Matt Homann Shares His "Ten Rules About Hourly Billing"

Last week, we looked at the billable hour in light of current economic conditions.  Economic factors provide a context in which to reevaluate hourly billing, but it is also useful to continue to explore more generally the merits and potential problems of billing our services by the hour.

Some questions we can ask about the billable hour include:

• Why do we bill hourly?
• Does hourly billing represent the true value of what we provide to our clients?
• Does billing by the hour provide the best assurance that we will be paid for our services, without any client disputes or hassles?

These are just a few basic, preliminary questions.  At the [non]billable hour, Matt Homann, a lawyer, mediator, and entrepreneur, offers his Ten Rules About Hourly Billing.  Each of his "rules" provides an important point to ponder about how we bill for our work and invites us to consider whether we want to bill by the hour or according to some other fee-calculating method.  It is helpful to consider each of the "rules" in relation to our practices and our clients.  Doing so will help us make informed decisions about whether to keep hourly billing or to adopt some other billing model.

By Steve Imparl, guest blogger