ALMResearchBlog

Survey: Few Companies Tightening Controls To Prevent FCPA Violations

A Deloitte Financial Advisory Services survey of 620 financial services, telecommunications and manufacturing executives found that only 32% say they are enhancing their internal procedures to prevent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations, despite heightened government enforcement. The survey results were reported by National Law Journal. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) imposes criminal penalties on companies or individuals who do business in the U.S. who offer a bribe, pay one or authorize one to a foreign government official for business gain. According to NLJ, 30.3% of respondents believed FCPA violations were most likely to arise in citing agent or consulting relationships; 28.4% felt that foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies were most at risk; and 21.8% named strategic alliance partnerships as risk-prone.

Laterals: The Ones That Get Away

In contrast to the recruiting of inexperienced law students, few firms work as hard to develop a system for recruiting lateral talent, according to a recent article in National Law Journal. (See also commentary by Bob Ambrogi on Legal Blog Watch.) Too often, poor communication, bureaucratic processes, disorganization and misinformation thwart even the best firms' efforts. Stacey Humphries offers a compilation of anecdotes drawn from actual incidents as a 10-step how-not-to guide on lateral recruiting.

For data about successful lateral partner moves, the ALM Research Store  offers a compilation of information that includes names of partners and their practice specialty, the organization moved to and from, and the date of the move. The 2008 Lateral Partner Moves spreadsheet is updated monthly and non-subscribers who purchase the spreadsheet receive a link for the monthly update. Historical data is available also for 2000 to 2007.

Survey: Firms Improve Diversity Efforts In Response to GC Pressure

A new survey from Altman Weil, and reported in the Daily Report says that under increasing pressure from general counsel to diversify their personnel, law firms are making some progress. Altman Weil canvassed the firms in the The Am Law 200. Of the 80 respondents, 58% have a designated diversity manager or director, up 8 percentage points from 2007 and 13 percentage points from 2005, the first year the survey was conducted. Also, the survey found that 100% of participants report having a diversity committee in their firm, up from 96% from the previous year. One area of concern, according Altman Weil, is that those diversity directors are increasingly not full time on the job but often are practicing attorneys with billable-hour requirements. The number of diversity managers who work full time in the position is down from 61% in 2007 to 53% in 2008.

How diverse are these biglaw firms? See the recently published Diversity Scorecard, available in searchable spreadsheet form from ALM Research Online for the years 2001 through 2008. Data from previous years (starting in 1984) is available to subscribers only.

IP Survey: U.S., U.K., Germany Ranked Highest For Protection

European firm Taylor Wessing recently compiled its inaugural Global Intellectual Property Index, using a statistical analysis to rank jurisdictions in terms of patent, trademarks and copyright protections. As reported in National Law Journal, the GIPI ranked 22 countries and economies on their intellectual property protection and enforcement records, with the United States, United Kingdom and Germany garnering the highest scores. The rankings were based on responses to an online questionnaire and a range of factors affecting the intellectual property climate, including: the number of specialized intellectual property judges and lawyers relative to the population, the number of patent or trademark filings and the number of patents and trademarks granted and active. The online survey tallied assessments of 9,333 patent jurisdictions from 341 CEOs, intellectual property lawyers, in-house counsel and law firm partners.

Harvard Law Makes Faculty Articles Free

According to a recent report from New York Lawyer, Harvard Law School's faculty unanimously voted to make all faculty member-authored scholarly articles available on the Internet free of charge. The law school said the articles would be available in an online repository, which could also be accessed by outside services like Google Scholar. The policy would also allow faculty to post the articles on their own Web sites. Educators at any institution are also free to give the articles to students as long as they're not used for profit.

More on Business Development

Tom Kane has another good post, More on Business Development in a Recession, on his Legal Marketing Blog, which focuses on “adjusting the four “P’s” (Product, Place, Promotion, Price) of marketing as one way to develop business in these troubled times.”

Speaking of which, our third Business Development Practices Survey Report is now available in the ALM Research Store. For those not familiar with this survey, ALM Research has been tracking the role of business development in law firms since 2005—budgets, staffing, compensation for business development managers, strategies used, and the overall organizational structure of the business development effort. While it is still housed within the marketing department in most firms, the largest of firms (those at the top of the Am Law 100, the Global 100, and the NLJ 250) now see business development as a separate function from the firm’s marketing efforts. Read more about it here.

