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San Francisco & Dallas Join Top Tier Billing Rate Cities

August 3, 2021 | Posted in : Fee / Rate Economics, Fee Award Factors, Fee Data / Fee Analytics, Fees by Tiers / Scale, Hourly Rate Survey, Hourly Rates, NALFA News, Study / Report

The old adage that real estate is all about location, location, location also applies to hourly rates.  NALFA recently released its results from its annual hourly rate survey of civil litigation in the U.S.  The survey results, published in The 2020 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report, shows hourly rate data on factors that correlate to hourly rates in litigation, including geography. 

NALFA surveyed thousands of litigators (plaintiffs’ and defense counsel) from the 16 largest legal markets.  NALFA divided its results into a tier group system.  These tiered peer cities share similar characteristics on litigation hourly rate data.  The following 16 cities are list from highest billing rates in litigation to lowest:

Washington, DC
San Francisco, CA      Tier I
New York, NY
Dallas, TX

Chicago, IL
Los Angeles, CA         Tier II
Boston, MA
Miami, FL

Philadelphia, PA
Atlanta, GA                 Tier III
Houston, TX
San Diego, CA

Seattle, WA
Tampa, FL                   Tier IV
Denver, CO
New Orleans, LA

This 2020 Litigation Hourly Rate Survey & Report is now available for purchase.  For more information on this, email NALFA Executive Director, Terry Jesse at terry@thenalfa.org or call us at (312) 907-7275.