In-house lawyers bemoan hourly billing and needy firms

The in-house lawyers survey has arrived in time for Christmas. If you work in-house, have your say about the firms that have been naughty and those that have been nice.

In the responses so far, a common refrain by in-house lawyers was the lack of certainty with invoices. A number of respondents urged firms to end hourly billing and move towards fixed fees. One sceptical in-house lawyer said "stop seeing my organisation as a cash cow to be milked at the end of each month when billing figures are short".

Firms were also lambasted for being too needy. One respondent complained about an associate at a city firm that needed constant hand-holding for a matter. Another client criticised a firm that sent daily updates and invitations for coffee "at every opportunity".

"Don't think of me as your lawyer, think of me as your BFF"

Lawyers that were able to get on with work unaided were viewed favourably. One respondent praised Addleshaw Goddard, saying they could leave the firm to the job, and they would "get it done", adding "it's amazing how many law firms don't understand how important that is".

For other clients, it took considerably less to impress them, as one in-house lawyer revealed "we continue to instruct Womble Bond Dickinson simply because we haven't yet exhausted our ‘over-ground under-ground’ jokes".

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Comments

yes we will end hourly billing at the point when in house counsel write a properly worded and limited scope of work with reasonable assumptions. Otherwise we have to price things based on what they cost...makey sensey?

If you want fixed fees then ask for an an ascertainable service. If you were clients in the building trade it would be like asking a builder to build you a house for a fixed price on the basis that you havent got a plot of land yet, you dont know how big you want the house, or what it is to be made from or when you want it complete by - but you want a fixed price.

Will you charge double for the extra "an" in the second paragraph?

@anonymous 15/122017 11.38 The building example ends up working against you. No-one with half a brain accepts a time and materials quote from a builder - you get a fixed price because you don't want to end up paying extra for the fag and tea breaks and short cut days.

Frankly private practice law firms are one of the last industries that gets away with taking the piss out of their clients. Clients paying for the junior lawyers on the team to be trained. Paying for travelling time while another client gets billed for the work done in the same time on a train. Firms reward their lawyers in line with recorded time which leads to a culture of time dumping. Until these things change no-one will be happy.

If I give woolly instructions to a private practice lawyer, then I would welcome some time spent together to scope out the instructions in a way that leads to a fixed price quote at the end.

Like when the builder sends you an email two weeks after doing the job asking if you need anything else doing and you reply saying that you don't. Then he tries to bill you £38.10 for him asking the question and another £38.10 for you telling him you are fine.

@anonymous 15/12/2017 13:15. Must be a lot of people with less than half a brain working in-house then...

Do we get the chance to rate the tossers in the in-house departments we have to endure day to day?

If you’ve done lots of similar matters with other clients, and have all this market expertise we like to shout about, isn’t it fair to ask them to take some risk by capping/fixing the price? If law firms are saying ‘well we don’t know, anything could happen and we don’t know enough to take the risk of capped/fixed fees’, well.. great - you’ve eroded the value of all that market experience, as it’s always different, right? You just can’t have it both ways.

Ps - re the tossers in-house etc.. good luck with that career in a service industry...

I enjoy working for in-house counsel when they've previously worked in private practice. This allows clearer instructions and a more frank discussion about funding. It's only more difficult when you deal with in-house counsel without private practice experience.

Ok, the Womble Bond Dickinson part just made me guffaw out loud in the office and now everyone is looking at me...

Coming back to the builder analogy - we have just had the builders in. They took down the wall, found some extra problems, and therefore told us that the job would cost more if we wanted them dealing with. That was most unwelcome, but I could not complain that it was unreasonable - I could see the extra problems in front of me.

I have to say, if (big if perhaps) there is proper trust on both sides, I can't see the difference between me saying "X/hr, I will do it as cheaply as I can, here is an indication of likely cost", and "fixed price Y, with freedom to come back if you ask for significant and unforeseeable extra work". After all, the builder has worked out fixed price Y by applying an hourly rate and an estimate of how long it takes - and probably then adding a bit extra on to give some wiggle room.