Survey: Managing Partners’ Gloomy Outlook

As the BLT (Blog of the Legal Times) notes, it is no surprise that the 2008 first quarter Managing Partner Confidence Index, released this week by Citi Private Bank Law Firm Group, depicts a gloomy outlook on the economy’s impact on law firms. This is the fifth index released by Citi Private Bank, and it marks the first time that managing partners were, on average, more negative than positive in their responses. Dozens of U.S. managing partners participate in the survey, and this quarter, U.K. managing partners were also included for the first time.

We had posted previously on this blog results from  several managing partner surveys, including the last one from Citi Private Bank, The American Lawyer, and Legal Times. There appears to be a general consensus that a weak 2008 will bring fewer equity partner promotions, longer hours, and higher rates.

Fortune 500: Winners, Losers

The corporations at the top of this year’s Fortune 500 aren’t exactly surprising: Wal-Mart, Exxon, Chevron, GM, Conoco Phillips. And the “biggest losers,” as Fortune calls them, are not exactly surprising either. GM managed to make both lists, along with two companies very much enmeshed in the sub-prime crisis—Freddie Mac and Merrill Lynch—the struggling Sprint Nextel, and the “perpetual No. 2 of PC chipmakers,” Advanced Micro Devices.

For quick reference to who counsels these and other companies and organizations, see the ALM Research Store and products such as Big Deals & Big Suits and Corporate Representation (Who Counsels Who).

Just Released: The Am Law 100

The 2008 Am Law 100 spreadsheet and data are now available through ALM Research Online. As always, the sortable spreadsheet of America’s highest-grossing law firms contains even more than what you see in print. All the data from the charts published in the May issue of The American Lawyer, as well as contact information for key marketing personnel at the firms.

Speaking of which—The American Lawyer’s main story accompanying the annual rankings asks: Is the Golden Age Over? with the lead-in “Big firms just finished the best five years since we began our records. Now, head count and salaries outpace revenue and rates.”  Click here for the story, as well as a number of charts showing changes over the years.

Laterals Not Common in Plaintiffs Firms

An interesting piece by The Legal Intelligencer notes that lateral movements are rather uncommon in the plaintiffs bar, though very common among defense attorneys. The story also mentions, however, that some law firm leaders said they lateral movement among plaintiffs attorneys do happen but go largely unnoticed by most of the legal community.

Checking our 2007 Lateral Partner Movements spreadsheet, we noted that there were 328 moves recorded among litigators last year. Unfortunately, our data doesn’t track information about which side of the bar these partners practice on, but those in the business might be able to see at a glance what the trends are.

Just Released: 2008 Diversity Scorecard

The new 2008 Diversity Scorecard spreadsheet is now available through the ALM Research Online Store. Based on the survey published every spring by the Minority Law Journal, Diversity Scorecard contains detailed information on minority legal staffing levels at law firms in NLJ 250 and Am Law 200 firms. This report also includes supplemental data not published by MLJ, including the number of women attorneys employed at these firms.

Key data points include: number of U.S. citizen attorneys; number of minority attorneys; specific figures for four major ethnic/racial groups ( African-American attorneys, Asian-American attorneys, and Hispanic-American attorneys); figures for other minority attorneys, including Native American and multiracial attorneys; breakdown by partner and non-partner attorneys; number of women attorneys. Note that the methodology for Diversity Scorecard was changed slightly this year. Firms were asked to count only their minority attorneys who are employed in U.S. offices. That number was then divided by the number of attorneys at the firm who are employed in the U.S. The result gives the percentage of a firm's U.S. attorneys who are members of ethnic minorities. Rankings are based on this percentage.

Diversity Scorecard data is available from ALM Research for the following years: 1985, 1986, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2002—2008.

Database: National Criminal Justice Database Now Available From EBSCO

The National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRSA) database is now available from EBSCO Publishing. NCJRSA is sponsored by the Department of Justice and the Executive Office of the President. The service is federally funded and supports research, policy, and program development around the world.

NCJRSA contains summaries of more than 190,000 criminal justice, juvenile justice, and substance abuse resources covering corrections, courts, crime statistics, domestic preparedness, drugs, juvenile justice, law enforcement, and victims. The collection features U.S. and international publications, including citations for federal, state, and local government reports, books, research reports, journal articles, audiovisual presentations, and unpublished research. The content in the database dates from 1970 to the present. The database will complement other sociology databases available on the EBSCOhost platform, such as SocINDEX with Full Text and Social Work Abstracts.

