A Word About Compensation and Hourly Rates

We are more than happy to discuss compensation on almost any basis that makes the client comfortable. We have experience with many creative billing arrangements, including flat fee, modified flat fee, rolling budget, modified budget, incentive fees, and so on.  At the same time, we have found that most clients continue to prefer the familiarity and comfort level of traditional hourly rates.

We'll be happy to talk with you about specifics, but in general we keep our rates about fifteen percent below what the Big Law Firms charge.  Why?  We have pretty effective control of our overhead, and we think it's right to share the benefit of that with our clients. 

We must also point out that hourly rates are meaningless unless you also consider the number of hours to which the rate will be applied. Everyone knows the equation, of course: hourly rate x number of hours = total cost of services. Many clients seem to operate on the premise, however, that only the first component is variable or controllable, an assumption which is entirely unjustified. Rates vary somewhat from lawyer to lawyer and firm to firm, but the number of hours that may be posted for similar tasks can vary dramatically. 

That is the most compelling cost advantage we offer.  We know what we are doing, we have no one to train and no one to try to keep busy, and we are experienced enough to know what needs to be done and what is simply a waste of our time and your money.  For those reasons even more than because of differences in hourly rates, we regularly conclude matters for clients at a significantly lower total cost than might be experienced at other firms.