Hourly billing isn't as safe for lawyers as everyone assumes

You say you'll never bill by the hour again. Why?

For twenty years, I didn’t enjoy practicing law—then I stopped chasing time.

Now, I’m calmer. I’m happier. I’m more present with my clients. I spend far less mental energy tracking time and far more thinking about strategy, solving problems and helping clients make good decisions.

I also think it’s made me a better lawyer. When you’re no longer measuring your day in six-minute increments, you create space to think. To listen more carefully. To notice the issue nobody else is talking about. To pick up the phone because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’s billable.

For me, flat fees were never just about pricing. They changed the way I experience practicing law.

How do you actually price a flat fee when every matter is different? 

I initially thought flat fees were about estimating how many hours something would take and then converting that into a fixed price.

I was wrong.

I was still thinking like an hourly lawyer. That was the mistake.

Today, I price based on complexity, value and the fact that I’m assuming the risk if I get the pricing wrong. That’s a very different exercise than trying to predict how many hours I’ll spend on something.

I also don’t try to price the entire life of a dispute on day one. I price specific scopes of work.

For example, a client might hire me to investigate the facts, analyze the legal issues and prepare a demand letter. If the dispute resolves, great. If it doesn’t and the next step is negotiating a settlement agreement or responding to a counterclaim, that’s a new phase with its own scope and its own flat fee.

Breaking engagements into phases gives clients certainty about what they’re paying for while giving me the flexibility to adjust if the scope genuinely changes.

Are there any matters you won't flat-fee because it's too unpredictable?

Life is uncertain. Business is uncertain. Legal disputes are uncertain. I don’t think that uncertainty should automatically become the client’s financial risk.

That doesn’t mean every engagement gets the same flat fee. It means I define the scope carefully and price each phase of the work separately.

If I can’t reasonably define the scope, I won’t quote it yet. We’ll complete the first phase, learn more and then price the next one.

To me, that’s a better solution than reverting to hourly billing. It gives clients certainty without pretending I know everything on day one.

Have you ever been badly wrong on a quote? 

Yes. And I’m sure I will be wrong again.

Sometimes I underestimate the work, and I absorb that cost. Other times, a project turns out to be much more straightforward than I anticipated.

For example, I recently handled a licensing negotiation that resolved much more efficiently than I expected. Rather than treating the unused portion of the flat fee as a windfall, I carried it forward and applied it to negotiating the actual license agreement.

But if a matter balloons way past what you scoped, you eat that cost?

That’s the deal.

If I underestimate the work within the scope we’ve agreed on, I don’t send the client a surprise bill. That’s my mistake, not theirs.

Hourly billing is seen as safer for the lawyer because it shifts almost all that risk to the client. If a project takes twice as long as expected, the client pays for it.

But it’s not safer for the lawyer. There’s no guarantee a client will pay an invoice you send thirty days after you’ve already done the work. Every lawyer who bills by the hour has written off time, negotiated down invoices or dealt with unpaid bills.

With a flat fee, I define the scope, agree on the price, get paid and then do the work. I bear the risk if I underestimate the work. 

Do potential clients ever push back on your pricing model?

A few weeks ago, one client wanted me to lower my fee, and I said no. A few days later, I took on a different client for free.

On the surface, those decisions look like opposites. To me, they were the same.

In the first situation, I had already spent significant time reviewing a lengthy background memo, multiple agreements, and thinking through the legal issues and negotiation strategy. I understood what the work would require, and I believed my flat fee was fair. Once I reached that conclusion, I wasn’t willing to let someone else decide what my work was worth.

The pro bono client was different. He was an artist who had received a couple of cease-and-desist letters from a company known for aggressively enforcing its intellectual property rights. He had already stopped selling the product, removed what he could and was trying to do the right thing. He genuinely couldn’t afford a lawyer. He was someone I could help. He was someone I wanted to help.

The common thread was that both decisions reflect my principles, not my financial incentives.

If an attorney or firm wants to shift to flat fee pricing, what’s the first step?

If someone wanted to experiment with flat fees, I’d tell them not to overhaul their entire practice overnight. Pick one type of work you handle repeatedly. Track your time—not to bill it, but to learn from it. Notice the patterns and refine your pricing as you go. 

The Bonus Round: What movie would you recommend people check out in order to get a flavor of your practice?

I have two. 

If we’re talking about the theme of this Q&A: Moneyball

It’s a movie about questioning assumptions. Everyone in baseball accepted a certain way of evaluating talent because that’s how it had always been done. Billy Beane asked a different question: what if we’re measuring the wrong things?

I think about how our industry bills for their services the same way. Hourly billing has been the default for so long that many of us never stop to ask whether we’re measuring the right thing in the first place.

If we’re talking about Audette Law and my practice more generally: Chef

It has nothing to do with the law. It’s about someone who walks away from a successful career to build something that’s more authentic and more aligned with who they are.

I started Audette Law because I wanted to practice law differently—in how I price my services, how I serve clients, how I solve problems and ultimately how I show up as a lawyer.

To me, that’s what “Chef” is really about. Craftsmanship. Authenticity. And having the courage to build something that reflects your own values.

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