It takes 1.8 hours of work for lawyers to create 1 billable hour. This ratio, simply put, is bad. In corporate consulting entities, that ratio is better: 1.3 hours of work for consultants to create 1 billable hour of work. The goal, of course, is perfect parity: 1 hour of work to create 1 billable hour, 1:1.

Why is the current ratio bad? Profitability. Recent research from the 2018 Thomson Reuters Dynamic Law Firms Study shows what separates the most profitable firms from their less profitable peers is not their rates, but the number of billable hours they charge for. Firms that are closer to approaching the utopian 1:1 parity are consistently the strongest financial performers. This ratio also illustrates that law firms are behind other industries in terms of process improvement. Two things are key factors: the first is technology. The second is technology adoption because, as we know, these are separate issues.