Or, “No thanks, I’ll just watch”. Call me a Mastodon but my firm’s not willing to give up the billable hour. Clients like it. So we like it. It works for our clients and our firm, especially in providing value, especially for longstanding clients, and for our model: high-end services for high-end clients who know and trust us in a “muscle boutique” setting. The hour gives us the power to be enormously flexible in adding value.
For all clients and all lawyers, the billable hour model is not perfect, I admit. There is a huge potential to abuse clients. But resorting to a value-billing/flat-fee model, in my view, would make matters much worse.
As an aside, my firm’s clients apparently do not believe that hourly billing for us is supplying Hull McGuire with blank checks, or that we milk engagements. This has nothing to do with being good or morally superior. It’s a business thing. Clients know we want repeat business. So we work hard at keeping the bills both fair and satisfying on a gut-level so they’ll come back. The rest is done with trust–the most intangible, important and pivotal element is the relationship. I can’t help you there–but you’ll know it when you get it.
I’m sure there are many firms like ours in these respects. And so far