SO WHAT? THE MARKET CAN BEAR IT...

It has always been the way of the lazy and unintelligent law firm to transfer its incompetence to the customer. Well, not law firms only. Business in general.
A case in point is the car manufacturing industry of the West in the 80's before the rise of Japanese models. The union workers raised prices every year because they wanted to, because the market could bear it and because the companies agreed and added their own share to the final cost of the car. It was a nice party until the Japs showed up with low cost, middling quality cars that swiftly took over the market and then went on to become lower cost, higher quality cars. Toyota, Nissan anyone?

This is not finger wagging. It is a plot for your law firm to read the writing on the wall and move on it. Just because the market can bear your outrageous costs that have no connection to the value of your work doesn't mean it will always do so. And when your clients' get upset or the market prices shift, who will lose the most blood? The fat law firm or the lean, fit firm. This is not fear mongering, it is just that there is a more profitable option available. The option is value pricing.
If you connect value to your work and reduce the transfer of the costs of producing those services to your clients, your law firm must look for ways to be profitable, more useful, more intelligent.

So, yours truly was making a pitch for our most valuable services to a firm in the Ikeja area and when asked by the lawyers in this particular meeting 'why does this service cost so much', I laid out the benefits and also mentioned 'this service costs a lot to produce so...' Immediately the lawyer ( 13 years at the bar) pounced 'Oh, so you want us to pay for your costs abi?'

The point is this, this is the only profitable way for your law firm to earn any money or to get any intelligence worth anything about practicing the law: You must look for ways to appropriately your legal services by tying them to the value the client receives. Everyone pays for value and resents paying inflated, industry determined costs.

Another example, setting up a business generally costs less than $100.00 in the High Ease of Doing Business areas of the globe and upwards of $700.00 in other areas. The lack of businesses started, the failure of businesses started and the loss of potential are the costs of producing the measly $600.00. This translates to a poorer tax base and generally lower wages and a weaker talent pool. Nigeria is currently not in the High Ease of Doing Business Areas.
The governing authorities can only do so much to protect private companies from themselves plus it is no excuse to say 'that is how everyone else does it' This is even worse, you are making a case for the unprofitable practice of the law. And lawyers need their profit.

You know how proud you will be when you come up with a nifty pricing plan that means you get to do more legal work, you get into newer areas of practice and you crush the competition? Can you imagine the respect and envy?
That is why you put in those long hours at the table. You are not just boning up on case law or draining the coffee pot or keeping your people back at work. You are coming up with ways to crack the code of appropriately pricing your legal services in the marketplace you operate in by tying it to the value the client receives.