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Alternative Fee Agreements

By Kris Satkunas
September 02, 2013

There have been a spate of reports the last few months on alternative fee agreements, or AFAs as they are also known. Subsequently these have stirred a tremendous amount of conversation in the industry. Some of the conversation is helpful, some of it is constructively critical, and some of it is quite simply confusing.

Last fall, this newsletter's parent company, ALM, issued its “2013 Corporate Counsel Agenda” report, which reported a 17% drop in AFAs. In May, ALM published a white paper titled “ Alternative Fee Arrangements at Legal Departments and Law Firms,” which showed AFAs increasing 12%. Meanwhile, the fifth annual Altman Weil “Law Firms in Transition Survey” was also published, and found non-hourly billing accounted for a median of 10% of fees collected, and showed that two-thirds of AFAs are at the request of clients.

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