Neither accountants nor lawyers are, in general, keen to leave this system of billing, according to Steve Major, founder of Pricing Power, a consultancy in Australia. He adds: 'There are pockets of firms in both industries that have been adopting true value pricing and are ahead of the curve, but by and large the bigger firms are being pushed into it as opposed to identifying how to get out in front of the marketplace.' He predicts that the consultancy arms of the large accountants will be the first to make the change and that the other parts of their practices will follow soon after.

Not real problems

John Chisholm, a legal consultant, agrees that the consultancy wings - already doing some alternative pricing - will be the first to abandon traditional billing. He says that the law firms are finding possible problems in alternative billing that 'just aren't there'. Source: Lawyers Weekly