Alternative Legal Billing -- Win Win Strategies

Written by Dan Harris


Continued from page 1

Forgetrepparttar image of personal injury attorneys taking a third of any verdict or settlement. Consider instead contingency fees—fees based onrepparttar 104617 outcome ofrepparttar 104618 case andrepparttar 104619 performance of your counsel. Creative use of contingency fees can create efficiencies in evenrepparttar 104620 most high-level corporate settings. If you retain a lawyer to help your company avoid litigation, couple a reduced hourly rate with a bonus for successfully lowering your litigation outlays.

You also can establish an incentive based on a percentage of money won or saved in trial. If you're a defendant in a case whererepparttar 104621 plaintiff has a strong shot at a $1 million settlement, negotiate a flat fee ifrepparttar 104622 case goes to trial, plus a bonus ifrepparttar 104623 plaintiff ends up getting less than $1 million. If you're a plaintiff and estimate your case is worth between $1 and $2 million, you might negotiate services for a flat fee plus a percentage of any settlement over $1 million.

Contingency fees turnrepparttar 104624 matter into a shared risk or shared incentive, makingrepparttar 104625 law firm your business partner, not just representation. Contingency fees can work well with both flat fee and reduced hourly fee arrangements. Because a number of variations onrepparttar 104626 "pay-according-to-success" theme exist, you should ask firms forrepparttar 104627 options they're willing to discuss.

Multi-layered tasks

If you're shopping for a firm for substantial legal work involving a number of legal specialties, consider using blended hourly fees. Rather than each attorney billing atrepparttar 104628 usual hourly rate,repparttar 104629 firm calculates in advance an "average" rate based onrepparttar 104630 anticipated time each attorney spends onrepparttar 104631 matter.

The value of this arrangement is twofold—it helps define responsibility in a project and it provides a fair price schedule forrepparttar 104632 client, who avoids paying a senior partner's hourly rate for research that should be conducted by a junior associate

Legal "Insurance"

Firms without in-house counsel that frequently hire legal services might consider contracting with a firm. In this legal billing option, firms and clients agree to a specific charge per month in exchange for a predetermined set of legal services. The contract fee permitsrepparttar 104633 client to pick uprepparttar 104634 phone and talk torepparttar 104635 attorney without needing to eyerepparttar 104636 clock. This approach works like a legal insurance policy. It encourages companies to contact their counsel on non-litigation, non-crisis matters, and to save money inrepparttar 104637 long run by engaging in more preventive legal action.

Just as in business,repparttar 104638 impetus for change comes from consumer demand. The sooner businesses takerepparttar 104639 lead in securing more effectively tailored billing methods from their legal counsel,repparttar 104640 sooner they'll get better, more cost-effective legal assistance.



Dan Harris is an international attorney who assists small and mid-sized companies with their international legal needs. Website: http:www.harrismoure.com


Positioning Professional Service Firms

Written by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan


Continued from page 1

Due to repeatability and increased operational structure,repparttar major role shifts from senior professionals to junior staff and temporary help. The firm uses senior staff to go out and hunt for new business.

Skill-building is up to people' individual drive, and largely left in their own hands. The firm' mission is to exploitrepparttar 104616 skills these people have already acquired, and there is no interest in helping them to build new skills. Senior talent is used mainly for managing engagements and reinforcing policies and procedures.

Since these firms deal with issues as problems to their pre-packaged solutions, there is some compartmentalisation. There is a clear hierarchical difference betweenrepparttar 104617 implementers (junior staff) and business getters (senior staff). In these firms there is an increasing pressure to provide career opportunities for juniors, as opposed to merely giving them jobs. However, juniors are still often treated by seniors as necessary evils eating awayrepparttar 104618 seniors' margins.

HIGHLY PERSONALISED PREMIUM WORK

These firms do not have well-defined approaches. They can be regarded as "organised confusion" in which people of diverse backgrounds and expertise perform a pretty broad range of work in an unpredictable fashion. This firm' mantra is "How can we deliver higher client value at higher fees using less of our time, effort and resources?"

They stay onrepparttar 104619 cutting edge of their disciplines and walk into every new assignment with a clean slate and an open mind. You can recognise them because they ask a hell of a lot of questions.

The success of these firms is based onrepparttar 104620 unique knowledge base of their people. They do not have "standard approaches". Everything they do is "frontier" stuff, involving lots of experimentations.

The use of junior staff is almost zero. Leverage is usually achieved by using clients’ own implementing team, which also becomes part ofrepparttar 104621 knowledge transfer process. This way one single consultant, co-ordinatingrepparttar 104622 implementing team, can achieve amazing results.

And here lies another difference. There is a huge difference in focus betweenrepparttar 104623 first two and this type of firm. The first two type of firms focus on tasks, activities and deliverables. For example, we write 12 1000 page reports, we deliver 10 half day workshops with 50-page student manuals.

Premium firms go for results and outcomes. For instance, we help you to increase sales by as much as 20% inrepparttar 104624 next six months, we help you to reduce talent turnover by up to 15% inrepparttar 104625 next three months.

Can you seerepparttar 104626 difference? One firm can build you a website. It is nice but useless. The other firm can help you to reducerepparttar 104627 cost of acquiring new business fromrepparttar 104628 global market place. That is something. Having a web site only forrepparttar 104629 sake of having a web site is just as useful as putting a pimple on an elephant’s arse. It makes no difference at all. At least not torepparttar 104630 elephant. Well, unless it is a small elephant and a huge pimple, but now we are into zoology, so let us get back on track.

The other differentiating factor of these firms is that head count isrepparttar 104631 bare minimum with minimum operating overheads and maximum margins.

Talking about "frontier" work, clients are looking forrepparttar 104632 best and most reputable firm. Forrepparttar 104633 firm it is vitally important to seek this pre-eminence by buildingrepparttar 104634 reputation of individuals.

Amongrepparttar 104635 three type of professional service firms, this isrepparttar 104636 only one that recognises that people build relationships, thus do business with people, not with firms.

ON SUMMARY Now take some time and have a hard look at your firm. Think about how you present your solutions and how you interact with clients.

* Which type of firm is yours?

* How could you step up torepparttar 104637 next highest level?

* Who do you have to become and what do you have to do to be able to step up?

* What would berepparttar 104638 pay-offs of stepping up?

* What arerepparttar 104639 investments you have to make in order to step up?

Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan of Dynamic Innovations Squad helps professional service businesses to build high trust client relationships in which they can deliver higher value at higher fees, using less of their time and effort. You can request his e-booklet “Why Most Service Professionals Consistently and Persistently Undercharge for Their Services” by emailing booklet@di-squad.com


    <Back to Page 1
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use