Flawed Billable Hours Survey

DBR's front-page story on billing rates in South Florida is interesting, though flawed. It's always fun to gossip about how much an attorney charges per hour, but John Pacenti's piece gets a number of things wrong.

First, the article mistakenly focuses on Willie Gary's $1000 an hour recovery in a sanctions motion against Motorola. Gary is a plaintiff's lawyer, and that rate was an unusual situation occasioned by a fraud on the court.

Second, the DBR's story is weighted too heavily on bankruptcy filings, so most of the top-end litigators who might otherwise appear on this list are missing. Where are the Morgan Lewis attorneys, Marty Steinberg and others from Hunton, where is Squire Sanders etc. etc.

While Harley Tropin deserves every penny of his $600 hourly fee, I suspect this number was pulled from a bankruptcy filing and there are others in town who are legitimately billing paying clients even more.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Fernandez Pinero wins the honor of being listed as the lowest billing partner in South Florida, at $225 hour.

Don't worry, Elizabeth, we think value billing is the way to go anyway. Leave it to the Hogan & Hartsons of the world to bill at sky-high rates -- they have a lot of overhead to pay for.....