Billing Rates
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Biglaw, Money, Partner Issues, Partner Profits
Buying In: Partner Paydays (Part 2)
Additional thoughts from the Anonymous Partner on partner compensation at large law firms. -
Biglaw, Money, Partner Issues, Partner Profits
Buying In: Partner Paydays (Part 1)
Wherein our Anonymous Partner further explicates the growing partner compensation spread at nearly all Biglaw shops. - Sponsored
Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
If 2023 introduced legal professionals to generative AI, then 2024 will be when law firms start adapting to utilize it. Things are moving fast, so… -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, In-House Counsel, Partner Issues
Inside Straight: How To Drive Outside Counsel Nuts!
In-house lawyers: do you engage in any of these annoying behaviors, which are guaranteed to drive outside counsel crazy?
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Biglaw, Money, Partner Issues, Partner Profits
New Data on Law Firm Partner Compensation
How much are law firm partners earning these days? And are they happy about it? A new survey has some answers. -
Secretaries / Administrative Assistants, Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners
The Practice: Engaging the Client, Before and After You're Retained
Practical pointers from Brian Tannebaum, one of our small-firm columnists, on how to engage with your clients. -
Attorney Misconduct, Bankruptcy, Biglaw, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, New York Times, Perverts, Prisons, SCOTUS, State Judges, Student Loans, Supreme Court
Morning Docket: 07.16.12
* Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one Supreme Court justice thinks that things will be back to normal at One First Street come the start of the next term, despite his colleagues’ loose lips. [National Law Journal]
* Hourly billing rates for associate are on the rise nationwide, while partner and counsel billing rates only saw modest bumps. Is Biglaw back in business, or is this just another “retention strategy”? [New York Law Journal]
* This is a really hard to believe newspaper headline: “Law firm recognizes employees have life outside of work.” Carlton Fields, what kind of gypsy voodoo magic spells are you casting? [South Florida Sun-Sentinel]
* Another day, another editorial about the “irretrievably broken” state of legal education in our country. But the ABA admins needn’t worry their oblivious little heads, because people will keep applying. [New York Times]
* And in today’s disturbing law school debtor news, Jason Bohn’s charge was upgraded to first-degree murder after a DA announced via indictment that Bohn allegedly intended to torture his victim. [New York Post]
* “Quite frankly, these are the actions of a dirty old man.” You can look, but never lick: it’s not really a good thing when a judge uses a sentence like this to describe an attorney’s alleged client relations skills. [CBS News]
* For it’s one, two, three strikes you’re out at the old ball fraud game. Lenny Dykstra pleaded guilty to bankruptcy fraud among a potpourri of other felony counts, and he’ll now face up to 20 years in prison. [CNN]
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Boutique Law Firms, Legal Research, Money, Small Law Firms
From Biglaw to Boutique: A Moment of Truth
The changing market invites, if not demands, lawyers to offer concessions for clients. Happily, many of the concessions have relatively little impact on the firm’s bottom line, but can garner significant goodwill with clients. For example.... -
American Bar Association / ABA, Back to the Future, Billable Hours, General Counsel, In-House Counsel
Inside Straight: Things Will Not Return To Normal After The Recession!
Here’s a puzzle for you. What decade am I discussing in the following paragraphs? I’m doing something a little different here. The entire text of this column appears before the jump. I’ve hidden only the citations after the jump. Ponder while you read these paragraphs when the source materials supporting these words were written: The […] - Sponsored
How Generative AI Will Improve Legal Service Delivery
Learn how emerging tools will likely change and enhance the work of lawyers for years to come in this new report. -
Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Law Schools, Money
Clients Won't Pay For What Law Schools Churn Out
You spend three years of your life going to law school. You spend over a hundred thousand dollars on getting that education. You take a difficult entrance exam to prove that you are qualified to practice law. You'd think that after all that you'd be able to convince sophisticated clients of your value as a lawyer. You would, of course, be wrong.... -
Billable Hours, Practice Pointers, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Pricing Legal Services in Eight Easy(ish) Steps
So Lat calls me up all excited about some Biglaw Midsummer Bonus or something, which I totally ignore, and also about some hysterical dicta that Judge Kozinski wrote, which I also ignore (although it probably was pretty funny), and then he starts asking me about my law career. Which, you know, ended. And he points […] -
Billable Hours, Contract Attorneys, Document Review, Job Searches, Money, Wall Street Journal
How Can a Lawyer 'Settle' for the Only Job He Can Get?
