But the biggest problem with hourly fees is that they do not separate the sheep from the goats.

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Labor lawyers can make far more money in referral fees on class actions than in hourly fees providing labor-law advice.

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Labor lawyers can make far more money in referral fees on class actions than in hourly fees providing labor law advice.

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Although that may not seem appealing at first, it seems that the client is a young billionaire who is happy to pay large hourly fees to lawyers to make his point.

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Mitchell put together an army of lawyers from his firm, DLA Piper, and consultants, from FTI Consulting, and got them to conduct a massive investigation that billed Major League Baseball huge hourly fees.

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On top of this, the Korean and (even more so) Russian lawyers were charging flat fees, not hourly rates.

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These guys get paid fat fees on an hourly basis despite their performance.

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To stop me from brow beating her, Diana doubled her hourly coaching fee and tripled her training fees.

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Paying the adviser a fee (either at an hourly rate or through a fee for the whole job) is known as 'fees only' advice.

BBC: Where to get financial advice