Volume 5 Winter 2011 Number 2 - Charleston Law Review

2011] Attorney Billable HourSo where has the promise of increased lawyer efficiencygone? As one commentator observed in 1998, increasing the useof technology in the legal profession should drive down attorneyrevenue unless the increased efficiency attracts additionalbusiness, law firms downsize like other businesses that seeincreased efficiency from technology, or clients agree to payhigher hourly rates. 65 Seen in this light, hourly billing creates adisincentive for any lawyer to modernize his or her practicebeyond the minimum necessary to keep up with clientdemands. 66 While the lawyer may be forced to use email andword processors because any client would expect no less, nothingincreases revenue like finding the slowest method of researchand case preparation. Again, the concept of asymmetricalinformation tells us that the client is in no position to knowwhether the lawyer is using the latest and most efficient methodsof legal research and passing the savings on to the client, whilethe average layperson can detect a problem with a lawyer whocopies case law in longhand from an actual book versus onesitting a computer.Furthermore, one benefit that should arise with the use oftechnology, particularly word processors, is building a databaseof forms from prior work that does not need to be replicated forlater clients. Once an attorney has drafted, say, a motion tomodify a child custody order based on a change of circumstances,that piece of work should not have to be recreated for the nextclient with the same issue. Simply changing some names anddates should take a fraction of the time that it took to create theentire document originally. Today’s computer software thatessentially allows the attorney, or paralegal, to plug ininformation that the program uses to create a form onlyincreases the efficiency. Given that the ABA has reiterated thata lawyer may not bill for more time than is actually used by thatlawyer, except for allowable rounding up to a minimum timeperiod, clients should be seeing a windfall of lower fees. 6765. Jones & Glover, supra note 11, at 296–97.66. Id. at 297.67. ABA Comm. on Ethics & Prof’l Responsibility, Formal Op. 93-379(1993).185