Ethics in Billing

Ethics in Billing

<p>Some attorneys, specially the ones who have no paralegals and/or secretaries, tend to bill every task at their own attorney billable rates.  For example,&#8220;Going to court for filing the motion     1 hr @ 300/hr.&#8221;   The rationale being that the attorney does not employ anybody else and the attorney actually went to the court to file the motion. This may not be the best example but such practices are prevalent.  There are ethical issues with this type of billing practices.  These delegable tasks requires no particular skills and can be performed by just about anybody.  </p><p>Solo attorneys that do not employ support staff should include billable rates of secretaries, support staff and paralegals in their fee agreements anyway and bill their clients based on the characteristics/nature of individual tasks rather than who performed these tasks.  Attorney billable rates should be applied only when the task in question requires legal skills of the attorney.</p><p>Now some self-serving advertising. <span>CaseFox <a href="http://www.casefox.info/features">(</a></span><a href="http://www.casefox.info/features"><strong>Legal Time and Billing Software for Lawyers</strong><span>)</span></a> can help you manage your case management and billing.  Please visit <a href="http://www.casefox.com">CaseFox</a> for more details.</p>