They all say that don’t they. Mason Ledger say they will “make the legal profession a better place” by pushing back against “fundamentally broken” pricing structures.
As usual there’s lots of waffle but no actual explanation as to how they will price.
“We believe the old ‘cost plus’ pricing model used by traditional national and international law firms is fundamentally broken. In this modern business world, it makes no sense to price legal services based on the input costs of running law firms – because this has no connection whatsoever with the value of the advice/outcome received by clients,” they said.
They will also support women who want to work, men who want to stay at home and so on and so forth. Lot’s of what we are going to do but not much about how they will actually do it. These are the sort of statements we’d read from US & UK firms in about 2005. It really does show how conservative the Australian legal sector is in 2020
Lawyers Weekly reports
A new player has emerged in Western Australia with a stated intention to “make the legal profession a better place” by pushing back against “fundamentally broken” pricing structures.
Chris Bates and Rebecca Johnston have combined to launch Mason Ledger, a 23 person-strong firm boasting five partners and 14 lawyers joining as special counsel, senior associates and associates.
The launch of this new firm, the pair said, is “one of the most exciting and disruptive events the Australian legal profession has seen for over a decade”.
Mason Ledger is set to be a full-service offering firm with specialisations in aviation, banking and finance, corporate/M&A, employment and workplace relations, energy and resources, litigation and dispute resolution, project and infrastructure, recruitment and on-demand lawyers, tax and tax disputes, and transport and logistics.
In conversation with Lawyers Weekly, Mr Bates and Ms Johnston – who will serve as executive chairman and managing partner respectively – said that clients have told them that they “expect more from their lawyers and want certainty around cost, and we are listening”.
“We believe the old ‘cost plus’ pricing model used by traditional national and international law firms is fundamentally broken. In this modern business world, it makes no sense to price legal services based on the input costs of running law firms – because this has no connection whatsoever with the value of the advice/outcome received by clients,” they said.
In fighting against what they deem to be broken ways of practising law, the pair outlined purpose, culture and values as being the heart of everything the firm will do – “both internally and in advising our clients”.
“There remains a significant under-representation of female partners across firms of all sizes/tiers and this is an issue we will address head-on, in practising what we preach. We will work hard to support and retain both men and women with families. We have started as we intend to continue with a culture of meritocracy and equality, with 60 per cent of our founding partners being senior women – including our managing partner – several of which have young families which we think is awesome,” they said.
“One of our male associates has a young family and decided to commence working four days per week so he can spend more time with his wife and kids, and that’s totally fine with us. In fact, we think it should be celebrated!”
