Slater & Gordon to roll out fixed fees in Family Law
Slater & Gordon announced last week that they were rolling out fixed fees in their Family Law practice.
Slaters are not of course the first law firm to offer fixed fees in Family Law and will not be the last. Many smaller firms have been offering fixed fees for years, both in Australia and in US, but Slaters is the first high profile national Australian firm to publicly announce a move away from time based billing-albeit at this stage at least in one area of their practice.
In some respects it is not surprising a firm that first gave Australia “No Win-No Fees” and the world the first publicly listed law firm would take yet another radical step into moving away from time based billing.
Just as Slater & Gordon proved to all the sceptics who said “you cannot successfully float a law firm because……” totally wrong, they, together with a growing number of other law firms, will again show the conservative members of our profession who still say “you cannot fix legal fees because……” totally wrong as well.
Billable Hour condemnation is still alive and kicking in the Australian Press and for good reason. This Report which was released Monday links depression to the drive for billable hours in Legal Profession in Western Australia. I am sure this would transpose to other States in Australia and other jurisdictions too if similar studies were undertaken.
