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How to Manage Alternative Billing and High-Profile Cases
Timothy R. Clinton, Managing Partner of Clinton Brook & Peed, a service provider at the marcus evans Chief Litigation Officer Summit Fall 2015, on the benefits of alternative billing arrangements and the complexities of high-profile cases.
NEW YORK, N.Y., Sep 04, 2015 - (ACN Newswire) - Clinton Brook & Peed is a service provider at the marcus evans Chief Litigation Officer Summit Fall 2015 in Miami, Florida, September 20-22.
- What are some of the benefits of alternative billing compared to hourly billing?
Our firm has used many different alternative billing methods, such as flat fees, monthly fees, contingency fees, success fees, and various hybrids, and have found that the flexibility we offer is attractive to many clients. Compared to traditional hourly billing, alternative structures can be designed to maximize the client's top concerns, such as predictability and alignment of financial incentives.
Since litigation often swings between periods of high and low activity, causing traditional bills to vary from month to month, clients concerned about cash flow might prefer flat monthly fees over a traditional engagement. Other clients like their lawyers having a direct stake in the outcome. Traditionally, attorneys are paid for their time regardless of the outcome, but success fees and contingency fees tie compensation directly to the degree of success achieved.
Despite the benefits of alternative fee arrangements, many clients still prefer traditional hourly billing, and it is not going away any time soon. Ultimately, we have found that clients appreciate the flexibility that firms like ours take with respect to our bills, whether or not they take advantage of alternative billing methods.
- How do you maintain transparency when not billing by the hour?
With many alternative structures, we still provide monthly shadow invoices reflecting the information one would expect to see in a bill-by-the-hour invoice. These invoices include specific time entries for each task performed, aggregate hours and hourly rates for each attorney, and a total amount that would have been billed under an hourly engagement. This allows our clients to monitor our activity and track our performance, and the performance of the fee arrangement, on an ongoing basis.
- What is one of the complexities unique to high-profile cases?
While ordinary litigation requires counsel to manage the flow of information to the opposing parties and their counsel, the judge, and the jury, high-profile cases throw an additional audience into the mix, the public at large. For many clients, success or failure in court may be less important than the public fallout. It is a shame when competent counsel guides a client to success in court, only to find that the client's reputation has been irreparably harmed by stories in the media that never should have seen the light of day. To avoid such a Pyrrhic victory, lawyers must be keenly aware of how their actions in court will play with the media, be familiar with the ethical rules regarding public communications about pending cases, especially in criminal matters, and not lose sight of the case's potential impact on their clients' public image.
On the flip side, sometimes the opponent's public image is actually driving the litigation, and counsel must be aware of this to be effective in settlement and discovery negotiations if they want to help their clients achieve their objectives.
- How is that different from a case that does not have a high profile?
Concerns about the media and the public at large might be unique to high-profile cases, but nearly every case has certain externalities that lawyers should consider. A lawyer's job is to find out what those issues are, such as reputation, opportunity cost, or preserving confidentiality, and pursue the litigation to maximize success as defined by the client, not the lawyer.
About the Chief Litigation Officer Summit Fall 2015
The 16th Chief Litigation Officer Summit is the premium forum for bringing leading in-house litigation counsel across the nation together with service providers. The Summit offers a unique forum for service providers to interact with heads of litigation from the country's leading organizations in an intimate environment. Taking place at the Trump National Doral, Miami, Florida, September 20-22, the Summit includes presentations on arbitration and class action waivers, employment law litigation, managing outside counsel and litigation trends.
For more information please send an email to press@marcusevanscy.com or visit the event website www.chieflitigationofficersummit.com/TimothyClintonInterview
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About Clinton Brook & Peed
Clinton Brook & Peed is a boutique firm specializing in high-stakes and high-profile litigation, with an emphasis on delivery of top-notch legal services without the overhead of its BigLaw colleagues. With offices in New York and Washington, DC, the firm uses co-counsel relationships to represent clients in matters around the country and internationally. The firm's attorneys come from Top Ten law schools and prestigious firms like Covington & Burling, Williams & Connolly, and WilmerHale. www.clintonbrook.com.
Contact:Luzdary Hammad,
Press Manager, marcus evans, Summits Division
Tel: +357 22 849 385
Email: press@marcusevanscy.com
Source: marcus evans Summits
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