While law firm billing rates have soared lately, Big Law has seen overall realization drop-off from where it was during the early days of the pandemic.

Increased client pushback, as well as an office-return movement taking away some focus on collections, have been proffered as reasons for that decline. But a new analysis suggests much of the drop-off is “self-inflicted damage on the part of law firms,” coming after clients agree to a price, but before firms even send them the bill.