The Economist has an excellent article on the wisdom of businesses and law firms alike continuing to rely on "billable hours." Often, billing by the hour does not align a lawyer's interests with those of his or her client; and, from the perspective a law firm, it has been estimated that between 10% and 30% of hours are never billed by tired and overworked lawyers.
I find the latter statistic a little hard to believe but the idea of "billable" hours does seem to be an idea which has out-lived its usefulness.
If your company continues to deal with lawyers on this basis, the question is: Why?
Is it time for you to unlearn?
