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Friday, May 08, 2009
Law - Allegedly "certain law firms are using Westlaw and Lexis as profit centers, as compared to simply passing along their actual costs to their client"
Tresa Baldas of The National Law Journal has a story today headed: "Lawsuit Claims Chadbourne Overcharged for Computerized Legal Research: Attorney says law firms themselves pay flat fees for research services but then turn around and bill clients for those costs at hourly rates." Here is a quote from the end of the story:
According to court records, Waggoner was billed $108,000 for the law firm's services, of which roughly $20,000 was for legal research fees.Meyer claims that Chadbourne & Parke did what several law firms are doing -- billing clients for hourly rates that are charged by companies, such as Westlaw and LexisNexis, when they are actually paying flat, package rates for those services.
Officials at Thomson Reuters, which owns Westlaw, said that law firm subscriptions vary, depending on the nature of their practice and research needs. They said firms commonly will pay a set rate for access to specific Westlaw databases that are core to their practice and pay hourly charges for accessing databases outside their plan.
Meyer alleges that her client was billed for the hourly rate, when the law firm paid a flat fee.
"It's disgorgement of profits," Meyer said. "That's our allegation."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 8, 2009 09:34 AM
Posted to General Law Related