The difficulties facing law firms and large corporate clients in shifting from hourly billing to alternative fee arrangements were illustrated in a conversation between an in-house and firm lawyer at Thursday’s meeting of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Georgia chapter, held at the law firm Sutherland.
At a panel on the ethics of alternative billing, Kevin C. Gallagher, the senior counsel for disputes management at Interface Inc., advocated for replacing hourly billing with alternative fee arrangements. Ronan P. Doherty, a partner at litigation boutique Bondurant Mixson & Elmore, said he uses such arrangements with some clients and expressed receptiveness to moving away from hourly rates.
