The Business Of Law

As close readers may remember, back in September I wrote a post calling for an end to the billable hour.  At the time I wrote the following:

The problem with the billable hour is that the lawyers have no skin in the game.  Whether drafting a contract, or litigating a case, lawyers and the law firms that employ them should be compensated based on the quality of their work and the outcomes for their clients.

I also wrote:

Oh change is coming.  At the moment it’s being driven by clients, but it will not be long before the revolution reaches the masses, and people start to demand that law firms and lawyers get paid for outcomes not hours.

Well it seems change may be coming a little faster than I thought.  Two stories last week out of Boston and Dallas highlight lawyers who like me have rejected the idea of a billable hour, and are operating instead on a fixed fee for service model.

In Boston, the erstwhile Lisa van der Pool over at the Boston Business Journal profiles Jay Shepherd of the Shepherd Law Group an employment law firm.  I love the lede of the story:

Shepherd famously doesn’t charge clients by the hour. He’s a prolific blogger — and tweeter. He’s never worked for a big firm. And he thinks that sometimes, as a group, lawyers suck.
I like this guy already!!  Here’s a link to the whole story.

In Dallas, Mark Weintraub of General Counsel Law is helping small- and mid-sized businesses manage legal contracts, mergers and acquisitions, employment issues and more with a “when- you- need-a-lawyer” approach called FlexGC™, a flexible, fractional legal service that cuts costs while delivering senior-level legal expertise. The firm will assess the services offered on a monthly basis and charge clients a fixed fee each month.

The firm’s approach is profiled in a recent story in the Dallas Business Journal.

Kudos to Shepherd and Weintraub.  They seem to have the entrepreneurial spirit that will change the way we deliver legal services in this country.  Godspeed!