$1000 An Hour?
The Wills, Trusts & Estates blog, reflecting on recent news stories reporting that certain lawyers at large New York law firms are bow billing their clients at the rate of $1000 an hour, wonders whether any estate planners have breached that mark. I expect that it is possible that there might be trusts and estates practitioners at some large firm that has not jettisoned its practice who might bill at that level, but I tend to doubt it. In my view, as I discussed here, hourly billing is a bad practice, designed mostly to reward lawyers for spending hours on things, and not necessarily solving their problems. I believe that all lawyers, and estate planning practitioners especially, should embrace alternative billing methods, and charge their clients based upon value added and not time spent.
