The recession dragged the fee-earning process – the billable hour – into the cold light of day… for a while. As old targets became unattainable and old clients became ungenerous, new ideas were mooted…and quietly returned to the shelf. Now things are improving, one suspects it will be business as usual for most firms.

So if hitting targets makes you happy, then you should be so lucky; but not everyone is wired for the monthly merry-go-round. Law firm employees  have little choice but to slave to the billable hour and suck it up. Not every lawyer is an employee though.

Lawyerist: True confession: I’m a happy lawyer. I know, I know, those are hard to find. Admittedly, it wasn’t always this way. I spent my first five years in practice struggling financially under the weight of the broken hourly-fee billing model inherited from our forefathers. As a result, I was broke, frustrated and on the verge of giving up.

So what changed?

More>