The cover story of the August, 2007 ABA Journal is The Billable Hour Must Die by famed lawyer-novelist Scott Turow. No one who has read any of Mr. Turow’s books would be surprised that it is a well written and persuasive piece. He repeats a phrase I find very significant: "dollars times hours." Turow writes:
Alternative Billing
Very Short Course on Retainers and Billing
By Jim Calloway on
ABA members recently received the following link in their MyABA e-mail. But for the rest of you, (or for those who didn’t pay attention the first time) this should be of interest. At ABA Midyear meeting in Miami a few weeks ago, the Young Lawyers Division and the Law Practice Management Section co-sponsored a program…
Improving Your Life a Bit and Toward More Flat Fees
By Jim Calloway on
Self-Improvement and flat fees. What do these two topics have in common? Not much except that they were both the subject of good articles in June’s Law Practice Today.
Tom Mighell’s Strongest Links column is about web sites that help you improve. But these are not, for the most part, self-motivational websites. Rather as…
Basic Management Skills
By Jim Calloway on
The typical law school graduate may enter the practice of law with little, if any, training in business management. This is perhaps not a critical problem for the new lawyer who goes to work for as an assistant district attorney, a public defender or an associate in a large law firm. But for the solo…
The Tyranny of the Billable Hour
By Jim Calloway on
The cover story of the Washington Lawyer this month is The Tyranny of the Billable Hour by Robert Pack. It is not really about methods of alternative billing, but rather the impact of minimum billing quotas on the lives of larger law firm associates and, now, even partners. There was mention of how a firm…
Alternative Billing for the Main Street Lawyer
By Jim Calloway on
I direct your attention to an article entitled "Alternative Billing for the ‘Main Street Lawyer’ " by Mark Robertson and myself. It was excerpted from the book Winning Alternatives to the Billable Hour, Strategies That Work by Mark Robertson and myself. Too often publications about alternative billing focus on the larger firms. This article talks…