Corporate & Securities Law

Billing Rate Increase? Try 20% Discount!

By John Wallbillich

Bloomberg reporters Carlyn Kolker and Lindsay Fortado delivered a great article today about one company’s ability to get a substantial discount in exchange for a continued commitment of business:

Lawyer Mark Peroff made a promise to the Japanese maker of the video game “Final Fantasy” when he moved to Hiscock & Barclay, a 200-attorney firm in upstate New York: I’ll cut my legal fees if you follow me.

The answer from his Tokyo-based client Square Enix Holdings Co.: “We’re on board,” according to Peroff, who works out of Hiscock’s Manhattan office and says he’s undercutting larger New York firms’ hourly fees by up to 20 percent.

This article is worth printing out and marking up. In-house lawyers will find it instructive; law firms might consider it as wallpaper for a dartboard.

As far as the annual rate increases, this year firms may find that clients are in a different frame of mind. It may be that holding the line on rate reductions is the new increase.

More later this week (I’m on my way to a post-election kegger; half-full or half-empty depends upon your point of view…).

Full post as published by The Wired GC on November 04, 2008 (boomark / email).