Legal Intelligence - an oxymoron

imageYesterday, the Wall Street Journal ran what is I believe an annual story on lawyers who bill more than $1,000 per hour.

With the exception of those who list Bankruptcy as their practice area, who I understand are required by the courts to track their time to the tenth of an hour, I submit that this is the list of smartest, but economically ignorant people in the United States.

Here is the “time is money” quote from the article – “Harvey Miller, a bankruptcy partner at New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges, said his firm had an ‘artificial constraint’ limiting top partners' hourly fee because "$1,000 an hour is a lot of money.”

Yeah, the “artificial constraint” is called the almighty billable hour! At least poor Harvey is a bankruptcy attorney, so maybe he knows better.