The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/34686
Revolution Has Already Happened: The A Curmudgeon’s Counterpoints Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA by David Hill 51 Read David’s counterpoint to “The Future Starts Now” in the June 2010 issue of . Attorney RFID: Your Personal Billing Barcode by David Hill of City of Vancouver Law Department 90 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer tried to rally the troops at ILTA’s annual conference last year. My target: the billable hour. Recording and billing time is a massive contributor to law firm overhead. Imagine a firm without it: a standard business accounting system with no timekeepers, no timesheets, no annual billing “targets” and no need for a file number to make a photocopy! Billable hours have no inherent value. They are simply an accountability mechanism. The rationale that clients demand billables doesn’t wash anymore — not in reign of the AFA. AFAs have smoked us out. I was aghast to learn that some firms continue to track billables on AFA matters. It’s the law firms (more precisely, the partners) that are hooked on billables. I railed and raged against the billable. I was passionate, I was righteous. I took justified liberties, and I deployed my utmost oratorical skills. So effective was I that exactly zero — none, zilch, naught — firms took my advice. At least that I know of. No one’s written to thank me for saving the firm. No one’s offered to pay me for it. I A Reversal in Thinking All of this does lead one to a bit of a shift in thinking…well, maybe more than a bit. The blunter among us might say “capitulation — a complete and unreserved reversal.” Yes, I’ve changed my mind. I’ve come, at first slowly, lately with more vigor, to believe I had it exactly wrong last year. It is time not to bury the billable, but to embrace it. Peer to Peer