Why Mederos Refuses Billable Hour Work

In order to create a law firm that is dedicated to high quality legal services, MEDEROS made the decision that it would not accept billable hour work. The traditional law firm has the billable hour built into its foundation which too often rewards inefficient and excessive legal services. It is undeniable that traditional law firms increase profits by keeping cases open and performing a maximum amount of legal services. This necessarily drives up their overhead (staffing and office space) which only further causes their legal fees to skyrocket. The divergent interests in protracted and complicated litigation at the billable firm too often results in excessive legal fees, wasted time in legal bill review and disputes over the reasonableness or necessity of the work performed.

Traditional hourly law firms have a difficult time offering comparable flat rate services because they continue to evaluate the profitability for their flat rate cases on the measure of the billable hour. Companies complain that billable hour firms offer a flat rate billing structure yet become suddenly disinterested in the litigation when they have hit their profitability marker based on the billable hour. The attorneys are incentivized to “bill” which does not increase efficiency and the billable hour firm is too often incentivized to not offer its best talent on cases that have guaranteed income. Companies complain that their flat rate cases are handed over to low level attorneys with little oversight causing inefficient and less than optimal legal services.

Types OF Alternative Fee Arrangements

MEDEROS offers different fee arrangements including: monthly retainers, single case flat rate through trial, single case flat rate per phase of litigation and flat rate for a portfolio of litigation. The goal is to develop a fee structure which is financially advantageous to the client, offers adequate incentive to the firm to sustain our devotion to the litigation and is easy to administer. Many clients prefer to withhold a percentage of the flat rate fee as a discretionary bonus based on the quality of the work, dedication to your business, results, creativity, efficiency and overall cost savings. The MEDEROS litigation team welcomes the opportunity to earn the bonus at the sole discretion of our clients.

The development of a flat rate is not complicated because MEDEROS simply performs a budgetary analysis of the costs of the legal talent, overhead and a modest profit. We know that many cases will take years to resolve and result in trial. We also know the importance of early case assessment and diligent motion practice to obtain early dismissal when possible.

Rewarding Efficiency And Results

The alternative billing models used by MEDEROS are designed to assist our clients to contain and budget for the skyrocketing costs of litigation. The flat fee structures reward efficiency and cost savings while reducing unnecessary time and expense. The firm only employs top quality attorneys who have achieved a high level of success handling litigation. MEDEROS depends on the ability of the entire litigation team to focus on the single goal of providing truly exceptional legal services to its clients. Less experienced attorneys are only used when beneficial to the provision of high end legal services. Our clients are not expected to pay to train inexperienced attorneys or spend countless hours reviewing invoices to dispute the inefficient use of legal talent. Our team is paid on a corporate model of incentive bonuses that are directly tied to the successful provision of quality services to our clients. All team members are incentivized on the quality of legal services provided, business knowledge, professionalism and efficiency.