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Ad ridiculum arguments about slow fee earners raking in profits at the expense of more efficient fee earners are neither clever nor appreciative of the issue.

Fixed fee advocates assume incorrectly that concerns as to their indiscriminate use stem from a desire to milk the client for every penny.

The actual and legitimate concern being expressed is that fixed fees unless carefully managed are likely to result in widespread undercutting being adopted as standard practice purely for the sake of depriving competitors of the job (as has already happened in the conveyancing market and which some solicitors have sought to offset by means of sordid bribery arrangements with estate agents).

Further, advocates for the widespread adoption of fixed fees have not even considered the effect that fixed fees will inevitably have on the business models of firms that adopt them across their practices: consider for example the allocation of work among fee earners.

Let us adopt the same ad ridiculum stance of some commentators here and see where that leads us.

If say it is calculated that a fee earner must complete 10 fixed fee jobs per month to meet their target, what is to happen if employee A completes his quota in a week while employee B never completes his quota.

Is employee A going to be offered flexi-time or will the quota be raised; if the quota is to be raised will the salary similarly be raised?

Are employers ready for flexi-time working practices? The Dickensian mill owner employers most of us have encountered during the employment phase of our careers would never go for that!

To continue: Should employee B be fired, get a pay cut or be permitted to carry on without any sanction?

The likelihood is of a reduction of the solicitor's role to that of a Mike Baldwin/Vera Duckworth pieceworker arrangement - a bleak life of penal servitude for remuneration that can be obtained with a lot less aggro in McDonalds!

If employees with higher quotas are to be favored what is the likely effect to be on the level of service provided to clients, the incidence of negligence claims and the increase of PII across the profession?

If solicitors are to avoid cut throat marketing of fixed fee services should they agree a cartel arrangement with other legal service providers in the town? If yes, where is the value to the client?

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