Megan Murphy in The Financial Times this Tuesday published an article entitled "time to stop the lawyers clock". It described the ritual of "feeding the beast" whereby City lawyers allegedly go to extraordinary lengths to bill as much as they can out of a working day including even charging a client for the journey home! Billing by the hour is what we as a legal profession have been doing since time immemorial. In some cases it is entirely appropriate, but not in all. The days when clients would tamely take a deep gulp and pay up on the nail without question are long gone.

A successful litigation department has to offer a whole panoply of fee paying options including conditional fees (or no win no fee) and discounted fees. In a recent case the Court of Appeal approved a fee agreement providing for a discounted hourly rate plus a "mark up" for success, which are recoverable from the losing opponent (Gloucestershire County Coucil v. Evans). Alternatively even more innovative products are offered including third party funding. The effect of these options is to transfer litigation risk. This is the future of litigation and firms will sink or swim depending on their ability to adapt to it. In our opinion in the near future it will be negligent not to consider and advise upon these options.