St. Louis Cathedral
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans, Louisiana
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Fee Structures
How We Get Paid Sets us Apart
Babcock Law Firm has always been on the cutting edge in fee arrangements. In fact, our very first case was a commercial litigation matter we took on a mixed-fee arrangement. Quite frankly, we find most of our clients are surprised by our flexibility when it comes to our fee structures. To put it simply, we like to set up fee agreements that compensate our firm for results, not time. As a small and agile commercial litigation firm, we have the ability to accept cases either on the plaintiff side or the defense side and keep our fee structures results based.
How it Works
On the commercial side, we typically use mixed hourly and contingent fee arrangements, sliding scale percentages, bonuses, and most recently, multiples of hourly rates tied to the success we achieve. We also accept many cases for a fixed fee up front plus a contingent bonus based on the outcome.
We rarely assign more than one lawyer to handle a given task. Efficiency is undermined, and that isn’t how we do business. We notice in depositions and court appearances that some firms have several lawyers or even an entire practice group billing a client for doing the work that one competent and capable lawyer can easily do; that’s just not our style. We don’t want to pay for three lawyers if one will do, we don’t expect you to either. Our lawyers don’t have enough free time to overwork a file in such a manner, and we wouldn’t feel right doing it. We prefer to take a more "Lean and Agile" approach to litigation, sharing the risks with our clients and doing things as efficiently as possible. We want to be under-compensated or not compensated at all if we are unsuccessful and handsomely rewarded when we achieve results for our clients.
But not Always
Common sense dictates that fee arrangements like those described above will not work in every case. In those instances, we also work on traditional hourly rates. This is often the case with institutional purchasers of legal services like insurance companies who often lack the flexibility necessary to engage us on a contingent basis
