Richard Baer, general counsel of Qwest Communications International, Inc., didn’t get the memo. Practically everyone in the in-house bar seems to think that alternative fee arrangements are the future of the legal marketplace. Baer, however, doesn’t. At a December conference in New York, he said that trashing the billable hour hadn’t worked out for Qwest. In fact, he said, “alternative fee arrangements have been a colossal train wreck for us.”
At Corporate Counsel we’ve been impressed with Baer and his department—so much so that Qwest won our Best Legal Department competition two years ago. So we were curious to hear more from him. In a follow-up interview with staff reporter Amy Miller, Baer explained why he thinks that billing by the hour will—and should—continue. An edited version of their conversation follows.
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