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Though not specifically about billing rates and practices, the recently-released Law Firm Practice Group Management Survey, a joint effort of ALM Research and Altman Weil, has some information of interest on the subject.

Managing Partners and Executive Directors were surveyed (127 firms responded) about the effectiveness, operations, and leadership of their firm’s practice groups. Rather surprisingly, though law firms have been organized into business or operating units of some form for nearly twenty years, the majority of respondents rated their practice groups as only rather average or worse, in terms of performance.

One telling factor was in how well firms track the performance metrics for their practice group. On the one hand, most respondents (85%) indicated that they tracked revenue by practice group, a majority (57.3%) said they track expenses by group, and just over half (52.8%) said they track profitability by practice group. And 58% said they track other financial performance data by group including everything from full profit and loss data, A/R and WIP, and profitability factors such as leverage, utilization (hours), and realization.

However, only a handful said they track origination and cross-selling efforts. And very few said they monitor billing rates by group. Hmmmmm.

The ALM Research / Altman Weil Practice Group Management Survey Report is available through ALM Research Online in the Research Publishing section.