Latest insight and opinion from key personnel and the Burcher Jennings Advisory Board along with guest articles and thought leadership from some of the legal sector’s key influencers.
The two primary objectives of all pricing decisions by law firms should be to maximise profitability while at the same time ensuring that the pricing structure leaves the client feeling that they have had fair value for money. And yet opportunities to do so continue to be squandered.
With many thanks to the author, Dr George Beaton, who is a director of Beaton Capital and Beaton Research + Consulting, firms dedicated to professional services. This post first appeared in LegalDatum on 10 January, 2014.
In a recent survey of general counsel in Australia and New Zealand, just four to six per cent said hourly billing is the optimal method of pricing legal services. When asked which pricing method they would prefer, the general response was a collective shrug of the shoulders - “we will know it when we see it”, they said.
“This is a commodity business. In a commodity business, you have little or no control over pricing. The only thing you can control is your costs.”