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> (e.g. we pay a flat $5 million per month and you hanldle all our products liability work) Question. Is it standard when a client does that to then demand or
by gist 9y ago
> (e.g. we pay a flat $5 million per month and you hanldle all our products liability work)
Question. Is it standard when a client does that to then demand or ask to review time records? The purpose would be to be able to then use that to bid out the work to other firms.
How would the law firm handle the request? Does this happen?
If so I would think it would be an advantage to structure billing and time tracking in a way that wouldn't allow it to be used so that a lower bid could be place since a competitor would know the time requirements.
- Digory 9y agoYes, it always happens -- which is why large corporations are successfully reducing fees where litigation is routine. Refusing to give any account of the time spent on the matter would probably get the lawyer disbarred. There's a legal duty to give the client an accounting of your fee, and the basis of that fee, so as to show the fee was "reasonable." And a key metric for reasonableness is the time spent. In failing to account for the time, you would be unable to prove the fee is reasonable -- and the lawyer has no right to keep a fee unless it is reasonable. You might try to get the client to agree in advance that $5m is reasonable, and to waive any right to you supplying an accounting of your time spent. But I suspect the courts would refuse to enforce that agreement, and the relevant Bar would sanction the lawyer and/or his firm.