Technically Legal - A Legal Technology and Innovation Podcast

Will This Legal Tech Startup Kill the Billable Hour and Bring Transparency to Legal Billing? (Scott & Digby Leigh - AltFee)

Feb 29, 2024

AltFee, a legal tech startup, aims to replace the traditional billable hour with alternative fee arrangements for fair and transparent legal billing. The Leigh brothers explain how their app helps law firms transition to AFAs and value-based pricing. They emphasize the importance of client-centricity and efficient project scoping. Integrating with Clio for seamless invoicing and transparency in legal fees are also key topics discussed.

27:19

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Episode guests

Scott Leigh

Digby Leigh

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

AltFee aims to encourage legal professionals to move away from hourly pricing and adopt alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) through their app.

Value billing, based on the service's value rather than time spent, is crucial for law firms when pricing legal services.

Deep dives

Introduction of Alt-Fee by Scott and Big DeLee

Scott and Big DeLee introduce Alt-Fee, an app designed to assist legal teams in implementing alternative fee systems. The app aims to move away from the traditional billable hour model and encourages the use of alternative fee arrangements (AFA's). Alt-Fee helps legal teams determine appropriate charges for specific legal services, offering features such as scoping, pricing, proposing, and auditing alternative fees.

Introduction

2min

Innovative Legal Billing and Client-Centricity

14min

Exploring the Features and Benefits of Alt-V for Legal Billing Efficiency

3min

Promoting Transparency in Legal Billing through Upfront Pricing Agreements

5min

Transparent Communication on Legal Fees and Integrating with Clio for Efficient Invoicing

4min

Despite much ballyhoo and countless articles about them, alternative fee arrangements, or AFAs, have yet to gain widespread traction and the billable hour still reigns supreme for legal billing.

Enter the Leigh brothers, Scott and Digby, and their new legal tech startup, AltFee. The company’s stated goal is encouraging legal professionals to break free of hourly pricing and move to AFAs by using the app to help scope and price legal projects.

The brothers point out that the traditional billable hour pricing model doesn't provide certainty for clients and that AFAs will become more important with increasing use of AI which will likely reduce billable hours. They explain how Altfee offers a solution by providing a foundation for law firms to operate on an alternative fee model. The app helps users scope, price and audit their fees.

Scott and Digby also delve into the concept of 'value billing', explaining that it involves charging fees based on the value of the service provided to the client, rather than strictly on the time spent. They underline the importance of taking both task-based considerations and value-based considerations into account while pricing.

Learn more about Scott and Digby.

Things We Talk About in this Episode

Directory of Law Firms Offering Alternative Fees Episode Credits

Editing and Production: Grant Blackstock

Theme Music: Home Base (Instrumental Version) by TA2MI