You’re drawing up an employment contract for one of your junior employees. You did the interviews, selected a young up-and-coming graduate from Duke, and drew up the boilerplate. You’re ready to hire, but before doing anything, you need to make sure everything is flawless.
You call up the traditional law firm you hired back in February to get the contract reviewed. Their rate went up to $1,800/hour? That’s par for the course. Isn’t it?
If you have legal issues in today’s world, you’re often between a rock and a hard place. Do you cough up the increasingly unaffordable prices for premier legal services at a traditional firm? Or, do you settle for the mid-level firm and risk subpar legal service?
The BigLaw bargain: pay more, wait longer
For a long time the wisdom has been that with BigLaw firms, you get what you pay for. You get the prestige of a high-powered firm hiring from only the best law schools, and sure, you pay an arm and a leg and you might have to wait a couple weeks to hear back from them, but at least you don’t have to think twice about the product you receive. Right?
Wrong. Billable hours incentivize inefficiency and slowness. A lawyer spending one extra hour on a project means the firm makes an extra grand, and the client, without choices, is forced to end up on the worse end of the bargain. But it really doesn’t have to be this way.
A better model: flat fees, Slack, hours not weeks
Imagine for a moment you could pay a law firm $500 for a contract review and receive it in under three days. Now imagine that you could work with your legal counsel through Slack, which is what you use every day to communicate with your co-workers.
Now, stop imagining. Go to general.legal. No billable hours. No $1,800/hr price tag. No cumbersome email threads. Just quality, affordable, efficient legal services.
| Traditional / BigLaw firm | General Legal | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Billable hours | Flat fee |
| Contract review | Rates climbing past $1,800/hour | $500, fixed |
| Turnaround | Around three days or longer | Around three hours |
| Communication | Email threads | Slack |
| Quality control | Attorney work product | Attorney review at every stage, AI-assisted |
But why should you trust us? Because we do everything traditional law firms do, but better. We still hire top legal professionals. We still produce top-quality legal services. The difference between them and us is in the process and the toolbox. While traditional law firms rely on outdated pricing models and remain technologically sluggish, we empower our lawyers with efficient working environments and our proprietary AI-linked technology. What takes them three days takes us three hours.
But how do you know the quality of the product is the same? Because real lawyers check the output at every level of the process. We just get it done faster and better. Not only do we complete legal service at ten times the rate of our traditional competitors, but using AI, our lawyers make fewer mistakes and produce more complete products.
Conclusion
The billable hour made sense in a world without better tools. That world is gone. General Legal was built for the one that replaced it: flat fees instead of hourly meters, Slack instead of email threads, and proprietary AI that turns three days of work into three hours, with real lawyers checking every output.
That is how we have already moved over $30M in revenue away from traditional firms. You do not have to choose between prestige and price anymore. Send General Legal that employment contract and watch the billable hour die.
- Traditional firms bill by the hour at rates that climb past $1,800, forcing clients to overpay at BigLaw or risk receiving weaker work elsewhere.
- The billable hour rewards inefficiency: every extra hour billed is an extra grand, with the client on the worse end.
- General Legal replaces it with flat fees: a $500 contract review in under three days, worked through Slack, with real lawyers checking every output.
- The firm says it works at roughly ten times the pace of traditional competitors and has moved over $30M in revenue away from them.
| What this is | The case against hourly legal billing, and the flat-fee model replacing it. |
|---|---|
| The problem | Billable hours reward inefficiency: more hours means more revenue, at the client's expense. |
| The old bargain | BigLaw means high rates and long waits, with mid-tier firms the only cheaper option. |
| The alternative | Flat fees, Slack-based, $500 contract review in under three days. |
| Why quality holds | Real lawyers review every output; AI adds speed, not shortcuts. |
| The proof | General Legal reports moving over $30M in revenue away from traditional firms. |
| Bottom line | The billable hour had a good run. Flat, fast, attorney-checked work is taking its place. |
What is the billable hour, and why is it criticized?
The billable hour is a pricing model where a firm charges for each hour worked. The critique is that it rewards slowness: the longer a matter takes, the more the firm earns, which puts the client's interest in speed at odds with the firm's incentive.
What is a flat fee?
A flat fee is a single fixed price agreed up front for a defined piece of work, regardless of hours spent. General Legal prices a standard contract review at $500 rather than billing hourly.
How is General Legal different from a traditional or BigLaw firm?
It hires top legal professionals like traditional firms do, but changes the process and toolbox: flat-fee pricing instead of billable hours, Slack instead of email, and proprietary AI that speeds the work while attorneys review every output.
If AI is involved, is the quality the same?
General Legal's position is yes, because real lawyers check the output at every level of the process. AI handles velocity and volume; the attorney owns correctness.