Edward De Bono and Alternative Billing

Many lawyers don't see any need to adopt alternative billing other than in what they see as "commodity" work, such as conveyancing.  However, a post by Tom Kane, which refers to William C Cobb's Cobb-Value Curve to demonstrate that the types of work now considered to be commodity work is increasing, and therefore the total percentage of a lawyer's work likely to attract alternative billing in also increasing.

Part of the problem, certainly for Australian lawyers, is that they equate "alternative billing" with "fixed fees".  Whilst Australian lawyers are far more restricted than many of their American cousins in the range of alternative fee arrangements they can enter into, (by reason of restrictions in the various Legal Profession Acts), there are many options other than fixed fees.  For non-litigious matters, fees can be tied to the value of a transaction, level of success in a transaction, and even for litigious matters, fees can be tied to meetings specified targets, such as time period for settlement, or achieving progress in a matter within a particular time period.

Time for a bit of lateral thinking - so start reading Edward De Bono!