It was only back in 2009 when Cravath Managing Partner Evan Chesler stunned the legal world with his Forbes article, Kill the Billable Hour. Chesler spoke about the importance to him of getting an exact price from the contractor remodeling his kitchen, and made the leap that clients had the same interest in knowing the cost of services. Here is one the takeaways:
The client will no longer be surprised by a whopper bill….
In context, it was clear that surprising the client with an unexpectedly large bill (from the client’s perspective) was not a good thing. Chesler’s epiphany resulted in him being named an ABA Legal Rebel.
Apparently the rest of the firm did not share Chesler’s epiphany. Or maybe Cravath has moved on to the past. Check out this story.