Ahead of a conference organised by the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association, Maria Polczynski – head of legal at Adelaide & Bendigo Bank and the associations ‘corporate lawyer of the year’ in 2012 – told Australian web site Lawyers Weekly that she does not expect firms to bring forward value-based billing models immediately. But she does expect that firms should be prepared to change their behaviour towards progress.

Outraged

‘Firms are never going to suggest anything other than hourly rates because it suits their current systems,’ claimed Ms Polczynski. ‘Until a lot of users of legal services start requesting or requiring [value-based billing] we won’t get a lot of change ... [so] we’re trying to make things happen.’
Ms Polczynski added that she is outraged at what some firms expect organisations to pay for legal services, and left frustrated by firms that say they will adopt alternative fee arrangements but then simply calculate fixed fees based on their hourly rates. ‘It’s infuriating when you can’t get them out of that psychology,’ she said.