A very interesting article is in the October 1998 issue of Law Officer
Administrator, page 6, "Yes, Charge the Clients for Fixed-Fee CALR; It's
Ethical, Economical." The article refers to George Relles, a pricing
consultant. Relles says that ABA Opinion 93-379 does permit firms to charge
clients for online research and that it does not distinguish between flat
rate and transactional costs.
The most interesting paragraph: "So in determining the billable CALR rate,
the firm has to figure what portion of the service is actually devoted to
client use. What's more, it must add in any vendor discounts the firm
receives. All that is...a job for the firm's accountant...calculating the
charges that way 'will keep the firm ethically clean'".
Chris Graesser
Brown Rudnick
Hartford, CT cgraesser@brfg.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:49:59 PST