Legal Bill Audit Blog

The single biggest cost issue I come across in my legal bill reviews can be put under the category of "inappropriate staffing" of cases.  Appropriate case staffing usually means a partner, associate, paralegal, and legal secretary in all but the most complex of cases. While some smaller firms may not have associates or even legal secretaries, any...

If you have identified the specific legal billing issues you object to and have determined that you have adequate grounds for objecting, the next step is to communicate directly with your lawyer.  In communicating with your lawyer on legal billing disputes, it is important that all communications be in writing. If communications are by phone or...

One thing that I always recommend to companies I work with is to add to their litigation and billing guidelines a requirement for attorneys to always assign tasks to less costly legal staff wherever possible. This is not only a common sense requirement, but it also mirrors an attorney’s ethical duties as well as well...

Two of the more common issues encountered when reviewing legal bills are "over lawyering" and "over staffing." Over lawyering occurs when a lawyer does too much legal work in a case and over staffing occurs when there are too many lawyers doing legal work in a case.  While they are different concepts, they nevertheless are considered...

The law profession is just not overcrowded, it is vastly overcrowded.  Many factors contribute to this, but the chief contributors in my judgment are those law school deans who are more interested in keeping classrooms full and law professors employed than they are in ensuring that the supply of lawyer does not far exceed the demand...

They're Baaack!!!  "They" are the "summer associates" (aka, law clerks).   These would-be lawyers are eager to learn their future trade and are looking for things to do  . . . like   working on your case.  But should you pay for this work? To use a lawyerly phrase, "that depends." And here are some tips to...