Plaintiffs’ lawyers and defense counsel use different billing models.  Defense lawyers typically bill by the hour with their fees paid by a corporate client.  Typically, plaintiffs’ lawyers do not bill by the hour.  Their fee recovery is based on success in a particular case. Plaintiff and defense lawyers can learn from each other's billing models. 

In a recent Corporate Counsel story, “10 Tips From Plaintiffs’ Lawyers for Cutting Legal Costs,” by plaintiffs’ lawyers Ryan McConnell and Herrick Sovany, partners at McConnell Sovany, based in Houston provide tips for corporate counsel to help reduce legal costs.  Here are their tips:

1. Ask about the firm’s technology platform
2. Scrutinize outside counsel’s pre-trial strategy
3. Make sure your outside counsel has trial experience
4. Use in-house resources
5. Make outside counsel put skin in the game
6. Ask for a discount
7. Save money with cost-saving pre-trial agreements
8. Put in place a good document retention policy
9. Draft outside counsel guidelines
10. Negotiate a better payment schedule