Client Service: Separating Fact from Fiction (Part III)
This series of posts began with a discussion of how almost every firm these days claims to provide exceptional quality service. A discerning client can ask some probing questions to separate performers from pretenders. Today's questions circle around fee issues, hourly rates and related matters.
7. Is there a minimum billable hour requirement for the firm's lawyers and paralegals? Are bonuses paid for surpassing a specified number of hours? Designed to explore whether a firm is complicit in creating incentives for its timekeepers to "round-up" when recording time. Certainly the mere fact that a firm has a billable hour requirement is not evidence of complicity, but a high billable hour requirement or bonuses paid for meeting specified targets, or both, should raise a red flag about just how concerned a firm is about the incentives it creates for its timekeepers and the impact those incentives have on the firm's clients.
8. How does the firm determine the client's views on the cost-quality trade-off? It is frequently true that more time on a project, be it a brief or pleading, yields a higher quality work product. It also is true that some matters or some motions don't require "Supreme Court" quality. Some clients are happy to accept or even insist upon "acceptable" rather than "perfect" for certain projects, motions, etc. How does the firm determine the client's view? Equally important, how does the firm judge the associate who provides his client with the requested "acceptable" work product when another associate works for a client who insists upon and pays for "Supreme Court" quality? An answer reflecting sensitivity to the issues raised for both client and lawyer will help identify a firm that is thoughtful about client service.
9. What fee arrangements will the firm commit to, in writing, that will align its economic interests with its client's? As has been discussed previously in this blog, hourly billing can put a wedge between the firm's economic incentives and the client's. Some clients are now asking firms to commit to alternatives that put the firm's skin in the game in order to align economic interests. A firm unwilling to do so may well not be committed to partnering with its clients, rhetoric notwithstanding.
10. What has the firm done to assess and improve its budgeting capabilities? Matter budgeting is not taught in law school, and there are few if any seminars or other programs sponsored by the bar to help lawyers improve their budgeting skills. Yet budgets are so very critical to clients. If a firm can't point to anything its done to improve its capabilities on a topic so important to clients, just how seriously does the firm take client concerns?
There is no scorecard for right or wrong answers to most of these questions, and most firms cannot answer all of them in the "right" way. But the answers provided should provide meaningful insights to clients looking to find firms which really do walk the client service walk.