Right now it's a buyer's market for legal services. Regardless of what the retainer says, if you call up the relationship partner and point out that you were just billed $1500 by a second year associate for photocopying he will work with you.

Beyond that larger clients are negotiating (imposing really) explicit conditions into thier agreements to prevent abusive billing. Things like minimum detail requirements (no more "5hr - lgl resrh"), no first year associates, no clerical work, etc. Then there's capped and flat fee billing.

Definitely a time of big changes.