This. I worked with a lot of law firms in my previous career (finance) and in my experience it seemed like they generally went out of their way to reinvent the wheel -- even with trivial things that should be standardized like non-disclosure agreements.

I can't remember the company, but there was a Mixergy interview about a product to manage contracts that are in force, and he was getting little to no uptake in the legal market. And then 2008 hit, and lots of big companies pulled their legal work in house and/or demanded better results for their money, and they sell a lot to in house corporate lawyers (who do not bill by the hour).

That's a factor, but like IT people, lawyers have opinions that vary, even for seemingly straightforward stuff.

I've worked with in house and outside counsel on a variety of matters. The meter makes a difference in some things, it the individual attorney or lead attorney made a much bigger one.

For sure, the incentives aren't lined up quite right. I know of a couple attorneys who have switched to some standard rates for stuff (perhaps called value-based billing, or I might be making that name up).

It works well for lots of things. After a 30 minute consultation with a new client, the attorney can estimate the documents which will be required and can give a reasonably close estimate of the total cost. It also encourages the attorneys to still track time on a per-task basis and actually look for ways to improve.

Unfortunately for one attorney I know, the bankruptcy court still requires hourly billing, so he can only do value-based billing on the stuff he can get resolved outside of court.

The amount lawyers can charge per hour is determined by the perceived quality of their output, so efficiency wins are very much desirable.