How Flat-fee Pricing Can Buy Law Moms Time

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Amy Bowen and Elise Buie back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

Raising children isn’t easy. There, I said it, so you don’t have to. I raised four, who I also homeschooled for 10 years. When my divorce sent me back to work and my kids back to brick-and-mortar schools, college tuition payments looming large, I started my own family law practice from scratch in a new city, far from home, where I pretty much knew nobody. 

My natural ability to network, coupled with becoming the sole breadwinner for my family, translated into many long days (and nights). I started getting referral after referral and quickly became the “it” girl for guardian ad litem work. I was able to pay for my first child’s college education and the ones that followed as those referrals became the foundation upon which I built my family law and estate planning practices. But wow, did I work a lot!

I was used to it, though. The memories of working in person for a law firm during my early days as a young lawyer, racking up the billable hours, were never far from my mind. It was all I knew.

Decades later, I realized that many traditional practices in law — working in person during “normal” business hours and expecting women to manage both professional and household responsibilities without adequate support — were not just impractical. They, for lack of a better word and because I like it, sucked.     

I’ve tried many approaches to buck the system, each with varying degrees of success. My greatest achievements so far? Building a fully remote law firm, implementing Eve Rodsky’s Fair Play model at home, teaching others to do the same in their households, and most recently, rolling out flat-fee billing. We introduced it earlier this year for relationship agreements and estate planning, marking an exciting milestone in our evolution.

Since things are going well, we plan to continue adding more services at flat fees next year — and the year after, if needed. I genuinely believe in the power of flat-fee pricing to improve how we approach work-life balance. Personally, though, I prefer the term “life-work integration,” with an emphasis on the life part, something many lawyer-moms struggle to achieve. Here’s how flat fees can help.

Flat Fees Lower Administrative Costs  

It’s a basic concept, but one that should still be discussed and emphasized due to its importance. Flat-fee billing lowers administrative costs — from the lawyer to the bookkeeper. 

With flat-fee billing in place and calibrated to the point that we are confident it’s accurately reflecting the work we’re doing, lawyers won’t have to calculate how much time they’re spending on even the most minute tasks, such as reading and answering quick emails. As we all know, those time expenditures can eat away at the day, chipping into the time we could otherwise take advantage of for strategy and casework. 

The same holds for the administrative staff in our offices, whose organization talents we could otherwise apply to on-demand projects leading to the firm’s growth, for example. That is, if they weren’t so focused on creating and sending out invoices. 

We are still tracking it for everything during this experimental phase, but so far so great.Bottom line: The reduced time and financial resources offered by flat-fee billing allow law firms to reallocate these valuable assets to more meaningful areas, enhancing the efficiency of operations.

Flat Fees Promote Conflict Resolution

In the traditional hourly billing structure, lawyers are rewarded for the hours they bill and penalized (even fired) if they fail to meet their firm’s yearly billable hour goal. This goal is arbitrary and does not necessarily reflect the quality of work done by an attorney. Therefore, the quick resolution of cases is not the obvious path to success for attorneys confined to this method. 

With flat fees, however, attorneys are rewarded according to how many matters they close, incentivizing them to seek conflict resolution on behalf of their clients. Conflict resolution is the gift that keeps on giving, especially in family law, where amicable relationships between spouses continue to help exes and co-parents relate long after they sign their divorce decree. 

But should court become the only viable solution, rest assured, there’s a flat fee for that as well. We all know court appearances don’t come cheap, and with flat-fee billing, the client will understand the cost of those services upfront. 

This knowledge continues to incentivize both client and attorney to do what they came to do: the client because they likely won’t want to keep incurring court costs, and the attorney who, if they don’t achieve resolution, will have already received a flat fee for that segment of the case and likely will not receive any further payment until the case progresses. In this way, conflict resolution frees up time, whether for another matter or to spend time doing something else besides working. 

Flat Fees Encourage Attorneys And Clients To Invest In Their Future

In a traditional hourly billing model, clients are discouraged from asking their lawyer questions for fear of the clock ticking. Every question comes with a hefty price tag in the client’s mind. Not asking questions, alternatively, leaves clients confused and insecure.

Clients who communicate with their lawyer despite hourly billing about every thought they have as it pops into their heads present different challenges. The first is clients receiving a large bill they weren’t expecting in their inbox, which they then vent about to the lawyer and anyone else who will listen. The second is the time lawyers must spend addressing frequent emails and phone calls, emails and phone calls that could be answered if the clients had access to the right resources and were educated about the issues being addressed in their cases. Both scenarios drain lawyers and their clients of money, time, and energy.

Recognizing this, I am developing a “university” for my clients to access at their leisure, which will coordinate well with our flat-fee billing system. In addition to our already plentiful educational resources — our website blog, on-brand client-facing articles we pitch for publication to outside platforms, ebooks, videos, and webinars — we are creating modules from which clients can learn about the issues most relevant to their cases. 

Of course, we will continue to be available to communicate with our clients personally, but many of our clients’ most pressing questions can be answered with the click of a mouse 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Win! Everyone gets back time, money, and, hopefully, some sanity. It’s no secret that family law matters can be stressful for everyone involved if we allow them to be.

Flat Fees Redefine Success

In contrast to hourly billing models, where every moment invested in a case is meticulously recorded and judged for its contribution to an arbitrary billing quota, flat fees can redefine what success looks like for attorneys and, by extension, their clients. 

Instead of being rewarded for accumulating billable hours, a flat-fee billing model prioritizes efficiently resolving cases while meeting clients’ objectives. This shift aligns with the interests of lawyers and clients alike, encouraging both to work proactively to prevent issues from escalating. This approach maximizes time and fosters a life-work balance that prioritizes the health and well-being of all involved, especially those kiddos — young and old(er), children of lawyers, and children of divorce clients — who just need their moms to be moms.

Final Thoughts …

The advantages of flat-fee billing in legal practice extend beyond mere cost transparency. This is particularly so for law moms juggling the demands of raising children while being fully present with a spouse or partner or those parenting solo. 

Whatever the situation, flat-fee billing can offer law moms like you and me the most strategic benefit of all: time. Time for work, time for family, and, most importantly, time for us to remember why we chose the lives we did — and the opportunity to say without faltering that we’d choose them again.  

Stacey Freeman contributed to the writing of this article. 

Elise Buie is a Seattle divorce and family lawyer and founder of Elise Buie Family Law Group, a law firm devoted to divorce and family law and estate planning​. A champion for maintaining civility throughout the divorce process, Elise advocates for her clients and the best interests of their children, helping them move forward with dignity and from a position of strength.

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