We Killed the Billable Hour and Our Practice is Thriving
The year is 2007, and I’m drafting another Asset Purchase Agreement, replacing the language with new particulars, tracking every six minutes. I had achieved everything that I once dreamed about -partner at a fantastic firm, working with amazing and grateful clients, putting together deals that seemed complicated and fascinating a decade before. I looked up from my computer and was struck by the question,”Is this really all there is?” I always loved learning and growing; will I have grown or just tracked more time? Will I still be doing exactly this, in exactly this way, twenty years from now?
So, I made a choice. I returned to the role of General Counsel – a role that, even years before, had offered a taste of what I knew could have more impact. Instead of celebrating a strong-billable-hour year, we celebrated negotiating a complex financing deal and saving jobs in a rural community. Instead of tracking time in six-minute increments, we tracked what mattered to the business team – contract turn-around-time and revenue creation – and then developed the systems and process to improve it.
This experience became the foundation for what we later developed into Deliverables Based pricing model. One of our key breakthroughs happened when we saw how legal work isn’t actually that different from software development. Both involve complex projects with multiple stakeholders, changing requirements, and the need for continuous improvement. Breaking the work into defined sprints, we can predict fees for current and future phases. Clients know they are getting, can make decisions about the future spend. No surprises and no watching the clock.
Our clients are happier (see NPS below), our team is more fulfilled, and we have built a strong firm that allows us to give back to our community.
We track metrics that actually matter:
- Quality of the work product and outcomes
- Pace of work and turn-around-time
- Net Promoter Score (which is currently 94.9)
- Real business impact
While the legal industry has long complained about the billable hour, many believed there was no viable alternative given the complex nature and multiple variables. But change is coming: Clio’s CEO Jack Newton recently declared the billable hour dead in large part because of AI, and Goldman Sachs predicts AI will fundamentally disrupt legal practice. The question isn’t whether the billable hour will end – it’s how.
But here’s what’s interesting: while others are starting to talk about the death of the billable hour and the benefit of embracing technology and AI, we’ve spent years building and refining the future. Our Deliverables Based system isn’t theoretical – it’s proven and profitable.
Curious? We are evangelists and would welcome a chat!
To your #PROmance,
Gwen