Managing Partner Magazine: ‘Pricing Alchemy’
This article was commissioned by and first published in Managing Partner magazine in November 2013 and is republished with kind permission.
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.
Credit where credit is due: there are law firms of all stripes – international, national, city, regional and high street – that are making real strides around smarter pricing. Firms leading the way in London include Eversheds, Addleshaw Goddard, CSM Cameron McKenna, Bond Dickinson, Charles Russell and Field Fisher Waterhouse.
But 'the City' does not have a monopoly on innovative pricing with progressive regional exemplars such as SAS Daniels (Stockport), Lupton Fawcett Lee & Priestley (Leeds), Lanyon Bowdler (Shrewsbury), Stephens Scown (Devon and Cornwall), Beswicks (Stoke-on-Trent) and boutique media firm Wiggin (Cheltenham).