The September 2025 issue of ABA Law Practice Magazine has a finance theme. Mark Robertson and I wrote the lead story for it, Value Billing in an Age of Artificial Intelligence. Since AI specifically, and office automation tools generally, impact many aspects of the future of billing for legal services, I’m going to immodestly
Thoughts on Availability Retainers and Subscription Legal Services After ABA Formal Opinion 505
Prepaid legal fees and refundability of those fees was the subject of American Bar Association Formal Opinion 505. Yesterday I did a blog post about that and noted it tracked the opinion of the Oklahoma Supreme Court released in Oklahoma Bar Association v Weigel, 2014 OK 4 (2014).
This is probably a
The Billable Hour Today
The term “billable hour” has long been a topic of discussion in the legal community. However, for such a simple term, it can be used in different ways. The most obvious answer is that hourly billing and the lawyer’s hourly billing rate is the method, likely still the predominant method, of determining how much clients
Digital Edge Podcast: A Conversation with LawPay’s CEO – and Introducing ClientCredit
Sharon Nelson and I usually are acquainted with most of our podcast guests. But Dru Armstrong has been the CEO of LawPay.for just over 90 days and it was a pleasure to meet her while we interviewed her for our podcast: A Conversation with LawPay’s CEO – and Introducing ClientCredit. She was fun,
A Brief History of Legal Billing
How lawyers handle their billing has long been a topic of discussion in our field. Traditionally, it was a simple process. Record your time. Prepare invoices by listing all these billing entries multiplied by the lawyers’ hourly billing rates and adding expenses clients should pay. Send out the billing on the same day every month.
What’s ahead in 2021? The Law Practice Today Editorial Board Makes Their Predictions for 2021 (December 18, 2020)
Making predictions about the future can be useful and entertaining. Although I certainly hope no one in 2019 making predictions about 2020 made any large wagers on being correct.
Law Practice Today is an ezine published by the ABA Law Practice Division. Anyone can subscribe for free. This set of predictions, Crystal Ball: Our Editorial
The Power of the Flat Fee (May 27, 2020)
Tough economic times make flat fees more attractive for consumers.
Future Proofing Your Practice – Scoping Out Limited Scope Representation
The September/October 2019 Issue of Law Practice Magazine is out and one of the features is Scoping Out Limited Scope Representation. For the Future Proofing Your Practice column by Dan 
Pinnington and Reid Trautz, they interviewed me about recent changes in limited scope practice rules in Oklahoma. We also cover developing a business plan
On Law Firm Profitability and Being a Jetson
Law firms are businesses. Businesses should have the goal of being profitable. The September/October 2016 issue of Law Practice Magazine is the annual finance issue. The cover story is 
Increasing Law Firm Profitability by Instilling Values by Katy Goshtasbi. This is a well-written “must read” piece which takes a bit of a different look at
Those Hated Timesheets- Are You Still Using Them?
Most lawyers hate filling out timesheets to record their billable time. Lawyers are also not perfect at 
accomplishing this, leading every company with a time and billing product to tout how much money can be made if only every bit of “lost” time was recorded. But the practice of recording time by hand on paper