With recent front-page coverage in The Wall Street Journal about the “Billable Hour Under Attack”, and a major opinion piece in Corporate Counsel calling for alternative fee billing, it’s probably worth recapping where we are in the debate over the billable hour.
Let’s start with a bit of reality check. Moving away from the billable hour is no more inherently transformational than moving to the metric system would be. It may be a milestone of change or it may be a catalyst for change, but in and of itself it is not a huge change, just as redefining a yard as a little less than a metre won’t make anyone taller, richer or better looking.
