standards of professionalism.  Unfortunately the billable hour is a problem and the focus on 2000 or more billable hours detracts from professionalism.  If we devoted more time to raising standards of professionalism and less time on the billable hour, we, in our profession, would be better off.  That does not mean we should dispense with a very useful tool, the billable hour.  I recommend that anyone reading this comment go to the Maryland State Judiciary web site and read the recent report of the Professionalism Commission http://mdcourts.gov/professionalism/index.html.  It addresses professionalism issues and in the Commission’s lengthy study, nowhere did the issue of billable hours arise as a problem.

    Bob Ferguson
    Baltimore, Maryland

15. Posted by CambodiaWayne - 11 months, 1 week, 23 hours, 23 minutes ago

    Service, integrity, professionalism....  The keys. A lot of good comments here.

    it is interesting reading the comment thread to another article in this week’s Journal entitled - “$3,100 a Week for Summer Associates”

16. Posted by M. Kessler - 11 months, 1 week, 12 hours, 59 minutes ago

    I too tried the big firm route in the late ‘80s.  I came from the Public Defenders Office and was very excited about a new area of law and a chance to improve my career and outlook on life.  I joined an insurance defense firm that required 2400 billable hours a year and client promotion of approximately 10 additional hours a week.  The environment was toxic, back-biting and just ugly.  It was a hard place to work.  I walked away with a firm understanding of the practice of civil law on top of my criminal law experience but that is the best that I can say of my time with the “big firm”.

    I now work in the courts and actually have a private life that I can share with whoever I want; not clients or other stressed out attorneys trying to make the client like them better than me.  I was lucky to escape.

17. Posted by William C Cobb - 11 months, 1 week, 10 hours, 4 minutes ago

    I agree with Scott Turow, the time to end hourly billing is ending soon.  In 1989, I was one of the authors of the two books on alternative billing, “Beyond the Billable Hour” and then in the early 1990s the book “Win-Win Billing Strategies” based upon our view that hourly billing was driving inefficient services and lack of professionalism in providing quality legal service.  Both books were published by the ABAs Law Practice Management Section.  Although accepted by most business lawyers, not many litigators accept the practice because there are so many unpredictable tasks and events.  This is wrong because where ever a lawyer has control the lawyer can fix a fee.  My clients in corporate law departments and in law firms have figured out that initial discovery can be priced and that elements of the discovery such as classifying the importance of depositions and other tasks can be priced based upon a figure in the books called the Cobb Value Curve.
    Hourly billing encourages in efficiency.  It in encourages “fogging” which is running time into a file that provides little or no value added; “churning” which is running too many lawyers that have to come up to speed through a file ; and “rate transfer” which is allowing a high billing rate lawyer do work that a lower rate professionals can perform.
    The bottom line is that if alternatives to the hourly billing are used, a firm is motivated to perform tasks in the most effective and efficient manner and can realize even higher effective rates because their investment of time will be less than the fee bill while the client receives predictability.

18. Posted by R. Boucher - 11 months, 6 days, 13 hours, 37 minutes ago

    I just started at a small firm with modest billable hour requirements for associates (1700). I love what I am doing, but fear moving to a different firm and a life chained to my desk. I just started this new career, and at 40 am not interested in giving up the other parts which make life worth living.

    There’s got to be a better way than working move than 40 hours per week.

19. Posted by Michael C. Witt - 11 months, 6 days, 10 hours, 52 minutes ago

    In the jurisdiction where I practice, the regulatory authorities look with increasing suspicion upon anything other than hourly billing, layering numerous contract restrictions and bookkeeping requirements onto alternate fee arrangements.  As long as law schools keep cranking out new lawyers in debt over their heads and counting on the illiusory big salary to pay those obligations, the big firm interests will be be able to keep the associate treadmills humming, to the benefit of the partners.  It’s all fine and good to talk about professionalism, but the bottom line is the law, like medicine, has been completely commercialized. The business of law is, quite simply, brutal. That’s why I, like many others, have discouraged my children from attending law school in favor of other post-graduate disciplines.