Mattern & Associates Launches 2018 Cost Recovery Survey

Global News

03
Apr
2018

Editor

Legal support services consulting firm Mattern & Associates, LLC announces today that the highly regarded, bi-annual Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey has officially launched.

The 2018 Survey is predicted to show softening in traditional areas of recovery, but it is expected that this decrease will be offset by aggressiveness for modern areas of recovery such as scans, prints, litigation support/eDiscovery costs, data storage, data rooms, closing books, hosting, document coding, etc., as well as focused internal strategies to reduce billing attorney write-offs.

Following a decade of flat growth in demand for legal services, the landscape has shifted to a buyer’s market.  While client write-offs of billed soft costs s have only declined 4% in the previous 12 years of collected Survey data, internal write-offs and the designation of previously billable items to non-billable have increased, driven by two factors:  1. Billing attorneys are reluctant to invoice these costs, regardless of whether the clients have refused to pay or not, and 2. Clients refusal to pay for any soft costs outside of fees. 

Mattern & Associates predicts 2018 Survey results to show that the majority of firms are not forsaking this recovery stream, however they are taking their recovery strategy internal and getting buy-in from the billing attorneys on recovering costs from clients that are willing to pay.

While softening of traditional areas of recovery such as copies can be expected, this will be offset by aggressiveness for modern areas of recovery such as scans, prints, and litigation support/eDiscovery costs, storage, data rooms, closing books, hosting, coding, and more.  Additionally, as the Survey has consistently shown, hard costs will continue to be the most effective way to recover costs with net realization remaining in the mid 80% range.

Andrea Myers, Director of Finance and Operations of Miller Johnson, remarked “The Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey has been a useful tool for our Firm to benchmark our realizations in various recovery categories and compare them to other firms our size and in our region.  It has validated that our cost recovery strategy is competitive and a worthwhile revenue stream for our Firm.”

Company President, Rob Mattern, states “Since 2008, the legal industry has faced static year-over-year growth.  It is crucial for law firms to know how to control expenses and how to successfully recover what costs they can. Having the right data is key to this process.” 

Since its founding in 2004, the Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey is, year-over-year, lauded by industry leaders as the most comprehensive snapshot of cost recovery practices in the industry.  Participation is open now and ends May 15th.  Participants in the 2018 Cost Recovery Survey receive customized reports benchmarking their firm’s position across all areas of cost recovery. Firms interested in gaining concrete insights into these cost recovery revenue streams and workflows are highly encouraged to participate.  To learn more about the 2018 Mattern & Associates Cost Recovery Survey, click here.