pricing

What are my pricing options?

You hear a lot these days about ‘pricing‘. This might be as it relates to Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs) or Value-based pricing (VBP).

Indeed, all the noise around this issue can get daunting at times.

So for today’s post I thought I would share a graphic that I have created from the many RFTs (tenders), RFQs (quotes), RFPs (proposals) that I have been involved in over the years and which I have named: “What are my pricing options?“.

Also, I’ll let you in on a little secret:- there’s isn’t such as thing as an “Alternative Fee Arrangement” – only pricing options or fee arrangement. Likewise, if properly explained and clearly transparent, all pricing options are value-based.

There’s one caveat I have though: any pricing option that includes a ‘discount’ or ‘volume discount’ component isn’t a pricing option – as you’re not getting your asking price!

I hope your find the graphic useful and if this is a subject you are interested in learning more about I would suggest you start with the Association of Corporate Counsel’s (ACC) Value-based fee primer.

5 steps to take when your client becomes your biggest competitor

One of the more interesting take-outs from an article (‘The Rise of in-house counsel: What does this mean for law firms?‘) published on the Australasian Lawyer website today – on the rise of in-house counsel numbers in #Auslaw – is the following comment by Katherine Sampson – managing director of Mahlab Recruitment:

“It’s not necessarily that they’re [in-house] going to a competitor firm, but they are going in house…”

To me this statement rings alarm bells and reads:

“your client has just become your biggest competitor!”

So, what steps should you be taking when your client has also just become your biggest competitor for that work?

Here are 5 things you should be putting in place immediately:

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The hidden dangers of discounting your fees

Today’s post is a short rant about the practice and dangers of discounting your legal fees, followed by a useful collection of 20 questions I found earlier that you should be asking yourself if you are discounting your fees.

I’ll start off by disclosing that I hate it when lawyers discount their fees. I especially hate it when this is done without any request by the client – a far more prevalent practice than is perhaps admitted – or consultation with others in the firm (including the practice of discounting on other lawyers’ rates in your firm without even asking them if this is OK!).

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