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  3. Conventional law firms charge vast hourly fees and then hand the work to underlings while the partners play golf at clubs their

Conventional law firms charge vast hourly fees and then hand the work to underlings while the partners play golf at clubs their

admin2011-08-28  2
问题     Conventional law firms charge vast hourly fees and then hand the work to underlings while the partners play golf at clubs their clients are too poor to join. At least, that is how it seems to many clients, whose irritation at being overcharged turned to fury during the recession.
    Some clients are switching to unconventional law firms, which claim to offer equally good lawyering for much less money. Take Clearspire. The firm’s 20 or so lawyers work mostly from home, collaborating on a multi-million-dollar technology platform that mimics a virtual office. A lawyer checking in on a colleague automatically sees a picture of her on the phone when she is, in fact, on the phone. Clients use the platform too, commenting on and even changing their own documents as they are being drawn up. Conventional lawyers are far less open.
    From the start, Clearspire offers cost estimates for each phase of a legal job. Employees who underestimate how long it will take cannot simply jack up the bill—they must take the hit themselves. But if a lawyer finishes his work faster than promised, he gets a third of the savings. The client also gets a third, as does Clearspire. This gives everyone a stake in making the process more efficient and predictable.
    Bryce Arrowood, the founder, notes that law firms reward partners who bring in business, and not necessarily the most brilliant lawyers. Yet clients’ priorities are exactly the reverse. So Clearspire has an unusual dual structure. American law firms cannot have non-lawyers sharing fees with lawyers. (Britain used to be the same, but will ditch this pointless rule this year.) So Clearspire must be two entities: a law firm, with salaried employee-lawyers rather than partners, and a second company that focuses on bringing in business and supporting the lawyers.
    The discount for clients is sweet. George Kappaz is a private-equity boss who recently gave a complex job to Clearspire (structuring an equity package for Astrata, one his fund’s firms). He estimates that it cost a quarter of what he would have paid the big firms he used before, and Clearspire’s work was just as good. (Many of its lawyers come from top-notch law firms.) Mr Kappaz predicts that the Clearspire model, or something like it, will revolutionise the legal business.
    Perhaps so, but for Clearspire it is early days. Can it make money? A company like 11-year-old Axiom proves that clients have an appetite for alternative models. Axiom either seconds some of its hundreds of lawyers to a company, takes on a whole chunk of a client firm’s legal work (such as commercial contracts), or performs "discovery" (reviewing documents for litigation). Rather than charging by the hour for each lawyer, it asks for a single flat fee, or charges for a team by the week or the month. Expenses are kept low by having headquarters in SoHo, a chic bohemian bit of New York, and by stashing many lawyers in even cheaper places such as Houston and Hyderabad.
    The recession was good to Axiom. After it sent its consultants, recruited from the likes of McKinsey and Accenture, to clients to help them trim their legal spending, the clients gave Axiom more work. Revenue grew from $55m in 2008 to $80m in 2010. This year the firm expects to rake in $120m. Companies were always under pressure to cut their legal bills, says Mark Harris, Axiom’s boss. But "fake pressure" before became "real pressure" during the downturn.
    Axiom and Clearspire serve some of America’s biggest companies. Other entrepreneurs are aiming at small-business clients. These would normally take a chance on finding the right sole practitioner or small firm. But on LawPivot, a year-old social-networking website for lawyers and those who need them, potential clients post questions (up to three a month), and lawyers provide free, brief answers. The lawyers make nothing, but use the service to drum up custom. Clients can test a lawyer’s skill before opening their wallets.
    LawPivot is a social-networking site, not a law firm—it will make its money initially by charging lawyers to upgrade their profiles (similar to the networking profiles on Linkedln). Google Ventures is a backer, and Apple’s former top lawyer for mergers and acquisitions is a co-founder. This kind of heft will bring it up against LegalZoom, the biggest seller of online forms and easy, repeatable legal services for small businesses and individuals. LegalZoom now wants to put more of its contract lawyers to work directly for clients at a flat rate.
    It is more than a decade since the internet made book-buying cheaper and more convenient. If technology now helps cut gargantuan legal bills in America and elsewhere, it will be better late than never.
                                                From The Economist, August 13, 2011
Concerning the unconventional law firms, which of the following statements is TRUE?
选项 A、Lawyers who work for the unconventional law firms earn less than conventional ones.
B、Unconventional law firms can be hardly accepted by large companies.
C、Lawyers of unconventional law firms sometimes offer free service to potential customers.
D、None of the above.
答案D
解析 本题为细节题。选出关于非传统律师事务所描述正确的一项。选项A，非传统律所的律师赚得比常规律所的律师少。文中没有明确地提到律师收入多少的问题，但是在第三段中有提到But if a lawyer finishes his work faster than promised，he gets a third of the savings如果律师能够提前完成任务的话，他能够得到节省出来部分三分之一的收入，所以不选择；选项B说大公司不大会去选择非传统的律师事务所。在文中第八段Axiom and Clearspire serve some of America’s biggest companies．Other entrepreneurs are aiming at small—business clients．中可以看出，这种新型的律所有为大公司服务的，所以这个选项也是不对的；选项C提到这类非传统律所的律师有时候为吸引客户提供免费的服务。文中第八段关于LawPivot似乎提到过这点，但是LawPivot不是law firm，所以C也是错误的。综上所述应选择D。
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