Blog: Building A Better Law Firm Cost Model

Where the magic of retention exists, it powers business productivity. Where it is lacking, the company is built on quicksand and can get mired in the muck.

In Part One of this three-part series on the power of retention, we discussed the costs of employee turnover. As we showed in that post, the data on retention is clear—organizational churn negatively impacts employee productivity, morale, culture, and client service, to say nothing about the bottom line. Many companies succeed because they get good people and keep them.  This is true in the market for legal services as well.

A number of factors contribute to the value of professional services firms. One factor is pricing—how much does it cost to get the service a client needs? The cost infrastructure in Big Law—with high overhead, massive office space in big cities, and the like—drives high rates. At Hilgers Graben, our disruptive model has allowed us to keep rates sane and more closely tied to the cost of providing elite teams of litigation attorneys.

For many in-house counsel, the ongoing cost escalation of big law services feels frustratingly disconnected from the cost efficiency that has become a corporate standard. Not at Hilgers Graben. Our firm deploys elite teams, led by trial-tested senior attorneys, in complex cases around the country at a cost that is often at least 30% to 50% less expensive than our big law counterparts.