Tierdrops on My Guitar: A New Approach to Law Firm Price Rises

If you belong to one of the few law firms that raises their rates annually – Kudos to you!  Most law firms aren’t doing that.  But, if you are doing it, you’re probably doing it the way most law firms firm are, in that you’re only raising rates on your new clients, and you’re grandfathering all the old ones in. 

That strategy, however, can become problematic, especially if your cases tend to linger on, and aren’t highly transactional – because that means that you’ll be managing several different pricing tiers within your law firm.  In fact, if you revise your prices upward each year, you’re adding a new pricing tier every year.  That becomes a real pain to manage, over time. 

 

But, there’s another option. 

 

You can raise your rates on both your new and existing clients, when you make your price rise.  In fact, this is how lots of non-law firms do it.  Now, if you have a clause in your fee agreement respecting price rises, including notification for same, go ahead and follow that, and execute the price rise on your entire client base.  As long as the increase isn’t huge, most people won’t have a problem with it. 

 

But, if you don’t have a fee agreement clause governing your price increase, you’ll need to sign your existing clients up to a revised contract.  And, of course, you’ll want to add a price rise clause for the future. 

 

. . . 

 

Want to talk about how you can make the price right?  Just reach out. 

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