V = P + Q
"Value" is the new metric for selecting law firms and is permeating the legal industry. "Value" is achieved when a client's expectations are met (or exceeded) at what they believe is a reasonable price. How can clients be confident that they are receiving value from their law firm?
Value is a judgment driven by the client's confidence that their money is well spent.
V = P + Q (Value = Price + Quality)
At Stites & Harbison we take seriously the challenge to provide the value expected by our clients. There must be a fair balance between the quality you expect and the fees you pay. We can prove to you we pass the Value Test.
PRICE
Our objective is to charge a price that matches our clients' expectation of quality—whether that is based on an hourly rate or an alternative fee arrangement.
Our Rates. One traditional element of Price—in the form of hourly rates—is easy to compare. Well-known independent rate surveys provide an apples-to-apples comparison of peer firms by different markets.
| National | Regional | KY/TENN | |
| Partners/Members | -14% | -10% |
parity |
| Associates | -24% | -17% |
-5% |
| Paralegals | -23% | -23% | -9% |
*As of 1/1/10. Firms in New York are taken out of the comparison
*Southeast United States. As of 1/1/10.
*Kentucky / Tennessee. As of 1/1/10.
Our Efficiency. Of course, an hourly rate is only one half of the traditional price equation. A firm can have a lower rate but simply charge more hours in order to arrive at a higher bill. Our business model relies on lean, "right-sized" staffing. We don't overstaff on projects. We believe that is wrong. We don't throw more timekeepers at your matters than is warranted to meet your business objectives.
Training. We increase both effectiveness and efficiency by training our lawyers at our expense, not yours. We hire the best and the brightest law school graduates. When they leave academia, we spend a lot of our time and resources in training and helping them make the transition to the practical side of law practice.
These training initiatives include:
- Construction of a mock courtroom (picture right), where less experienced attorneys learn to argue motions
- Launch of Stites University, an eight-year "cradle to grave" educational program conducted at firm expense whereby our younger attorneys continue to develop client service skills, technical skills, and ways to contribute to the community and the profession.
- Sending each attorney to outside training seminars and conferences at our expense.
In all cases, we check each bill to insure that you are not charged for on-the-job training.
We Encourage Alternative Fee Arrangements (AFAs). The billable hour is only one of several ways to arrive at a reasonable fee structure. An AFA is a fee arrangement where the parties collaborate to arrive at a price that is not chiefly driven by the hours worked. We encourage AFAs because we believe that, whatever the fee arrangement, it must reflect an alignment between your interests and ours.
All AFAs must be built on trust and allocate risk and reward fairly. Without mutual trust, there will be no successful fee agreement, and without full client communication about expectations and objectives at the outset there can be no trust.
QUALITY
Where can one go to obtain an unbiased evaluation of quality service?
In the end it is our clients who determine whether Stites & Harbison meets its expectations of quality based on its own experience. It is their opinion that matters most.
Client Satisfaction. We talk with clients about service and satisfaction regularly. In our last Client Satisfaction Survey, conducted by an independent third party, the firm's Top 500 clients were asked to rate our performance on a wide array of criteria that included the quality of our legal advice, the results achieved, and how we serviced their representations.
Stites & Harbison did very well on all counts. In fact, the most telling result of the survey, as the pie charts below show, when clients were asked "Would you recommend Stites & Harbison to someone else," 99% of the clients surveyed said "Yes." This is a statistic we will stack up against any law firm in the country.
Clients and Peers Rank Us at the Top of the Heap. As further evidence of the outstanding quality of service provided to clients, one need only review the results of the 2010 Best Law Firms survey published by U.S. News & World Report and Best Lawyers.
This survey rated the quality of practice provided to the clients of almost 9,000 law firms in 171 metropolitan areas of the U.S. Over 194,000 practice area evaluations and interviews were conducted. When the results were in, only 25 firms in the U.S. had more first tier ratings than Stites & Harbison.
To learn more about the survey, click here.
OTHER WAYS WE PROVIDE VALUE
- Access to the lead attorney and relationship partner. Most clients hire lawyers, not law firms. At Stites, the lawyer you thought you hired is the one who leads all efforts on the matters unless you agree otherwise. The lead lawyer remains available and knowledgeable and, if it makes business sense cost-wise for the task at hand, actually does the work.
- We reward teamwork. Savvy in-house counsel often ask about a law firm's compensation system to help them gauge whether a firm rewards behavior that is at cross-purposes with their needs. At Stites, we look at the whole picture and reward client satisfaction, teamwork, hard work, results achieved, and quality lawyering.
- We control our infrastructure costs. Stites is a leader in lowering infrastructure costs. We were one of the first firms in the country to move our administrative center out of a high-rise office building into less-expensive space. We work electronically and by videoconference whenever possible. These cost savings allow us to reduce the price we charge to you.
At Stites & Harbison we take seriously the importance of providing excellent service to our clients. To learn firsthand how our value equation (V = P + Q) can be put to work for you, we encourage you to call our firm’s Chair, Kenneth R. Sagan, toll free at 1-800-392-0027, extension 2339, or email ksagan@stites.com.