Survey: GCs Like Their Job, Plan to Hire More In-House Help

According to a recent survey report by the Association of Corporate Counsel, 85% of chief legal officers and general counsel find their careers rewarding, despite increased corporate governance demands and sometimes tense relationships with independent auditors. A report of the eighth annual survey of CLOs and GCs by ACA,  appeared in National Law Journal, which noted that nearly a third of the respondents expected to add staff over the next year and that records management would be an emerging issue for in-house attorneys this year. NLJ also reported that, while 59% of CLOs and general counsel revealed that increased monitoring by law enforcement and regulators had only a modest influence on their career satisfaction, 30.6% said it would make a "considerable impact" on their future decisions, such as looking for a new CLO job or retiring.

Now Available: Business Development Practices in Law Firms Survey Report

The third annual survey of Law Firm Business Development Practices, ALM Research continues to track trends in business development/sales, as a distinct initiative in law firms, separate from traditional marketing/communications efforts. Benchmarking information includes budgets, staffing, organizational structure, resources, and compensation for the senior-most marketing and business development professionals, including the percentage of firms where those efforts and roles are still inseparable.

As in the two previous surveys, results for “Tier 1” and “Tier 2” firms are provided. New this year is a section reporting the key benchmarking results for the very largest firms. This year’s survey also tested for the pervasiveness and effectiveness of several popular business development strategies: client interviews and surveys, sales training for lawyers, and client service teams. Respondents also reported on the process and success of submitting RFPs, and their firm's requirements and rewards for its lawyers’ business development efforts.

Full Price: $1250.00 (Includes Print & PDF file versions)
$995.00 (PDF file only)

Note that survey participants are eligible for a free copy of the executive summary of the key results of the survey, and a firm-specific benchmarking report with the purchase of the full survey report. Subscribers to ALM Research Online are eligible for a 20% discount on the purchase of the full report.

Contact ALM Research for more information and pricing.
888-770-5647 or email almresearch@alm.com

Our Web Site: New Design, New Features

It is my pleasure to announce to you the launch of the newly designed ALM Research Online website. The substance of the site, including our reports, search functions, and continuously updated law firm data, will be the same or even better than when you last visited. The design however, has been changed with a mind towards a fresher, cleaner look and a more user friendly experience. Some new functionality has been added including the ability to download past years’ surveys directly from the site. You'll no longer need to call and request them--unless you'd just like to chat.

I'd also like to encourage you to take advantage of some of the enhancements added within the last six months, including:

• Associate salary spreadsheet updated frequently.
• Staffing Notes spreadsheet to trace branch office openings and closings and significant staffing shifts.
• Corporate representation and lateral partner data continue to be collected from an ever-expanding universe of sources.

The new homepage includes a direct link to Law.com Quest--our newly launched search engine, which targets only legal content. And coming soon: the Legal Week 50-from our new partners across the pond at Legal Week. This relationship will continue to give our database a more global perspective moving forward.

I'll be scheduling webinars to go through the new site, so stay tuned. Feel free to email me: clowry@alm.com.

Survey: Minority Attorneys More Satisfied at Large Firms

According to a survey by the Cuban American Bar Association, and reported in Small Firm Business, minority attorneys at larger law firms are more satisfied than lawyers at smaller firms. The survey's goal was to identify which firms have greater success with diversity. One Holland & Knight partner, according to the report, said that some large firms have diversity ingrained in their cultures through committees and formal retention and recruiting policies, whereas promoting diversity in a smaller firm isn't as precise a science as with a big firm.

Law Schools: Recruiting

According to a report April 14 from the National Law Journal Columbia Law School landed in the No.1 spot again as the school that sent the greatest portion of graduates to NLJ 250 law firms, with nearly 75 percent of its students in 2007 taking jobs among the nation's largest law firms. Last year, 69.6% of its graduates went to NLJ 250 law firms. All told, the top 20 law schools that NLJ 250 law firms relied on most to fill their first-year associate ranks sent 54.9% of their graduates to those firms, compared with 51.6% in 2006.

Data from this survey report is available from ALM Research Online. Called the 2007 Law School Hiring Survey , the data is presented in spreadsheet format and includes the law firm, schools from which they hired associates, and the number hired from each school. In addition, this product includes the number of associates promoted to partner in 2007 at each participating law firm. Years available for purchase (or free download by subscribers) are 2006 and 2007.

