Legal Bill Audit Blog

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...

If you have been unable to resolve the fee bill dispute with your lawyer through discussion alone, you may want to consider mediating or arbitrating the dispute. Generally, mediations are informal and are non-binding.  A mediator does not make a decision as does an arbitrator or judge in a case.   But a skilled mediator can...

Can a client recover previously paid fees and costs paid to a lawyer if found to be improperly billed?  The answer is an unqualified "yes!" It makes no difference whether a client has paid some of all of the fees and costs. The ethics of the profession clearly provide that at the termination of the representation,...