In my experience, the clients who do not pay their bills are also the ones who insist that they should have more attention from an attorney.

With respect to #6, this can go both ways. While you want a competent and experienced lawyer, there are many tasks that can be handled quite well by more junior lawyers. While they may take a little longer (although not always), they will often charge significantly less per hour. Retaining a lawyer with 20 years experience and billing at $400 an hour to draft a routine will or handle other relatively minor issues doesn’t make a lot of sense.

On the topic of junior lawyers, it’s also important to ensure that the letter of engagement makes it clear what tasks will and will not be delegated to more junior associates. Having a junior handle research or drafting/revision tasks can save quite a bit on legal bills, but you still get the peace of mind of having a more experienced lawyer review and take responsibility for the end product.

On a more personal note, one of my favourite parts of my new in-house position is getting to review and approve the bills from external counsel. There’s a fair bit of pork to be found, but even more questionable areas that result from lawyers being sloppy with their docketing and descriptions.