Individual Matter Budgets

In the Consolidated Matter Budgets post, we touched on matters exceeding a budget threshold having more detailed budgets assigned by UTBMS code or phase. I noted that one good way to determine a budget threshold is to sort your prior year matters by spend from high to low and look at what cut-off applies to the top 20-30% matters.

For smaller matters one can often arrive at relatively consistent medians by area of law, matter type and location.  Initially you may need to cut the data several different ways, to see what lands at the most consistent medians, with fewest outliers. Once you have these groupings one can often negotiate with one’s firm(s) for a flat fee per matter in that grouping, or for the primary task.  Some areas amenable to this approach are trademarks, patents, immigration, employment counsel, and contracts. 

Ops in a Box, Legal Edition contains an Alternative Fee Arrangements reference chart, Matter Budget templates for both simple and more complex matters, and a Legal Services Provider RFP  Template, and RFP Evaluation Deck to help you kick off your matter budgets project.