How would you feel if Pfizer, who spent years and millions of pounds researching the wonder drug Viagra, charged the first customer all the R&D costs? Well you might think how nice for all the other chaps in the queue who surely only have to pay rock bottom prices. Well, what if Pfizer then hand built each batch of drugs from scratch using casual labour and charged on a time and materials basis? Suddenly those prices for everyone else have sky rocketed. A ludicrous scenario, isn’t it? And Pfizer certainly did not get where they are today by adopting that kind of business and pricing model.
So why is it acceptable practice in the legal world? And I am not talking about high street legal products with mass market appeal. I think there is general acceptance that these commoditised consumer and business legal services are now very keenly priced, due to competitive pressures and the winners in the long term are going to be those who can use technology to drive the cost base right down.
