Trends in the Legal Industry-lowering legal fees

Hi to All

Over the past few months I have spent quite some time researching what's been happening on the legal landscape in North America as regards how the legal industry has fared with the downturn in the economy.
Basically, many people complain about the high cost of legal fees. That includes people like us and especially legal counsel from the companies which hire law firms. So I wanted to know what impact, if any, the recession has had on the way law firms charge for services. Has there been any piercing of the veil of mystique concerning how law firms bill clients, and has there been any move towards reducing fees at all, or at least giving clients more value for money.If you know what you are paying for, and have the means to see how your money is spent, then paying exorbitant bills tends to hurt less.
My research revealed that In-house (corporate) counsel have been exerting some pressure on their external counsel (the law firms), to move away from billing by the hour, and to do something about controlling costs. Also a whole new industry of legal process outsourcers, both onshore (in North America and the UK as well), and offshore (particularly in India, but also in New Zealand), has been growing to support law firms in doing some of the low-end, repetitive tasks at much cheaper rates. Legal management consultancies are also on the rise, offering ways and means to build in efficiencies in the way legal processes are carried out at higher management levels.

What this means is that progressive law firms who are in tune with the dissatisfaction of their clients now have the means to become more efficient at how they deliver services. Ideally this should translate to more value for cost to clients, and eventually to cost savings. Good news for all around, one would think...

However, law firms might not be ready to jump at the idea of reducing fees as this would obviously mean a corresponding reduction in revenue for them. On the other hand the time saved by becoming more efficient, could open up more opportunities for utilizing the firm's lawyers in more profitable ways. For example giving junior lawyers more responsibilities and experiences would help accelerate their learning curves. They could become more proficient at a faster rate and this would justify billing them out at higher rates. Clients should not complain about high bills which are backed up by the appropriate expertise. One complaint of In-house counsel has been that they are billed high fees for inexperienced lawyers.

I recently joined JD Supra on the LinkedIn website and my profile is here:
http://www.jdsupra.com/profile/shireen_ali

I've posted up a more detailed article on this subject at :
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=2adefe29-ba5d-4...

Please feel free to make comments. As I get deeper into this subject, I'll add more content here on the world cafe and there as well.

Cheers to all!