There's no business like law business.

The self-described “legal tabloid” blog Above the Law has been busy lately keeping up with its Nationwide Layoff Watch. Among large firms that have fired attorneys in recent months are Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and Clifford Chance. On Tuesday, ATL revealed that Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal had laid off 124 employees, including 37 lawyers. The firm had nearly 700 lawyers before the cuts.

Sonnenschein Chairman Elliot Portnoy told the ATL that the cuts were the result of changes in the needs of clients owing to the “economic downturn,” and were not “performance based.” But in today’s Wall Street Journal, Portnoy is quoted as saying that some “unproductive” litigators were also let go. “We have to take the steps necessary to make sure we are competitive for talent and achieve the profitability our lawyers expect,” he said. In terms of profitability, “A small group of firms are positioning themselves to pull away from the pack. We intend to be in that small group.” The Journal article also notes that industry analysts predict many law firms will have a difficult time achieving even slight revenue growth this year, much less the double-digit increases that were previously common.

Law firms are businesses, and the bottom line matters. In this respect we’re all in the same boat, whether we’re a global behemoth or a boutique. Where we differ, though, is how we reach that bottom line. Most large firms operate exclusively on the basis of the billable hour. This business model encourages maximizing hours worked by younger associates who bill at lower hourly rates but put in enormous numbers of hours. A study done in 2005 found that nearly a quarter of New York law firms required its lawyers to bill a minimum of 2,000 hours per year, and the percentages were even higher in other cities. The result is a profitable revenue stream to the firm, but a significant expense to the client. And, as in-house counsel consultant Rees Morrison points out in his blog entry about the study, bill padding in these circumstances is virtually inevitable.

When partners either can’t keep a cadre of associates busy or aren’t amassing their own billable hours they become “unproductive” and are pushed out. Worse, this business model is extraordinarily dehumanizing and cynical, in my view. That’s why we rarely practice it at our firm. We regularly offer reasonable fixed or flat-fee arrangements that are affordable for the client and fairly compensate us for our efforts.

There has been a lot of discussion in the legal blogosphere about alternatives to the billable hour, especially among corporate counsel faced with pressure to contain and predict legal costs. In his Legal Marketing Blog, Tom Kane described a panel at the Legal Marketing Association’s annual meeting in March led by the chairperson and general counsel of the Association of Corporate Counsel. One of corporate counsels’ complaints was the perceived unwillingness of law firms to discuss alternative fee arrangements. Kane notes that there’s a lot of work out there for medium-sized and smaller law firms because of their lower fee structure and flexibility in pricing. To paraphrase the Chairman of Sonnenschein, we intend to be in that small group. CR