Success Based Fees
“Bartlit Beck’s approach to billing is a breath of fresh air.”
Russ Strobel, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nicor, Inc.
Our approach to fees is unique, but simple. We believe our interests should be aligned with our clients’. To that end, we think we should get paid more if we win and less if we lose.
We do not bill by the hour. A law firm should not get paid more the longer it takes it to do the same task. Yet that is exactly the incentive hourly billing promotes. As the New York Times recently recognized, “the practice of billing for each hour worked can encourage law firms to prolong a client’s problem rather than solve it.” Our approach to fees is different.
Our fees don’t depend on how long we can spend on a task or how many associates we can put on it. Our fees depend on our success.
We employ a variety of fee arrangements, including flat monthly fees, partial contingency fees, and similar alternatives. In virtually every matter, some portion of our fee is based on the outcome of the case.
Our fees are fixed and certain, unlike the unpredictable hourly billing and the ever-changing and always-exceeded "budgets" provided by most firms. Most of all, we are flexible, we share the risk, and our interests are aligned with our clients.
This approach works for us because we leverage our experience and efficiency to get a positive result, rather than leveraging an army of associates to run up the hours.