Firm Financials: Report from Atlanta

Each year ALM Media’s Atlanta-based newspaper, the Fulton County Daily Report publishes a regional version of The Am Law 200, called the Daily Report Dozen —which seems to have expanded to 16 firms this year (listed below). The report focuses on the Atlanta-based office of firms, whether they are based in Georgia or elsewhere. Though one needs a subscription to see the full report—and here is a sample for King & Spalding if you follow the Daily Report’s Blog, you would have access to all reports.

Each report is rather attractively laid out, as well as informative, and includes financials, a short bio of the firm, number of lawyers, lateral hires and losses, significant transactional and litigation work during 2007, office locations and number of lawyers in each, significant clients, and occasional other interesting factoids.

• King & Spalding
• Alston & Bird
• Smith Grambrell
• Fisher Phillips
• Troutman Sanders
• Sutherland Asbill
• Kilpatrick Stockton
• Ogletree Deakins
• McKenna Long & Aldridge
• Womble Carlyle
• Powell Goldstein
• Morris, Manning
• Seyfarth Shaw
• Jones Day
• Hunton & Williams
• Paul Hastings

New Role at Firms? Client Interviewer

Ballard Spahr has hired a veteran journalist, Debra Nussbaum, to be a full-time client interviewer, according to a recent report on the Law Marketing Blog. Nussbaum has more than 30 years of newspaper reporting experience, beginning her career at The Minneapolis Star, then writing about real estate for The Philadelphia Inquirer and about schools for The New York Times. She started in the firm's Philadelphia office in February and is gradually starting to meet with clients for candid interviews in which the clients can talk about what type of service they are getting, any problems that have arisen and what needs to be done better. Nussbaum is not a lawyer herself, but might be accompanied to some of these interviews by lawyers from the firm.

As Larry Bodine of the Law Marketing Blog notes:  Client interviewers are a perfect extension of the marketing function, not a replacement.  Gathering data about clients is what marketing is supposed to be all about. In our recently-completed survey of Law Firm Business Development Practices, over half (56%) of large firm respondents said their firms conduct formal client interviews or satisfaction surveys, and 70% felt that it was a “very” or “extremely” effective strategy for building business. Hey, it just makes common sense to find out if your clients are satisfied with the service they are getting—and if, perhaps, they have more business they’d like to bring your way.

Practice Focus: Bankruptcy Expected to Be Hot

Robert Half Legal’s annual survey of the upcoming year’s hot practice areas was released recently. Lawyers from large firms and legal departments at the top corporations are predicting that bankruptcy will be a very hot practice area in 2008, along with litigation, and ethics and corporate governance.

This jives with our findings in ALM Research’s recently completed report of our survey of Law Firm Business Development Practices, in which the top five practice areas predicted to bring in the most revenue in the coming year were litigation, intellectual property, real estate, bankruptcy/reorganization, and business law. Industries that the majority of respondents predicted would bring in the most revenue in 2008 were finance/insurance/real estate; energy; technology; biotechnology; and health care.

Best and Worst Tort States

A new report from the Pacific Research Institute compares the legal climates in the 50 states. The U.S. Tort Liability Index: 2008 Report is a state-by-state ranking of tort costs and tort laws. As noted by Bob Ambrogi on the Legal Blog Watch, Florida is the worst state, and North Dakota the best. In addition, the study grouped the states into four categories:

·         Saints: Cited as states well-positioned to contain tort liability, with low tort costs and few litigation risks, were Alaska, Mississippi, Ohio, Tennessee and Utah.

·         Sinners: States likely to see rising tort costs were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

·         Suckers: States with weak tort laws that "foolishly" see no need for reform were Hawaii, Iowa, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota and Virginia.

·         Salvageables: States with moderate to high risk but also moderate to strong laws were Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, South Carolina and Texas.

Women Lawyers’ Salaries Slipping; Billing Rates are Lower than Male Lawyers’

The latest issue of Conde Nast’s Portfolio magazine carries an article called Sexism in the Workplace  (mentioned on the Cal Law Blog, which borrows from a survey (PDF) by the National Association of Women Lawyers to make the point: the salaries of female lawyers are slipping in comparison with those of their male colleagues. We won’t pound you with the statistics here, but just cite one from Portolio’s article: according to the most recent statistics available, female attorneys' weekly wages amounted to 70.5 percent of male lawyers' in 2006, compared with 77.5 percent in 2005. The ABA Journal cited the same NAWL study in an article last November.

