I’m Sorry, But For $1,200 An Hour, You Don’t Get To Have An 'Off' Day

Clients paying such high fees have earned the right to expect superior work product.

Although I sometimes lament having to authorize the payment on the monthly invoice, I consider our company lucky to have a very impressive Biglaw partner on retainer from a nationally known Biglaw firm.

The partner has one of those Ivy League, SCOTUS clerk résumés which makes a legal nerd salivate and opposing counsel (especially in the Midwest) quiver and take our demands seriously. Which is why I have no problem authorizing the monthly invoices or going to bat with our c-suite on the need to continue such a sizable engagement when they question its need when we have “perfectly capable attorneys in our own backyard.”

Time and again, this partner and his firm have proven to be worth their weight in gold. Their client response time and work product have been beyond reproach, but recently, they stumbled.

They stumbled not in a publicly embarrassing or legally compromising kind of way. But rather, they stumbled in both the time it took them to deliver on a relatively straightforward assignment and the subsequent quality of the same.

Like most in-house operations, we have Biglaw on retainer for two primary reasons,. First, as illustrated above, it is nice to have someone in your corner that immediately invokes a sense of seriousness into a dispute. Second, sometimes our small in-house team simply lacks the bandwidth to deal with an issue. Our decision to farm out this particular assignment fell into the second rationale. It was not a particularly complex assignment, but we needed a well reasoned and convincing legal letter, and we needed it fast.

Our company was in the final stages (i.e., the “should we sue or settle?” stage) of an outstanding dispute and we believed a well-timed letter from our nationally known Biglaw partner could have tipped the scales toward a settlement, our preferred outcome.

After having not received a return contact from the partner after my frenzied voicemails and subsequent texts, I followed up with an email detailing our specific needs and I requested a draft by COB of the following day. While I know some of the Biglaw readers are chalking me up as yet another unreasonable client with another unrealistic timeline, I assure you our past work history with this Biglaw firm indicated this would not be a problem.

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After my email went unacknowledged and the following day’s deadline came and went without the letter, I began to call my other contacts at the firm only to be told the partner was indeed in the office, but they knew he had been battling a bit of a cold during the week. Nevertheless, they assured me they would hunt him down and deliver on the letter in short order.

Lo and behold, I received a draft of the letter roughly two hours later, but after a quick review, I realized it was laden with typos and lacked the normal legal oomph I was accustomed to seeing from the partner.

Lacking the time to swap redlined versions of the document until it met my normal expectations, I opted to clean it up myself and send it on its way.

Lest you think I am heartless, in no way do I expect the partner on the case to be at my beck and call at all hours of the day. However, for the standard hourly rate shown for the partner on his subsequent invoice, you had better do a better job managing my expectations.

Feeling under the weather? I get it, but at least put one of your equally qualified colleagues on notice they may need to hop on an assignment at a moment’s notice.

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As in-house clients, I will be the first to admit we can get a bit demanding from time to time, and I make a conscious effort to only make such unreasonable demands when it is absolutely worth it.

But as someone paying $1,200 an hour, I think I have earned that right.


Stephen R. Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.