From Billable Hours to Flat Fee Success

By Priya Marwah Doornbos

After I graduated from law school, I started practicing with a large law firm.  I had a billable hour requirement that I could never seem to meet, but was expected to exceed.

I spent 7 ½ years practicing with large law firms and when I look back I feel like I spent more time and energy keeping track of billable hours than I did in the practice of law and serving clients’ needs.  Each month I would calculate how many hours I needed to bill that month in order to stay on track to meet my minimum requirement.  I was constantly under stress of trying to bill enough hours in order to meet that minimum requirement.  It definitely took the focus away from serving my clients and doing what is best for them.  That was not how I thought a lawyer should practice.

Last year when I started my own practice I knew that I did not want to work by the billable hour.  Instead, I wanted to offer my clients some kind of alternative fee arrangement.  I wanted my clients to actually contact me every time they had a legal issue come up without having to worry about “being on the clock” and getting billed for every phone call, e-mail or document I reviewed or drafted.

The alternative fee arrangement I thought of was a flat fee model.  I though the flat fee concept was great, but I wasn’t quite sure how to implement it to make it successful.  That’s when I met Kevin Houchin.  He implemented a monthly flat fee program for his clients that has become incredibly successful – for his clients as well as for himself.  With his help, I created my own my own monthly flat fee program.  As soon as I implemented it, and discussed with one of my current clients, that client thought it was great and immediately signed on to the monthly flat fee program.  He was a client who never called or had me do legal work for him because he did not want to rack up billable hours.  I have now been working with him on a monthly flat fee arrangement for about 6 months and our relationship is better than ever.  He keeps me informed on his business and runs everything by me before he does it.  I have become his trusted advisor.  He enjoys working with me and is grateful to have an attorney that offers an alternative to just billing by the hour.

About a month ago, Kevin called me and told me about the idea of The Space Between Center.  I did not hesitate to join and I am proud to be a Founding Member.  Over the last few weeks, I have had tremendous help and support from Kevin and the other members of The Space Between Center.  They have helped me refine my flat fee program and they have given me great advice on how to market my flat fee program and approach it with clients.

Last week I had 2 new client calls and I took the advice I got from The Space Between Center and was able to sign one of those clients on to my monthly flat fee program.  I feel like being a member of The Space Between Center will really help make my practice a success.