This issue was of particular interest to us because of one of the findings in our recently published survey of billing rates and alternative billing practices at small firms and solo practices (ALM Research Billing Rates & Practices). The data, based on the responses of more than 5,000 lawyers across the U.S., showed that female lawyers rather consistently bill at lower rates than males, regardless of firm size, years in practice, geography, and—with a few exceptions—practice area.

What gives? Are we heading backward in time?

Salaries: In-House Counsel in Southern California

As mentioned on the Wall St. Journal Law Blog, a survey of 324 members of the Southern California chapter of the Association of Corporate Counsel, conducted by First American CoreLogic revealed the following information about their compensation:

• Average 2007 Salary + Bonus for In-House Attorneys: $181,810 + $56,13
• Average 2007 Salary + Bonus for General Counsel: $220,164 + $82,640
• Male vs. Female Pay for In-House Jobs: Men were paid a cash salary of 13% more than women in 2007 (and men hold 60% of general counsel jobs.)
• Private Company vs. Public Company Pay: Counsel at private companies were paid slightly better than their public counterparts in 2007.

Study Tracks Subprime Litigation

As mentioned by Robert Ambrogi on Legal Blog Watch, Navigant Consulting has published a report on a study of subprime subprime mortgage and related litigation (2007: Looking Back at What’s Ahead), identifying 278 cases filed during 2007, of which 65 percent were filed during the year’s final six months. Questions addressesd in the study include: Who are the parties involved? What types of cases are being filed? What is the status of the cases? Who is being sued? Who is filing the suits? Where are the suits being filed? What specific claims are being put forth? Contact information is provided for those who want the full report.

More On Laterals: Primary Way To Spur Growth, According To Survey

In our soon-to-be released report of the 2007 Business Development Practices Survey, we found that “lateral hires” was rated the primary strategy for growth; in the previous survey, it had been rated as the second-most important factor leading to growth in a firm’s revenues. After laterals, the next two factors leading to revenue growth were strategic business development efforts, and increasing billing rates. We will have the report in print and ready for distribution by the end of the month. For more information contact head of client relations, Chuck Lowry.

For more information about laterals—specifically, lateral partner moves at large firms— ALM Research Online offers the Lateral Partner Moves spreadsheet. The 2007 spreadsheet is now complete, and the 2008 information is in progress (the information is updated monthly). Included in this product are: the name of the partner; the law firm or organization (and city) left; the law firm or organization (and city) joined; the position left and joined (e.g. Partner or other position, such as General Counsel, or a political or judicial appointment); the partner’s practice area; the month and year of the move, and the source of the information.

Law School Surveys: Students There For Money and Influence – But Law School Enrollment Flat

A recent Kaplan survey (December 2007) asked 2,000 potential law school applicants why they want to be lawyers. The conclusion: financial gain and political ambition. (Find the survey and related articles at the Tax Prof Blog and a short article and comments on the Wall St Journal Law Blog. According to the WSJ report, 73% of the survey respondents indicated that they wanted to enter the legal profession because of the high income potential, and 42% would “definitely” or “probably” run for political office in the future.

There was any interesting gender twist to the political ambitions, and this is what most of the school newspapers picking up the story focused on: 52% of males said they had political aspirations, while only 34% of women said the same.

In the meantime, law school enrollment for first-year law students essentially was flat this past fall, with the number of men enrolled falling by 2% and the number of women rising 2.4%, according to the American Bar Association (ABA), and reported by National Law Journal. Total enrollment for students seeking juris doctor degrees rose by 2.9%, from 141,031 to 141,433 students attending the 196 law schools accredited by the ABA. First-year minority students enrolled in juris doctor programs increased 0.9%, but as a percentage of the first-year class, they dropped from 22.4% to 22.3%.

Key Firm Contacts: Send Us Your Changes

We try as best we can to keep up with changes in personnel who head up the marketing or business development efforts at Am Law 200, Global 100, and NLJ 250 firms. We troll your firm’s web sites and the trades for announcements, but we miss a lot. Be sure to include almresearch@alm.com on your notification list when you or your key contact in marketing, business development, firm and practice management changes.

Associates Facing 2008 Salary Cap (?)

According to this post on the Wall St Journal Law Blog, yes—associates at big law firms shouldn’t expect to see another salary war this year. If the war hasn’t started by February, WSJLB says, it’s not going to happen this year. As expected, there were an abundance of comments to the post—some of them even thoughtful!

