In a recent article, the ECONOMIST refers to the "killable hour": that familiar method legal firms have of liberally clocking up time spent on a case, and charging clients by the hour.

This is an age old argument, which has been raging between lawyers and clients for many years, decades in fact (but who's counting?).

The hourly rate for a newly qualified lawyer can be as much as £235. Moving up the ladder, charge rates can wallow in the several hundred pounds per hour category, so that the client comes to feel a sense of urgency during meetings not dissimilar to the feeling you'd get watching the electric meter for Las Vegas.

To add to the electric shock effect of client billing, lawyers are often paid bonuses for reaching time targets, say, anything over 1800 hours. if that doesn't encourage your solicitor to give himself a full manicure in between perusals, then I don't know what does.

But joking apart, a new model is needed for pricing legal services, and never so urgently as in the Family Law arena. Fixed fee systems are harder to come by for cases which can go to litigation. The trick is to avoid litigation in family law in the first place. Easier said than done?

Read the DIVORCE SOLICITOR TRAP Guide 'How to Negotiate the Divorce Solicitor Trap', downloadable soon in PDF