Charge-out rate: Difference between revisions

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 A bit too much hot-air and methane, I suppose.
 ===The end of the charge-out rate is nigh===
-Around the [[LinkedIn|marketplace of ideas]], you will see the occasional sandwich board-donning lunatic who will preach, righteously, that the end of this tyrannical regime is nigh. This argument, proceeding as it does from the purest precepts of cold logic is, on its own terms, unimpeachable and therefore, in the real world, utterly hopeless.
+From the “... and monkeys will fly out of my butt” department. Around the [[LinkedIn|marketplace of ideas]], you will see the occasional sandwich board-donning lunatic preaching through wild hair and crazed eyes, that the end of this tyrannical regime is nigh. ''Death to the billable hour!'' they shriek, to whatever patient, spittle-flecked audience they can find. This argument, proceeding as it does from the purest precepts of cold logic is, on its own terms, unimpeachable and therefore, in the real world, utterly hopeless.
-No matter how much everyone hates them, and no matter how good the logic against them is, charge-out rates are a brute fact of life. They have survived, and flourished, until now. They are not going away. There are several reasons for this.
+No matter how much everyone<ref>Not everyone hates them. Everyone ''with an opinion on [[LinkedIn]]'' hates them. This is different.</ref> hates them, and no matter how good the logic against them is, charge-out rates are a brute fact of life. They have survived, and flourished, until now. As brute facts tend to, they have proven adept at resisting the cold hypothetical theorising of modernisers and thought leaders.
 ====It’s a means of account====
-We suspect much of the hostility against the charge-out rate is really hostility at how tyrannical big law firms are to the poor little lambs who work for them, and outrage by clients to how much big law firms ''charge''. If that is right, the humble unit of account is an odd target for umbrage. Say what you mean.
+At the essential level, remember, the billable hour is just an internal unit of account: means of measuring work done. It is not an end in itself.
+We suspect much of the hostility against the humble charge-out rate is really meant for the tyrannical law firms that use them to tenderise winsome little lambs who, short days ago, were elbowing each other and clambering over their fallen classmates’ insensate forms just for a summer internship. Only the monstrous wouldn’t feel a pang of sympathy for the beleaguered clerk; only the credulous would feel much more. This is the game folks: if you don’t like contact sports, don’t sign up for rugby.
+Outrage might be informed, too, by how much big law firms ''charge'' for their attorneys’ time, and how little of that gets back to the poor, put-upon attorneys. If that is right, the humble unit of account is an odd target for umbrage. Say what you mean.
 ====Alignment of interests====
 Anyone who has spent any time in the trenches of a financial services transaction will know what an uncontrollable monster these things can be. Not only is there the extreme over-complicatedness of the legal documents,<ref>Curious? Have a look at [https://www.ise.ie/debt_documents/ListingParticulars_cd8daa3f-24e8-419a-819a-cf3e23a03271.PDF this 370-page beauty].</ref> but the unmanageable interests of all the conflicting interests and agents. The law firm holding the pen has no control over how idiotic its own client is, how convoluted its instructions, how contradictory, how often it will change its mind, and who is really steering the ship. It has even less over the attitude of other counterparties to the deal, and even less over their legal advisors. Much of modern legal practice involves disentangling stupid questions, trying to make head or tail of gnomic pronouncements from some senior luminary on the client’s upper management who doesn’t have the first clue about the deal or for that matter the business, waiting fruitlessly on clear news of what is meant to be happening, and fending off frustration techniques from opposing lawyers that are precisely designed to run down the clock and rack up legal expense. All of this takes time, and imposing an hourly rate is a neat, effective, and sobering hedge for a firm against being taken advantage of utterly by other participants with their own personal agendas. Fixed fees, conditional fee arrangements, percentages and caps are necessarily blunter tools, inviting more after-the-fact complaint, than actual hours spent. ''You obliged my associate to spend seventy five hours re-writing legal docs because your original instructions were unclear'' is quite hard to argue against.