TyMetrix Legal Analytics-Corporate Executive Board Recent Study So Shows.
As reported in an April 16, 2012 post by Leigh Jones on Thomson Reuters News & Insight, a recent study analyzing billing data from about 120,000 attorneys (at 4,000 law firms) found that overall rates have increased by more than 4% since 2009, compared with a moderate 2.3% boost from 2008-2009 and a larger 8.2% jump in the boom years of 2007-2008.
The TyMetrix Legal Analytics-Corporate Executive Board study–released on April 16, 2011–also confirms that aveage billing rates climbed to $540/hour in 2011, a leap from $435 in 2007. Not surprisingly, partners who bill over $800/hour had their rates increase at nearly three times the rate charged by contemporaries billing less than $300/hour.
Some have surmised that some “bet-the-company” cases and big transactions are price insensitive, while competitiveness for routine work has grown.
“O! then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you. . . .
She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes . . .
O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees.”
–SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, scene 4.
c1874. Library of Congress.