Goodbye Billable Hours

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A Broken System That Will Never Leave

Billable hours is a horrible way to support a legal system, because, of course, the incentives are designed to generate nothing but more money for partners at the expense of the associates lives and freedom and client's wallets. Fortunately for the partners, a number of smart capable suckers line up every year for the spanking machine that is law school, graduate, and chase after big law jobs. And so long as that method generates profits for the partners, it will never disappear. Therefore, despite being hated by everyone but partners and being bad for clients (because billable hours are just designed to soak them), it is and always will be so profitable that nobody will every effectively change it. It's just not in the partner's best interest.

BenS of MD @ Feb 02, 2009 17:15:32 PM

Billable hours

I am in a divorce with a woman who has been charmed by her female attorney, the court awarded her 50% of our assets, the same that she and I had agreed before we married. The female attorney gloated that she would obtain much more...many billable hours later, roughly $ 180,000 worth, the divorce is final, and all that was awarded was the previously agreed upon 50% split. The divorce attorneys dragged out the case, created acrimony and only dug their claws into our bank accounts. Whatever you do, don't let the Bucks County, Pa. divorce mill get their hands on you, they will suck your blood out as well as that of your spouse...case in point, Eastburn & Gray and these attorneys will not do anything better than the two spouses can do themselves.

sgiannetti of PA @ Jan 31, 2009 16:22:45 PM

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