Thanks to an article by Dave Galbenski of Lumen Legal – ‘Overcapacity, Underutilization and Realization Rates Plummeting‘ – I have just been made aware of the publication last month (May ’16) of the Q1 2016 Executive Report (.pdf download) undertaken by Peer Monitor Index (Report).
While the Report gives glimmers of hope (demand slightly up for certain practice areas), the overall message is bleak. And none so more than this:
“After showing some recent signs of stabilizing, collected realization took a sudden and sharp drop in the first quarter. For most of the past two years, collection rates have hovered around the 83% mark. But in Q1, collected realization plummeted to 82.2%. Not only is this a new historical low, it was the largest quarterly drop in more than three years.”
OK, two things here:
- a collected realization rate of 83% is not a benchmark we want to be heading to, but away from.
- if you keep putting your hourly rates up (recently BTI Consulting’s The Mad Clientist asked: ‘Is $5,000 an Hour Next?‘) but your collected realization rate is “plummeting”, then you’re most likely losing money (as well as the respect of your clients I might add).
My only other thoughts are:
- why do we insist on the hourly rate model as our primary means of charging if our collected realization amounts to 82 cents in the dollar? Seems absolute madness to me; and
- how many law firms out there can continue to operate on such an “historic” low collected realization rate? I know a number of accountants and bankruptcy lawyers who’ll happily tell you: “not many”.
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