Here at ALM Research, we’ve been keeping track of changes in first-year associate salaries on a semi-informal basis. About this time last year, it was increasingly hard to keep up with the news and so we started a spreadsheet, using as our starter data the first-year associate salaries reported in the NLJ 250. And we’ve been keeping that spreadsheet ever since. If you are a subscriber, and want a link to our Associate Salary Update spreadsheet, which is updated about once a week as news is reported, just send an email to almresearch@alm.com and let us know.

Lateral Partners Moves

The 2007 Lateral Partners Moves is now complete, with the inclusion of information gathered in the annual American Lawyer Lateral Partner Moves Survey. The final report, with added information from legal industry reports and firm press releases, tracked 3,160 lateral partner moves in 2007 and includes the partner’s name, practice area, organization and location moved to and moved from, and the month of the move.

The 2008 Lateral Partners Moves is now being tracked and is available in searchable spreadsheet format also, and is updated once a month. The information is available free to subscribers, and for purchase by non-subscribers. Those who download the spreadsheet will be given a link to access the updated spreadsheet throughout the rest of the year. For more information, contact almresearch@alm.com or call 888-770-5647.

Law Schools: Minority Enrollment is Down

According to this report in National Law Journal, a Web site created by Columbia Law School and the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT), has found that enrollment of blacks and Mexican-Americans has fallen by 8.65 in the past 15 years. The decline has occurred as applications to law schools among those two groups have remained constant, the report says. The statistics, compiled from information provided by the Law School Admission Council, dispute the notion that the low enrollment numbers among blacks and Mexican-Americans are due to dwindling applications from those groups. Instead, Columbia and SALT say that as schools continue to revere U.S. News & World Report rankings and anti-affirmative action initiatives predicted to be on the ballot in five states in November, it appears that the situation may only worsen. "It's not a pipeline problem," a Columbia professor who helped to create the Web site was quoted as saying.

Can Someone Please Explain Why Female Lawyers Charge Less?

by Margaret Daisley

No joke. The most unexpected and inexplicable finding in our recent survey of billing rates and alternative billing practices at small and midsize firms and solo practices was this: female lawyers bill at lower rates than male lawyers. I wish someone would help me pursue the obvious question: Why?

(Officially, the survey is called ALM Research Survey Report of Billing Rates & Practices. To access the report for a description or purchase, just click on the title above. Or email ALM Research. Or call: 888-770-5647.)

We found that, almost without exception, female lawyers across the U.S. (there were over 1,000 in our study) bill at lower rates than male lawyers, regardless of years in practice, practice area or client industry, size of firm, or geography. In addition, we found that females were much less inclined to offer alternatives to the billable hour, such as fixed or flat fees, contingency or retainer arrangements, hybrid or blended fees, discounted hourly billing, success- or performance-based fees.

So why do female lawyers charge less than their male counterparts? Are they even aware of the fact that they are charging less? Why are they seemingly less open to alternatives to the billable hour?

I’ve been keeping an eye out for articles and blog posts, hoping to see something on the subject (see list below). But I’ve found that most frequently, the focus of articles about billing practices are either a call for—or pronouncement about—the demise of the billable hour, a report of a case in which outrageous fees were charged, or an isolated firm’s alternative billing practices.

If you have an explanation about this gender imbalance when it comes to billing rates, or if you’ve seen any other studies or articles that can help to explain it, please send your comments this way, or email me directly. In the meantime, here’s a short of list of recent writings about billing:

Pricing: An Elephant in the Professional Services Room? (Expertise Marketing) 

The Scourge of the Billable Hour (Slate)

The Billable Hour: Are Its Days Numbered? (American Lawyer)

Firm Accused of Billing “Unconscionable” Fee (NY Lawyer)

Can Legal Fees Ever Be Per Se Unconscionable? (Legal Blog Watch)

Hourly Billing is Inherently Unethical (Alan’s Blog)

Shepherding in a New Era in Legal Billing? (Wall St Journal Law blog)

Can You Really Ditch Timesheets If You’re Not Billing Hourly? (Legal Ease Blog) 

More Lawyers Join the Shift Away from the Billable Hour (Legal Ease Blog)

Wal-Mart’s Moratorium on Hike in Billable Hour Rates (Blog of Legal Times)

Boston Firm Bans Billable Hour (Legal Blog Watch)

Small Firms Use Flat Fees to Gain Edge (National Law Journal)

Midsize Law Firms Go for Big Changes (National Law Journal)

Pricing Legal Services (Ward Bower, Altman Weil)