New pricing models in legal markets

Originally posted on Nuance What’s Next Mar. 8, 2017

Like many other service-based industries, legal firms have undergone significant changes in the way they do business. The most recent – and most visible – example may be the near-elimination of billable hours.

For decades, billable hours was the traditional pricing model for most law firms, but the Great Recession in the early 2000s forced many legal organisations to find an alternative pricing model in order to remain competitive and retain clients in an increasingly cost-sensitive economy.

Although the term “billable hour” still exists, the underlying concept is no longer the same. Clients now demand agreements that determine the budget up front, putting responsibility squarely on the legal firm to control costs in order to maintain profits.

Gone is the traditional approach that allowed firms to record time & pass the cost of billable hours on to the client. The pressure is on law firms to accurately forecast profitability, and to price & negotiate with clients accordingly. This change in approach has even resulted in the emergence of a relatively new profession in the legal industry: senior pricing executives.

A New Paradigm

Though the concept of a senior pricing executive is relatively new to legal firms, it has become an established function within many professional services institutions and business consulting firms. The responsibilities of these executives are often two-fold: serve as the engagement lead and frontline negotiator on new business, and work collaboratively with client-facing partners to understand the forces and inefficiencies that can impact profitability.

Document-related activities are changing as well. For example, clients are growing increasingly resistant to invoices for printed materials, especially if these documents were merely looked at then recycled.

Yet law firms have a lot to lose if they don’t get it right. One estimate suggests firms lose up to $16 per day per attorney in unrecovered costs such as these. For a 50-attorney firm, that’s nearly $200,000 per year. In the AMLAW 200 – law firms with 150-4,000 attorneys – the unbilled costs could be staggering.

A Better Solution

For organisations making the shift to negotiated pricing models, especially related to document management, Ricoh’s legal solutions are an optimal means to create cost efficiency & preserve profitability. Some of the cost-saving benefits Ricoh solutions can deliver include:

Improved Workflows

You can optimise legal workflows simplifying complex tasks & making life easier for your mobile workforce. For example, a centralised print, capture & cost recovery system reduces IT spend while providing a single view into cost recovery opportunities.

Expense Management & Tracking

Whether your clients are on billable hours or negotiated pricing, Ricoh seamlessly & accurately tracks all client expenses, exposing your true costs. You have the detailed insight required to control expenses & optimise profits with efficiency.

System Consolidation

Separate cost recovery & document workflow solutions erode productivity, erase profitability & cost more to maintain. Ricoh’s single platform blends these critical functions to consolidate your systems & centralise administration.

Intuitive Solutions for Maximum Productivity

Ricoh solutions offer a consistent user interface that encourages user adoption, helps enforce the application of the firm’s policies, & enhances productivity.

Ricoh business partner Nuance Document Imaging shares a case study on Stradley Ronon, a leading law firm, which reduced its annual costs with cost recovery & expense management solutions available from Ricoh. The firm successfully consolidated too many decentralised scanning & cost recovery solutions & gained a single solution capable of providing cost recovery, scan routing, print management more. As a result, Stradley Ronon significantly reduced annual support costs & increased recovery – all for a stronger bottom line.

Gain a New Advantage

As more legal firms shift from billable hours to negotiated pricing models, executives charged with maintaining profitability will focus on ways to reduce expenses & integrate cost efficiency throughout the legal process including document workflow management. Ricoh has the solutions to help.