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Billing for Recycled Work: A Follow-up Exchange of Views

By ALM Staff | Law Journal Newsletters |
October 01, 2003

In a recent edition, Professor William G. Ross analyzed the professional ethics restrictions incumbent upon lawyers who want to bill by the hour for previously produced work product. (“The Ethics of Billing by the Hour for 'Recycled' Work,” August 2003.)

Attorney readers with file drawers full of valuable prior work product surely felt some dismay in reading these restrictions. Ed Poll – a prominent law firm consultant, ABA-published authority on improving law firm billing methods, and Board member of this newsletter – succinctly articulates this sentiment as “Damned if you do and damned if you don't!” Poll recognizes that inflating time reports when using recycled work product is “like a butcher putting a thumb on the scale”; but that illicit maneuver persists, he says, because lawyers have not had a practical alternative that reflects marketplace realities.

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