Nonetheless, travel time may only be reimbursed where it is reasonable. Finding that the time spent traveling was unreasonable in this case, the court appropriately determined to exclude that time. Full copies of court decisions may be available through counsel or through various Internet links or paid services. October 3, Case Studies , Newsletters , Publications. No Comments. By Laura R. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Instagram.
Address 2. The concept of alternative fee arrangements is a relatively new idea to emerge in the legal industry over the past few decades, especially in the field of corporate law.
The primary driver behind this has been the need of corporate legal, risk, and claims departments to have more predictability over their legal costs. Alternative fee arrangements can get quite complex, but some of the more basic options which may be considered to help clients move beyond standard billable hour arrangements include:. Despite some of the drawbacks and the plethora of alternative fee options out there, hourly billing is not always the terrible deal that some make it out to be.
Whether you love them or hate them, billable hours are here to stay for the foreseeable future. All Rights Reserved. A Quick History of Legal Billing The ways attorneys have billed for their services have changed quite a bit over the years.
One of the driving forces behind this change was the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure , which complicated the litigation process and made flat fees impractical. This publication made the process of timekeeping more widespread in the legal profession, but still hourly billing was somewhat of a rarity.
Until this point, price competition among attorneys had been highly discouraged. Virginia State Bar determined that standardized minimum and maximum fee systems were a violation of antitrust laws. After this ruling, billing based on the amount of time spent working on a matter became the standard approach for the legal profession.
Even with these alternative fee arrangement options, the billable hour still remains the primary billing method used by law firms. How Billable Hours Work The term billable hours refers to time spent by an attorney, paralegal, or other law firm employee on work for a client which is chargeable to that client.
Why Billable Hours Matter to Law Firms and the Impact on Clients Billable hours are the principal internal metric law firms use to measure employee productivity. Alternative fee arrangements can get quite complex, but some of the more basic options which may be considered to help clients move beyond standard billable hour arrangements include: Fixed Fees: The law firm agrees to do all the work related to a particular case or matter for a fixed price.
Sometimes, the fixed fees apply to particular subsets of the bigger engagement for example, individual tasks or services. Capped Fees: This is a normal hourly billing arrangement, but the law firm agrees to a predetermined maximum fee that will not be exceeded.
Blended Rates: This is also similar to a normal hourly billing arrangement, but the main difference is that the client agrees to pay a single hourly rate regardless of who in the law firm completes the task. This avoids the issue with a senior person billing for work that could have been just as easily completed by a more junior person. Contingency Fees: Under this scenario, the client will only pay if a desired outcome is achieved.
This is more often used in the case of a plaintiff where the fee can be set as a percentage of damages awarded in the case, and are a bit less common for corporate clients on the receiving end of a lawsuit.
0コメント