May 17, 2010

Alternative Billing Arrangements Putting Down Deep Roots, General Counsel Say

by Jeff Jeffrey
The National Law Journal

Pressures to rein in legal costs have pushed more and more in-house counsel's offices to require law firms to bill by way of arrangements outside of the billable hour, and the number of those arrangements is only likely to go up.

That was the consensus during a panel discussion Friday morning at Jackson Lewis' annual corporate counsel conference. Friday morning's panel "The Death of the Billable Hour?" focused on what the alternatives to the billable hour are and what it takes to put those arrangements together.

Michael Roster, chair of the Association of Corporate Counsel's Value Challenge steering committee and a former general counsel of Stanford University, opened his remarks by citing a study conducted by the Corporate Executive Board which found that costs to U.S. companies have risen 20 percent over the past decade. During the same time period, however, legal costs have risen 75 percent.

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