I’ve always wondered what kind of salary contract lawyers make these days. Okay, not really, I kind of already know, because a lot of my friends are contract lawyers. But for those of you who aren’t familiar with the wonderful world of contract lawyering, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting article yesterday, by Vanessa […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, General Counsel, In-House Counsel
Inside Straight: Alternative Fee Agreements For Beginners
Egad! The General Counsel just announced that your target for next year will be to handle 20 percent of all outside legal spend on an alternative fee basis! What do you do? You can’t just do flat fee agreements! What happens if you agree to pay too much, and you’ve given away your client’s money? […] -
Associate Bonus Watch 2010, Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Constitutional Law, Gay, King & Spalding, Legal Ethics, Money, Partner Issues, Politics
King & Spalding: More DOMA Drama, Plus Salary and Bonus News
Some people, including crisis communications experts, think that King & Spalding should just shut up already about the DOMA debacle. The firm agreed to represent the House of Representatives in defending the controversial Defense of Marriage Act, and then almost immediately turned around and withdrew from the representation. This prompted the departure from the firm […]
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Legal AI: 3 Steps Law Firms Should Take Now
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Biglaw, In-House Counsel, Partner Issues
Inside Straight: Big-Firm Pitches
Over time (and it doesn’t take long), law firm pitches all begin to sound the same. “We save you money because we staff cases leanly. We send in the Navy SEALs, not the Fifth Fleet.” Do you really think the guy in here last week was saying, “We waste your money hand over foot. We […] -
Billable Hours, Quote of the Day, Ridiculousness, Small Law Firms, Solo Practitioners, Ted Frank
Quote of the Day: And you thought you billed a lot of hours....
[Lawyer Dennis] Gingold claims to have billed an astonishing 48,772 hours on this case—which works out to almost 9.5 hours a day, every day without a single day off, between November 4, 1995, and December 7, 2009. This includes a seven-year stretch where Mr. Gingold billed 28,230 hours—an average of eleven hours a day, every […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Constitutional Law, Gay, Gay Marriage, King & Spalding, Money, Paul Clement, Politics
Paul Clement and King & Spalding Defend DOMA -- at a Discount
They say that everyone is entitled to a lawyer. [FN1] But is everyone entitled to the services of former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement, one of our nation’s finest appellate advocates? At a discounted rate, no less? As we mentioned in yesterday’s Non-Sequiturs, the U.S. House of Representatives has hired Paul Clement and Clement’s law […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Money, Shameless Plugs, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: How Do You Set Your Billing Rates?
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers. Ever since I stopped billing by the hour in 2006, lawyers are constantly asking me, “How do you set your prices?” It’s a topic I’ve lectured on and written about frequently, and my […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Money, Small Law Firms
Small Firms, Big Lawyers: Have You Gotten Stupider?
Ed. note: This is the latest installment of Small Firms, Big Lawyers, one of Above the Law’s new columns for small-firm lawyers. I live near Wellesley, Massachusetts, a Boston suburb usually described with words like “leafy” and “tony.” (I get “leafy,” but I’ve never really figured out “tony.”) Think soccer moms in yoga pants and […] -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Partner Issues
Billable Rates Have Little to Do With Attorney Experience
If you are a client looking for a lawyer, what will be the biggest influence on how much you pay that lawyer per hour? The excellence of the lawyer you hire? Please; pull yourself up off the ground and get back on your turnip truck. Doesn’t it make more sense to pay more for lawyers […]