Roughly 90 per cent of external matter costs are still billed by the hour. Yet the two assumptions that carried the hourly fee for decades, the scarcity of lawyer time and the absence of a benchmark on the client side, are eroding simultaneously. Generative AI substitutes a growing share of lawyer tasks, and the procurement of legal services is professionalising.
The thesis of this book: fixed prices for legal services fail not for lack of will but for lack of capability. Legal departments want them, law firms are ready to offer them. What is missing on both sides is the capability to describe a matter, before it begins, with enough precision for a fair price to be agreed. This capability, fixed-fee readiness, can be built matter by matter.
The book provides the analytical language and a diagnostic instrument along the three dimensions of matter, provider and client. It describes the operational path (scope it, price it, control it) from the first pilot matter to scaling across a portfolio, and supplies templates for getting started.
Not a legal textbook but a business handbook for a legal market: for heads of legal departments as well as for Managing Partners and pricing leads in firms. Kept compact, readable over a weekend. In German.