Monthly Archives: January 2019

Legal IT

On flat fees and value pricing

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The market of legal services is changing, and so is the legal business model. Largely upon the request of their clients, law firms are shifting from billable hours to alternative fee arrangements (AFAs). The most commonly used alternative fee arrangement is charging flat fees. In this article we’ll have a closer look at what they are, what types there are, what the benefits and risks are, when and when not to use flat fees, and lastly how to set the price for the flat fees you’ll be charging. That last item will be continued in a follow-up article.

Peggy Gruenke, from www.attorneyatwork.com, defines a flat fee as follows: “A flat fee is simply a prearranged, agreed-on total fee that is paid up-front, or at least a portion of it is, to complete all work required for a particular matter.”

There typically are two kinds of flat fees, which has to do with how the fee is calculated. The first type is referred to as “cost plus” pricing, where the price is set by calculating the costs and adding a fair profit margin. For law firms, if they have certain types of cases that they do on a regular basis, they could, e.g., calculate the average time and cost of previous cases, and use that. The alternative is referred to as value pricing where you set the price based on what the service you offer is worth for the client. We’ll come back to how to set the price for flat fees later on.

There are both benefits and risks to using flat fees. The benefits include:

  • Flat fees are something clients want and like.
  • Flat fees eliminate surprises: clients knows in advance how much they will have to pay, and you know how much you will make.
  • Knowing in advance how much something will cost lowers the threshold for clients to hire a lawyer, which means you get access to more clients.
  • Since flat fees usually are (at least partially) paid up-front, you have no problems getting paid: you just don’t start work until you get paid.
  • Using value pricing to set your fee, where the fees is calculated on the value your services bring to the client, typically results in a higher profit margin for the lawyer.

There also are risks:

  • It can be hard to calculate the total fee beforehand, especially when opposing parties are involved. (See below).
  • If additional hours are incurred, those may be passed on to the lawyer.
  • There’s a potential for reduced profit margins or even losses, if the matter takes substantially more time than expected.

What these risks show is that flat fees have limited uses. They aren’t suited for all cases or all law firms. You’ll have to determine when and when not to charge flat fees. Flat fees are not advised when it’s hard to estimate in advance how much time and effort will be needed. Ruth Carter, e.g., avoids using flat feels in cases where there is an opposing party, like settlements or litigation, because you usually cannot anticipate what all they will come up with. There are exceptions of course in scenarios that are common and/or simple like, e.g., handling traffic fines. Typically, flat fees are well suited when the time that is needed is predictable. It works well, e.g., for transactions like copyrights, trademarks, and contract drafting and reviews.

Sometimes, lawyers charge a hybrid fee (or a “flat fee plus”, as Ruth Carter calls them) where flat fees and hourly billing are combined. This usually involves charging a flat fee for a project with a limited scope and then charging the client your hourly rate for any work performed beyond that. Billie Tarascio, e.g., a divorce lawyer, uses a hybrid model of hourly fees for certain work and combines those with flat fee charges for predictable items like drafting pleadings, attending hearings, etc.

So, before you start charging flat fees, there are some questions you have to ask yourself. The first questions is whether your clients are asking for flat-fee options. If they’re not, do you have a good reason to switch? When introducing your flat fees to your clients, have you clearly defined expectations, fees and scope? Have you thought about your overhead? How many flat-fee cases do you need per month to cover expenses and pay yourself?

Once those questions are answered, you can determine how to set your flat fees. As mentioned above, you can use either value pricing or “cost plus” pricing. If you want to charge flat fees for a service you have already been offering for a while, the “cost plus” model is fairly easy to implement as you already have all the necessary information with regard to scope, time needed, costs involved, etc. (If you are using law firm management software, it is easy retrieve all of this information).

Most authors, however, suggest using value pricing instead because it is better suited for optimizing your profit margins. Now, and especially when you are new to it, value pricing is not easy, since you have to know how to measure value and identify the factors that determine what brings value to your clients. Mark Wickersham, who wrote a book on “Using value pricing to grow your business” (that is available for free online), rightfully points out that value pricing is hard because of three reasons: 1) Value is subjective; it can’t be touched, felt or measured. 2) Everybody values things differently. And 3) because every client has unique requirements.

In a follow-up article we’ll go into how to set your price when using value pricing.

