[image_library_tag 880/85880/evan-chesler.jpg' width="195" align="right" vspace="5" border="0" />In an opinion piece in the current issue of Forbes magazine, Evan Chesler, presiding partner at Cravath Swaine & Moore, calls for the end of the billable hour. "The billable hour makes no sense, not even for lawyers," Chesler, a prominent litigator, writes: "If you are successful and win a case early on, you put yourself out of work. If you get bogged down in a land war in Asia, you make more money. That is frankly nuts."
In his Forbes piece, Chesler analogised lawyers to building contractors. He wrote that when he hired a contractor to renovate his kitchen, the two of them decided on what the job was worth and agreed on a price. When the work was finished three weeks ahead of schedule, Chesler paid the contractor a bonus.
