Precision Billing

When I was in law school, I could never quite believe how some of the parties in the cases we would read had gotten themselves into such thorny dilemmas. Even though my school years are long past, I am still sometimes astonished that even very big players in the legal establishment sometimes trip up. Take, for example, this recent report that four Am Law 100 firms are having some $8.1 million in fees for legal work for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) questioned for—of all reasons—insufficiently detailed bills. Two bills—adding up to a half-million dollars’ worth of work—allegedly just specified the dollar amount owed without additional clarification. Maybe everyone was too busy saving the economy to keep track of their time? Er, maybe not.

Maybe the lawyers at these firms should just read Chapter 9 of my book, which explains how to prepare a well-crafted bill with sufficient detail.