Looking Back At 2021
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Looking Back At 2021
January – “J” is for “jumping” into the deep end with Frank Fee in 2021. We launched in the Fall of 2020 and we were all in as we embraced our continuous learning mantra of “action, learning, recalibration and action”. Repeat over and over again. In January, it was also encouraging that vaccines were starting to roll out and 2021 was shaping up to be a great year on all fronts.
February – “F” is for being “Frank”. Just couldn’t resist this as it is the only month that starts with an “F” and the name of this article series is “Let’s be Frank”. My approach to writing about moving away from hourly billing was not about being right or wrong, but rather, I chose to promote a robust discussion around the topic that was good for the legal industry and innovation. I continue to invite any thoughts you have on the subject whether you are an advocate or otherwise.
March – “M” is for “my” team in writing this article. Special thanks to Emma, Wendy, Digby, Scott, Kristin, and Bret who have been there on each article and have really helped me get my thoughts out to the audience. And thanks to you, the reader, for finding something in these articles that is worthy of your attention. Hopefully, it will be a catalyst for you to challenge the status quo in any way you want.
April – “A” is for “abandoning” the billable hour and converting to agreed upfront pricing and AFAs. The key to success with any AFA is being patient when scoping a new project; this can be difficult during this phase as it can feel like you are working for free. It is natural to feel that if you do not reach an agreement, there will be no way to be paid for all the time invested in getting to scope and price. However, if you rush to price and get started, you will not find out what success looks like to your client and you will be prone to not get scope correct. If you really dial in on scope, you are likely to be just fine on pricing. Mistakes made on scope lead to mismanaged expectations and a scrambly engagement. Be patient!
May – “M” is for “Moving Away from Hourly Billing”. Through my good friend Judith Janzen, I was invited to write an article for BarTalk (Canadian Bar Association) where I had a real opportunity to share my thoughts on how as a law firm you could move away from billing by the hour. It was great to share with our profession across the country.
June – “J” is for “Janice Porter”. The podcast with Janice under the banner “Relationships Rule” was special as Janice is a good friend who I have known for years. The topic was perfect as it embodies what I believe and the convo was so good as we had so many stories to share with the audience. I also appeared on podcasts in 2021 with Morag Barrett “Practicing Law a Little Differently” and Kevin Pratt “The Human Lawyer”.
July – “J” is for “Just Do It”. I had talked about writing for years and July was the month that I published the first article in this series. It was entitled “Why We Abandoned Billing By the Hour” and I covered off the benefits for all three stakeholders:
Clients receive legal cost certainty and can properly budget;
lawyers and paralegals get to work in an environment where the primary driver for financial success is not how many hours you can work;
law firms are able to foster a culture of continuous learning where efficiencies, resource allocation and project management are key to profitability.
Overall there is far better communication and alignment between lawyer and client. I felt so supported as we immediately went to 1000 subscribers which has continued to grow over the last five articles. Thanks again for being interested and supportive.
August – “A” is for AltFee. Although I have not yet written much about AltFee, there has been much work done in the background through all of 2021. AltFee is a SaaS product that is being developed for the legal industry to assist law firms with moving away from billing by the hour (AFA’s). The company was co-founded by me with my two sons, Scott and Digby and the initial product was launched in DL&Co. in November. Early in 2022 it will be available to everyone. You can follow AltFee by clicking here.
September – “S” is for “scope”. Getting the scope correct is so important that it is going to stand on its own with no more commentary for September.
October – “O” is for “one”. In the hourly billing model, there can definitely be misalignment between lawyer and client which can interfere with the best job getting done with lawyer and client not moving forward in sync. The AFA model requires a much more extensive collaborative process before the project starts which has the effect of a real meeting of the minds and a project completed with deeply rooted alignment and as “one”.
November – “N” is for “now” we get AltFee’s software into DL&Co. What we had been doing manually for the first year plus, we now could do with greater efficiency and collaboration thanks to this added piece of technology. Thanks to our team at AltFee.
December – “D” is for “deciding” what next. December is such a good month as it creates space to reflect and rejig your path. Although this is a constant, this month lends itself to a lot of self-reflection. For me, 2021 was filled with so many positives as I appeared on numerous podcasts, wrote articles and we really moved ahead as an industry with our conversion around getting away from hourly billing. One metric we focus on is our billing realization rates. This helps us gauge how we are doing in building systems, allocating our resources and managing the project. In 2020, our billing realization rate hovered at about 88-89%. It slowly creeped up in the first half of 2021 to 93% and in the last half of 2021 it moved to 100%. Interestingly, Clio Legal Trends Report indicates that they have found that the average billing realization rate in 2020 in the United States was 83% and up slightly to 84% in 2021. Overall so much work has been done, but it seems like even more opportunity lies ahead for 2022 and beyond. Wishing you an amazing 2022!
Until next time,
