Legal News

Rough Times for Lawyers? Not Necessarily in the U.K.

By Nathan Koppel

The credit crisis has not been kind to many law firms, as we have chronicled in these pages. Profits are off, the demand for legal services is down in many areas, and layoffs abound.

Surprisingly, though, hotshot lawyers — at least in the U.K. — can still name their price. According to a piece today in The Lawyer, the British legal trade pub, partners in London’s elite firms now charge an average top rate of about U.S. $1,300 per hour, which is a 6% increase over 2007’s top rate.

And some star partners in the U.K. who work on high-profile insolvencies can now command more than $1,500 per-hour, according to the survey performed by the U.K. firm Legal Budgets.

In other words, for those keeping score at home, one hour of one lawyer’s time equals about 30 iPod shuffles, enough room for two copies of every song that’s ever been recorded in the history of the world (well, not quite, but you get the picture).

Top partner rates at U.S. firms in the U.K. have also gone up, to about $950 per hour, a 10% bump.

It’s not all good news, of course, on the rate front. Law firms increasingly are discounting their legal bills, especially for clients that pay promptly in cash, and rates at many British and American firms have remained static this year.

But when you need brain surgery, as the old saying goes, you aren’t going to scrimp on rates.

“For quality work,” one in-house lawyer said told the Lawyer, “you’re still going to want to pay the appropriate rate.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on October 13, 2008 (boomark / email).