My law partner, Paul MacPhail, and I were discussing billing issues recently. Paul told me recently of an attorney he knows that adds a five percent surcharge all clients’ bills for TAYC — “Thinking About Your Case.” It is an interesting approach to attempt to recapture that time spent thinking about a client’s case that is otherwise “lost.”
Clients do not realize the amount of time (which generally goes unbilled) that that their attorney spends thinking about their case — especially with complex or long cases. I know that I think about my complicated cases at least once per day, seven days a week. I try to leave work at the office, but I still cannot help but think about my work, as I understand how important these cases are to my clients. My best “thinking” time is when I am taking a shower. It is generally the only quiet, uninterrupted time I have each day, since I have a very busy law practice, a wife, and two young children.
Paul noted that the time spent thinking about clients’ cases does come at an cost — to us, as it is time that we are not thinking of our family, our hobbies, or ourselves. So, do we plan to start adding a TAYC charge for our clients? I don’t, as I see it as a “cost of doing business” which is factored into our overall fee structure. Paul and I have spent a lot of time thinking about the way we charge fees for our services, and we may make some changes in that area in the new year. I will save that topic for future posts.