Clifford Chance (CC) is aiming to scrap billable hours as a lawyer appraisal metric, rolling out a pilot scheme this month to experiment with the shift.

The Magic Circle firm has launched the scheme in its Dubai and Abu Dhabi offices, with all lawyers excluding partners affected.

The year-long pilot will see lawyers' performance based instead on other factors, including demonstration of knowledge, thought leadership, innovation, pro bono work, and business development.

Lawyers will still record their billable hours throughout the scheme, to allow the firm to compare data at the end of the pilot and to maintain client billing timesheets where necessary.

CC chief operating officer Caroline Firstbrook said in a statement: “While utilisation is widely used as a core metric across the industry, it has a number of broadly acknowledged limitations, most notably that it does not directly incentivise efficiency or contributions to non-billable work that may be invaluable to the firm's overall strategy and to the continued development of exceptional client service.

“By running a pilot on this scale, with a large number of data points, associate input and partner and management feedback, we expect to be in a position to draw informed conclusions on the way ahead for the firm. The Middle East partners and leadership team are taking a bold and exciting step here that will provide insights into these questions that have simply not been available to us before now.”