Billing in the United States

Billing Client In Law Firms: Practical Information

Note: Some of this information was last updated in 1982

Instead of billing clients once a month, the usual practice in a law office is to bill them when a case is completed, unless it is a long, drawn out matter. Then the client is billed at intervals. The lawyer will probably dictate the bill.

Charges made to clients

• Fees for services and disbursements made in behalf of a client are charged to the client’s account. The disbursements, which are itemized in the bill, include: Recording fees Court costs
• Fee paid process servers Telephone charges Office visits
• Revenue or state documentary stamps
• Postage, when for heavy priority or registered documents; also when a special job requires mailing a large number of letters
• Long-distance telephone calls
• All fees paid for investigations, accountings, abstracts, etc.
• Photocopies

How the amount of the bill is calculated

When it is time to bill the client, the lawyer will want a report on the time costs. The secretary will provide a report of the total number of hours spent on the case by each lawyer from the time the case was opened, or from the date of the last bill. Each lawyer’s time is listed separately, because the cost per hour varies with the lawyer. The lawyer knows the cost per hour of each member of the firm and of each associate lawyer (the secretary might not) and calculates the cost accordingly. The lawyer will also want a record of the advances made for the client and the status of the account as a whole..

(Revised by Ann De Vries)

Demand for legal services Trends and Billing

Overall, the total number of lawyers at the United States’s 250 largest law firms declined by 4 percent in 2009. Meanwhile, the number of associates decreased by 8.7 percent.

Much of this shrinkage was due to a large drop in the demand for legal services. However, “mounting price pressures” also cut into the head count, according to a 2010 client advisory from Citi Private Bank, a business of Citigroup, and the Hildebrandt Baker Robbins consulting firm, which is part of Thomson Reuters. This year’s recovery, according to the advisory, will be “quite gradual.” Furthermore, the era when hourly billing rates rose between 6 percent and 8 percent each year – as they did for nearly a decade starting in 1998 – is now officially over, the report declared.

• Demand for Services: -4.1%
• Expenses: -5.6%
• Revenue: -3.4%

What is Billing Client In Law Firms?

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