考研英语阅读例题Lawyersandyourmoney律师和你的钱包.docVIP

Lawyers and your money 律师和你的钱包 ? [2010 07 24]The Economist LAWYERS hate keeping track of their billable hours. Clients hate them even more; each month they receive bills showing that their legal representatives have worked improbably long hours at incredibly high rates. Billing by the hour often fails to align lawyers’ interests with their clients’. The chap in the wig or the white shoes has an incentive to spin things out for as long as possible. His client would rather win quickly and go home. Since there is clearly a demand for an alternative to the billable hour, you would expect someone to supply it. And indeed, this is starting to happen. More and more firms’ in-house lawyers, who typically hire and manage outside lawyers, have turned to alternatives to the billable hour since the beginning of the global recession in 2008. According to a survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC), which represents companies’ in-house lawyers, 44% of members asked their lawyers for alternative billing to cut costs in 2009, more than any other cost-reducing measure. Susan Hackett, the ACC’s general counsel, says that just a few years ago what she calls “value-based” billing was only 3% of her members’ legal spending. Now, she says, surveys show the average client laying out between 15% and 30% of their legal spending this way. Different needs call for different billing structures. Repeatable documents are one thing; complex litigation is another. Lawyers often remind their clients that litigation (and hence the bill) is unpredictable. But even litigation can sometimes be billed in ways other than by the hour. A “bet the company” case, in which price is no object, will probably still be billed by the hour. But many cases are settled, and companies can try to figure out how much they want to spend on, say, depositions while trying to prepare themselves to sue or settle. Since the time and money needed for a deposition can be relatively predictable, says Ms Hackett