If a Matter Took Twelve Hours and Now Takes Five, What Do You Charge?

Firms keep sending this to IT. Evaluate the tools, report back, tell us which one is secure. That is a reasonable question and it is not the question. The real one sits with the partners, and it is uncomfortable enough that it keeps getting postponed. If a matter that took twelve hours now takes five, what do you charge for it? Everything else follows from that answer. If the firm intends to keep billing hours, then efficiency is a revenue reduction and the rational commercial move is to adopt slowly, which is exactly what many firms are quietly doing while describing it as caution about risk. If the firm intends to move toward fixed fees on predictable work, then efficiency is margin and the rational move is to adopt quickly. Both are defensible strategies. What is not defensible is buying the tools without choosing, because then the choice gets made for you by whichever associate is most enthusiastic, at whatever pace they set. There is a second question sitting behind it, and it is the one that actually worries me. A great deal of professional judgement used to be built by doing the routine work. Reading the hundred contracts is how somebody learns to spot the odd one. If the routine work goes and nothing replaces it, the firm has a capability problem in about six years that nobody will trace back to this decision. Neither question belongs to IT. *Stanislaus Martins advises enterprise teams across Sub Saharan Africa on practical AI adoption. [Speaking and training](/speaking).*