State of Litigation Market – 2011

Larry Bodine has posted results from BTI’s Annual Study of Corporate Counsel.  Besides the obvious takeaways about hot areas of litigation, I thought it was interesting that alternative fee arrangement, the bane of the big law firm for decades, actually turns out to be more profitable for 36% of the attorneys who use it.

 

 

Final rites for the billable hour?

Probably not but alternative fee arrangements in “this economy” are definitely picking up steam.  Increasingly firms are welcoming the opportunity rather than dragging their feet into these alternative arrangements.  Big firms report that from 10% to 30% of their revenue comes from such billing sources.  News from O’Melveny leaked that it is working on a five year plan to become the industry leader in alternative fee arrangements.  Its estimated that the amount of revenue coming from alternative fees topped more than $13 billion so far this year compared to less than $9 billion for a comparable period for 2008.

And now Larry Bodine reports that its become a topic for a paid seminar to assist firms with making the transistion.   So now alternative fee arrangements are a premiere marketing tool definitely a sign of big change.