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Fire half of your staff and get the same amount of work done as before. I repeat - there is zero downside to modernizing and using tech for any business. You

by Alupis 3y ago

Fire half of your staff and get the same amount of work done as before. I repeat - there is zero downside to modernizing and using tech for any business. You have to adapt and figure it out... before your competition does. Perhaps that means changing your billing model or something - whatever, figure it out. All of this "no automation - no technology" chanting is wild to see. Majority of what a law firm does is low skill or no skill. Copying documents, looking up case law and citations, filling in documents from templates, etc. None of this requires highly skilled labor, and a lot of it can be automated or made easier for fewer people to accomplish the same output.

gnicholas 3y ago
When a law firm sends out a bill to a client, it lists the following info: • description of task • time spent on task (in 6 min increments) • name of person who did the task • billing rate of said person • total cost for the task Unless a firm that "fires half its staff" also doubles its billing rate, it will not make more money. And good luck to the firm that tries to double its billing rate. It is very difficult to convince clients that you're worth that much (or that you should be getting all the benefit from advances in technology). I'm not saying firms shouldn't make changes, I'm saying they really don't want to. Eventually they will, just like they eventually got rid of typing pools. But it took much longer than it would have if the incentive structure in firms were different. They are married to the billable hour.
- Alupis 3y ago
  There is no requirement (as far as I am aware), only convention for charging in 1/10th hour increments. Filling out standard documents and such can (and often is) charged by the job. Some common case types even are billed by the job, instead of hourly. Majority of firms do not handle complex cases that require deep knowledge and skill. We can compare this to accounting automation, such as Intuit/Quickbooks. Are they for every business? No - but for a ton of standard businesses they are a perfect fit, and Intuit makes a ton of money in the process. This resistance to modernizing will kill some firms in the process.
  - torstenvl 3y ago
    The requirement comes from the clients, not the lawyers. No sane person would ever opt in to having to account for every six-minute increment of their work day.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      > The requirement comes from the clients, not the lawyers. So many standard things are handled with flat rates these days. You're not the first one needing to incorporate, or respond to an ADA complaint, etc. These are cookie-cutter things, and can be handled very quickly by the firm. So - accordingly - they charge a flat rate. You don't get a choice usually. Very few firms handle complex, specialized issues that require unknown amounts of time. Rate billing is for those situations. No client is demanding to be billed every 6 minutes, having no idea what the ordeal's cost will amount to. That is compelled by the firm, because of the unknowns involved.
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  - gnicholas 3y ago
    You're right that most lawyers don't work in biglaw and handle complex matters. But if you're trying to sell tech to lawyers, you're going to think about whether you would be able to sell to biglaw lawyers, who would be the most lucrative customers. If you cannot, you might build the product anyway and try to sell downmarket. But many would be discouraged from trying to build the business at all, since so much of the profit would have come from the whales at the top of the market.

by Alupis 3y ago

gnicholas 3y ago

When a law firm sends out a bill to a client, it lists the following info: • description of task • time spent on task (in 6 min increments) • name of person who did the task • billing rate of said person • total cost for the task Unless a firm that "fires half its staff" also doubles its billing rate, it will not make more money. And good luck to the firm that tries to double its billing rate. It is very difficult to convince clients that you're worth that much (or that you should be getting all the benefit from advances in technology). I'm not saying firms shouldn't make changes, I'm saying they really don't want to. Eventually they will, just like they eventually got rid of typing pools. But it took much longer than it would have if the incentive structure in firms were different. They are married to the billable hour.

Alupis 3y ago
There is no requirement (as far as I am aware), only convention for charging in 1/10th hour increments. Filling out standard documents and such can (and often is) charged by the job. Some common case types even are billed by the job, instead of hourly. Majority of firms do not handle complex cases that require deep knowledge and skill. We can compare this to accounting automation, such as Intuit/Quickbooks. Are they for every business? No - but for a ton of standard businesses they are a perfect fit, and Intuit makes a ton of money in the process. This resistance to modernizing will kill some firms in the process.
- torstenvl 3y ago
  The requirement comes from the clients, not the lawyers. No sane person would ever opt in to having to account for every six-minute increment of their work day.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    > The requirement comes from the clients, not the lawyers. So many standard things are handled with flat rates these days. You're not the first one needing to incorporate, or respond to an ADA complaint, etc. These are cookie-cutter things, and can be handled very quickly by the firm. So - accordingly - they charge a flat rate. You don't get a choice usually. Very few firms handle complex, specialized issues that require unknown amounts of time. Rate billing is for those situations. No client is demanding to be billed every 6 minutes, having no idea what the ordeal's cost will amount to. That is compelled by the firm, because of the unknowns involved.
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- gnicholas 3y ago
  You're right that most lawyers don't work in biglaw and handle complex matters. But if you're trying to sell tech to lawyers, you're going to think about whether you would be able to sell to biglaw lawyers, who would be the most lucrative customers. If you cannot, you might build the product anyway and try to sell downmarket. But many would be discouraged from trying to build the business at all, since so much of the profit would have come from the whales at the top of the market.