Geek Number 2 of the 3 Geeks and I were strategizing about our Crowdsourcing project over some adult beverages recently and got to philosophizing about alternative fees. Greg had posted a comment on my recent post about how things won’t change with current thinking. We ended up talking about how GCs (even when they’re insulted
alternative billing
A "Refreshing" Approach to Alternative Fees
By Toby Brown on
Coca-Cola recently announced it was going to a value billing system with its professional services advertising agencies. The alternative fee topic is obviously spreading to many professional services industries, beyond legal and accounting. Doug Cornelius picked this story up from the Economist.
I attended a webinar on this topic that came to my attention…
Pricing Against the Market – How To
By Toby Brown on
In the last segment on How To Alternative Bill – I focused on budgets and understanding your costs as they relate to alternative fees. Although related to pricing, that discussion was more about the ability to drive profitability. The market sets prices, but the costs of delivering your services under those prices determines your profits.…
Alternative Fees: "How To" do The Budget
By Toby Brown on
Although I see the appeal of the Just Do It crowd, there needs to be some performance metrics when it comes to Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs). And all paths on this subject point to The Budget. So for our next “How To” step towards AFAs, we need to dive in deeper on this subject.…
Clients and Their Hourly Mindset
By Toby Brown on
We want alternative fees! This has become the new mantra of clients. Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) are all the rage now and rightly so, given the state of things.
But …
I’ve previously noted that clients, in addition to law firms, will need to change to adapt to AFAs. I’ve come to realize this…
BigLaw Beneficiaries
By Toby Brown on
De-Leveraging … Again?
By Toby Brown on
A number of recent posts and articles are talking about the de-leveraging of BigLaw. Many of these predict that the other side of the recession will see BigLaw with less associates per partner.
Say what?
There’s all this talk of alternative billing, leveraging technology and changing the way firms do business and somehow they are…
Statistical Juxtaposition
By Toby Brown on
Earlier in February, I sat in on a webinar provided by Altman Weil on Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFA). I had planned on getting a bunch of work done while I listened to the same ideas I’ve heard numerous times before. Fortunately, I didn’t get much work done since the program had some excellent content.
Two…
The End Of Relevance?
By Toby Brown on
In 1996 I was asked to speak for the Great Lakes Organization of Bar Executives (GLOBE). The group was meeting in Park City and I was a convenient geek to present to them (living in Salt Lake at the time). I was tasked with talking about the future of legal technology and how it might…
How to – Step One
By Toby Brown on
Having been taken to task on my How To Alternative Bill post by Ron Baker, I have been making some progress on this effort so it’s time for an update. Ron presses the Just Do It approach. When we just do it, we need to be able to do two things up front.
First…