Increasingly, clients are requiring realistic budgets for legal engagements, and lawyers are being called upon to offer fee arrangements on a basis other than hourly rates.
Many ABA members practice in firms without the resources to develop tools like budgets and work plans to calculate the projected costs associated with these engagements. And as a result, these members may be challenged to develop non-hourly fee arrangements or detailed estimates of the scope and projected expense of an engagement.
This toolkit is designed to provide lawyers with some suggestions on ways to organize their thinking about the activities associated with particular types of engagements. They are a starting point designed to help ABA members quickly and consistently prepare to discuss with their clients the likely path of an engagement and estimate the costs of doing so.