Should Law Firms Still Use The Billable Hour?

We're hosting a fresh conversation about the billable hour in 2017. Follow along here!

Starting today, we’re hosting a fresh conversation about the billable hour in 2017.

The debate over the billable hour is one of the most exhausted conversations in legal. For years, debating whether we should retire the billable hour was the lawyer equivalent of the marijuana legalization debate, which is to say, a fun intellectual exercise that went absolutely nowhere. But, like marijuana laws, the dominance of the billable hour has shown signs of cracking.

Moreover, the legal industry’s adoption of technology, alternative legal service providers, and innovation is rekindling this conversation, but with fresh, nuanced perspectives. To cultivate that conversation, we’ve invited folks from all sides of the ecosystem to participate: Patrick Lamb, founder of the Valorem Law Group; Adam Steiner, software engineer turned practicing lawyer; Alma Assay, former Gibson Dunn litigator & founder of AllegoryBrad Blickstein, founder of Blickstein Group; Ken Grady, former GC, lean law evangelist at Seyfarth, and adjunct professor at Michigan State University College of Law; Catherine Krow, former partner at Orrick and founder of Digitory Legal; Mike Knowles, firm administrator at Emmanuel Sheppard & Condon; and Keith Lee, lawyer, blogger, and founder of Lawyer Slack. Most importantly, the discussion is sponsored by Planet Data, eDiscovery service provider, developers of the Exego platform, and a company that wants to advance the conversation about legal innovation.

Want to follow along as the conversation unfolds or get a digest when it finishes? Click the green button below.


Zach Abramowitz is a former Biglaw associate and currently CEO and co-founder of ReplyAll. You can follow Zach on Twitter (@zachabramowitz) or reach him by email at zach@replyall.me.