Legal roundtable.

• Position: Q&A

Law firms in Utah are grappling with unprecedented change, from the work-life changes demanded by Millennials to critical issues of cyber security to a tidal wave of demand for low-cost legal services. Here, industry leaders share how their firms are tackling these challenges.

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What changes have you seen in client requests on budgetary and financial matters? What steps are you taking to address those requests and concerns, while maintaining appropriate profit margins for your firm and client representations?

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WELCH: It's becoming more and more common for our clients to want to partner with us in some way and share the risks in some way, get away from the hourly billing model. That's caused us to really grapple with how we budget. Because, traditionally, law firms, including ours, budget based on hours, and you multiply that by rates, and you multiply that by your realization rate, and you set your budget.

One of the things we've done successfully with our clients is establish in the litigation context mileage markers and decision trees. Litigation matters, as we all know, tend to get very complex and you can't really entirely steer the ship because there are too many variables. So rather than have a set flat fee or a contingent fee, which have traditionally been the other models, we developed a more complex system of mileage markers with associated flat fees as the case develops. And that's been something that's been very appealing to our clients.

BEUTLER: From the in-house perspective, one of my biggest frustrations with budgeting is there doesn't really seem to be a lot of lawyer involvement in managing vendor costs. We have very large electronic datasets, which can be extremely expensive, and I find that lead trial counsel pushes it off to a paralegal, who makes purchasing decisions based on who brings them the best donuts or who gave them an iPad after...