Lawyers have a lot to learn about pricing and profitability

In this short post I take a lighter-hearted look at a very small part of the wider world approach to pricing and charging, in the faint hope it might challenge even one lawyer to progress further down the path of increased sophistication in approach...


Readers will see the irony in how easily and often we are chastised for our allegedly blunt instrument charging, when we consider in June 2012 an otherwise perfectly respectable Brisbane five-star hotel can sell a standard glass of "Cloudy Bay" Sauvignon Blanc for $17 per glass.

You and I can buy this wine online in a mixed or straight dozen for about A$32 per bottle with a search time of about ten seconds...no doubt it's much cheaper with a deeper search...so we can only imagine the infinitely better cost to a hotel buying regularly in bulk from a willing supplier...

With this white wine at about 6.8 standard glasses for a 750ml bottle...$17/glass generates sales at around $115...a truly whopping gross margin...

Of course the hotel has overheads...but the point is surely made...far from being patently ogres when it comes to fees, most lawyers are mere "babes in the wood"...well may one ask, 'who is looking after the "drinking classes"'?

Postscript...you need two standard glasses of wine to actually get your mouth wet...and, yes, they were worth it, and a great drop to set off the excellent meal...