US law firm bill rates are rising at a faster rate on the east coast of America than elsewhere, according to the latest research from LexisNexis. The research revealed that  practice rates are moving faster than the rest - with Corporate, IP, Regulatory and Compliance all showing increases of more thant 3.5 per cent. Meanwhile alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) are used most for IP trademark work with 11 per cent now carried out on AFAs. The data  comes from the latest CounselLink Enterprise Legal Management Trends report which reviews actual law firm invoices with information from four million legal invoices covering 500,000 legal matters and amounting to some $17 billion in legal spend since 2009. Source: CounselLink