Most of us are familiar with Pavlov’s classical conditioning experiments. It is therefore obvious to most that the best way to get the behaviour you want is to provide rewards for doing so, or at least refrain from punishing people for doing them. The flip side is that you have to make sure you’re not inadvertently providing rewards for behaviors you’re trying to discourage.

The classical definition of the 4 Ps relates of course to the categories that can be controlled in the marketing of a good or service: product, price, place and promotion. The four Ps, often referred to as the marketing mix, are all constrained by internal and external factors in the overall environment.

Yet another recent media report left me feeling for colleagues who are continually attacked by the politicians, the media and the public for apparently outrageous and indefensible fees charged by lawyers. This egregious behaviour is only exacerbated in the minds of many when the poor recipients of the nasty lawyers financial flogging are people going through an acrimonious divorce.

And now the judiciary, who ought to know better, have joined the chorus.

When presented with a range of pricing choices, are client’s more likely to make a rational or irrational decision? In recent years behavioural economists have generally supported the concept of ‘homoeconomicus”; buyers characterised as powerful, calculating decision-makers who base their decisions on rational, objective and consistent preferences.

Pricing in law firms began, and to a shocking degree still continues, as an exercise in sticking your finger in the wind combined with intensive (but plausibly deniable!) efforts to find out what they're doing down the block, finalized by Kentucky windage in the form of a percentage increase over your rates last year. Low-tech, impressionistic and intuitive, data-free, and almost certain to be random in its accuracy in correlating clients' perception of value with marketplace dynamics. Or, as one managing partner we're fond of described it: "The dark art."

Amidst the welter of 2013 reforms, the legitimisation of contingency fees stood out. For centuries we had been told that a lawyer could not run litigation in return for a cut of the damages recovered. This would invite corruption, as the representative would have an overwhelming...

Everyone is entitled to their opinion; indeed part of the Validatum® philosophy is to encourage and embrace diverse perspectives in our online forums and other media. However, sometimes we see something so egregiously wrong and potentially harmful...

I still recall the (somewhat tongue in cheek) advice I had from the senior partner of the firm I was with in the early 80s. “When you send out a big bill, I mean an eye-watering bill, send it out on a Friday and don’t come to work on Monday – let someone else take the call from the client”. Cynical? Yes, but...

The latest research from Acritas’ Sharplegal, an annual global legal market survey of over 2,000 General Counsel, reveals how differently male and female buyers approach the purchase of legal services. As the number of women attaining senior in-house positions continues to rise, the findings raise...

Ask any private-practice lawyer and they will tell you that clients frequently aggravate their costs through their own conduct. The result is costs that are higher than they could have been, a disgruntled client and almost inevitably, some sort of write-off...

More and more law firms have acquired additional pricing and price negotiation skills or brought in external pricing professionals to participate in the negotiation process. They have also become considerably more rigorous about whether to throw their hat in the ring...

We hope that the following synopsis of some of the most popular and widely republished of our 2014 law firm pricing blogs will provide you with some inspiration and guidance as you perhaps ponder what your firms' approach to pricing will be over the next 12 months....