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Besides ushering in a new decade, today — January 1, 2010 — marks the first anniversary of The Client Revolution. It's been quite a year, both for this blog and for the concept of a client revolution. First, the blog:
In its first year, The Client Revolution has had just over 30,000 pageviews. In addition, nearly six hundred readers subscribe to the blog either by email or RSS reader. The ABA Journal named it to its "Blawg 100" list of "the 100 best websites by lawyers, for lawyers." To our subscribers and readers, I offer my sincere thanks and appreciation.
As for the Client Revolution — the concept: the economic turmoil of 2009 has accelerated the drive for change in the legal industry. Law-firm clients are increasingly dissatisfied with the status quo of hourly billing, legalese, and the legacy systems of a guild mentality. More firms — even the whitest of white-shoe firms — are at least paying lip service to the need to modernize the law-firm business model, if not actually acting. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog declared 2010 to be "the year of the flat-fee arrangement." While we prefer the term "open prices" (as opposed to the hidden prices that hourly billing creates), we appreciate the sentiment.
The question I get most often from law-firm lawyers is "How do you set your prices?" Funnily enough, it's also the same question I get from law-firm clients. Both groups want to know more about open-price lawyering, but they don't know where to start. So today, my commitment to you is to make this blog more of a resource for you — outside counsel, inside counsel, and clients — to help you figure out how to value and price legal services. I'll need your help, though, through your comment and questions and tweets. Share with me your questions and your ideas, your concerns about hourly billing and your fears about open pricing. In turn, I'll devote this site to answering those questions and allaying those fears.
One final note: Yesterday marked the third anniversary of the last hour that my firm, Shepherd Law Group, billed. We haven't missed timesheets and hourly billing. Over the past three years, our clients have gotten the benefits of a modernized law-firm business model. Many have saved tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs as compared to hourly billing, with the same or better quality than they would get at a large law firm. (And that's not just me talking: the peer-review panel of Law and Politics magazine has cited each and every lawyer who has ever worked at Shepherd as a "Super Lawyer" or "Rising Star.") And ours is a litigation practice (defending employers), which the naysayers say can't be done on a fixed-fee basis. Think again.
Lawyers: if we can do it, so can you. Clients: if our clients can enjoy the benefits of open prices, so can you. Let's make 2010 the year the Client Revolution goes into full swing. Happy New Year, and thanks for reading.