Come again?

Ernie writes in asking what I meant when I said:

• Chandler’s goal: by 12/31/03, 80% of all outside counsel expenses will be non-billable hour work. Today that number is about 65%.

Sure enough, Ernie’s right. Makes sense only if you knew exactly what Mark said. So let me try again. Chandler believes that by the end of this year, he will almost never pay law firms based on how many hours it took them to do something. He will aggressively pursue compensation models that are fixed fee (like they’ve done with patent applications), alternative fee arrangements, or other models where efficiency is rewarded and the firm is able to predict (and manage) costs.

This bodes well for how firms are being forced to explore different revenue models.