 

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Legal IT

What did 2018 bring on the Legal Technology front?

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As we are taking our first steps into 2019, it may be useful to evaluate what 2018 brought us on the Legal Technology front. Robert Ambrogi, from lawsitesblog.com, published an article on the 20 most important Legal Technology developments in 2018. And, as usual, the American Bar Association (ABA) also published its annual Legal Technology Survey Report in December 2018, which offers great insights as well. Let us start with the latter.

The Full ABA Legal Techology Survey Report consists of six volumes:

  1. Technology Basics and Security
  2. Law Office Technology
  3. Online Research
  4. Marketing and Communication Technology
  5. Litigation Technology and E-Discovery
  6. Mobile Lawyers

These six volumes can be bought either separately, or combined, here. A summary of the survey in five separate reports can be read online for free here. These reports deal with:

  1. Budgeting and planning
  2. Solo and small firm
  3. Practice management
  4. Technology Training
  5. Litigation and TAR (Technology Assisted Review)

Here are the highlights.

One of the most surprising findings of the report is that the percentage of firms that budget for technology has undergone a slight decrease compared to last year. Where in 2017, 60 percent of law firms had a legal tech budget, that number is down to 57% in 2018. As was the case in the past, the percentage of law firms that have a technology budget increases with the firm’s size. The report found that 34 percent of solo respondents, 53 percent of firms of two to nine attorneys, 77 percent of firms of 10 to 49 attorneys, 83 percent of firms with 100 to 499 attorneys, and 87 percent of firms of 500 or more attorneys had technology budgets.

Another surprising finding is that while telecommuting or remote working overall is on the rise (as expected), it has decreased in larger firms. Among solo practitioners and law firms with 2-9 attorneys, the percentage of people who telecommute has gone up from 38% in 2015 to 46% in 2018, and from 58% in 2015 to 68% in 2018, respectively. In larger firms, however, the percentage has dropped from a high of 87% in 2015 to a low of 79% in 2018 in firms with 10-49 attorneys, and from a high of 94% in 2016 to a low of 88% in 2018 for the bigger ones.

Attorneys continue to use practice management software at a steady rate at firms of all sizes. The functionality of the software that is available to them hasn’t really changed in that managing clients and conflicts still is at the core of all of them. The amount of law firms using practice management software has remained steady over the last years (with the exception of some spikes in 2016).

Most attorneys are satisfied with the practice management software they use, as 32% reported “very satisfied” with the features and functions therein and 61% reporting “somewhat satisfied,” for a total of 93% that were somewhat or more satisfied.

Not much has changed with regard to the software law firms are using, and there is still plenty of room for improvement, especially when it comes to integration with other applications.

The GDPR has had an important impact which resulted in the removal of quite a lot of metadata. The usage of software that focuses on the removal of metadata is rising, which benefits privacy and confidentiality.

Another finding of the report is that the line between tablets and laptops is blurring. In solo and small law firms, the percentage of tablet users dropped from 57% in 2016 to 47% in 2018. In larger firms, however, the number of tablet users has increased: in firms with 100-499 attorneys, the percentage has increased from 32% in 2015 to 53% in 2018. In firms with more than 500 attorneys, 39% of attorneys use tablets.

There is virtually no change in how lawyers charged in 2018, compared to 2017. Hourly fees remain the most popular (at 69%), followed by fixed fees (15%), contingency fees (11%, which depend on the result achieved), retainer fees (4%, where the client pays an advance on a regular basis, typically monthly), and other (1%).

In his article on The 20 Most Important Legal Technology Developments Of 2018, Robert Ambrogi mentions several developments that are relevant worldwide:

 

  • Analytics become essential: in 2018 more and more law firms started analysing the data they collect.
  • Legal tech goes global: until recently legal tech largely consisted of national playing fields, but now we are seeing more and more legal technology services that are being offered internationally.
  • Because of AI, Legal research gets smarter and more comprehensive.
  • Investment are increasing. In the US alone, $1 billion USD was invested in legal technology.
  • The cloud no longer looms ominous. More and more law firms have dropped their reservations and are now effectively using cloud services.
  • Tech competence gets real.
  • AI gets an MBA.
  • Startups continue to proliferate.

In conclusion: the legal technology market keeps evolving, but the use of legal technology in law firms has not taken any large steps in recent years.

 

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