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Entertaining as this exchange of musketry is, can I interject a possibly irrelevant point?

Lawyers were charging by the hour before 1984. The billable hour became standard because clients (initially in the USA) wanted some accountability over the fees charged. Since then - I think the rot started in the USA in the 1960s - it has become almost the default method of charging. In transactional work most lawyers will strive to have a different charging method, but their firm's internal accounting system will still require billable hours. It is very hard to avoid in litigation. I have never met a lawyer who didn't dislike or even hate the billable hour.

The Law Society assisted and gave a credible basis to the practice with its old 'Expense of Time' calculations. I think these started as a way for solicitors to assess the cost of running a practice, not forgetting a 'salary' for themselves.

As for 6 minute units, these are simple to calculate. I once had a practice which meant work on many different matters each day. I once counted how many: 68 different files in one day. The time recording problem with this work was that because of the time between files, it generally meant a third of the working day would be 'lost.' It too 12 hours to record 8 chargeable.