27 Dec Why I Like Flat Fees for Legal Matters

The old joke goes: A 50-year old lawyer dies and at the gates of Heaven he asks why he was taken so young. God says, “What are you talking about? Based on your billable hours you’re 92 years old!” So sure enough, as reported by the ABA Journal, Ohio lawyer Ben Swift managed to bill 29 hours one day, 23 another and 21 on several others. How, you say? His lawyer claims his client, working on court-appointed matters, is just a bad record keeper but he did really do the work.

I will post some more in the days ahead about flat fees vs. billing by the hour. Put simply: it puts my client and me on the same side, instead of creating a conflict of interest right off the bat. And it provides not only our normal moral incentive, but an actual financial incentive, to work fast. And efficiently, which of course is not the same as fast. But all while protecting the client as fully as always. How? I will write more about that in 2014.

The other old joke? How did the lawyer bill 27 hours in a day? He crossed the international dateline. We do love lawyer jokes. Why won’t sharks attack lawyers? Professional courtesy. What do you call 500 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start. Sadly there are some bad eggs in our profession. Flat fees put the lawyer and client on the same side.