What are the implications of the importance of volume?
As the margin pressure example suggests, with greater volumes, you can afford to invest more, since you get your money back more easily. This is a real advantage of a large (or specialist) law firm over a smaller one. A larger or specialist law firm can afford to invest more to create a better precedent, not because it has more resources (although it does), but because the precedent will get used more. And a better precedent means of course the bill includes more of the profitable Precedent Usage Fee, and less of the relatively less profitable billable time. Of course, there is a limit to what you can sensibly invest in a document. For example, a confidentiality agreement is inherently less complicated than a distribution agreement, which is less complicated than an outsourcing agreement or certain finance documentation. But, where document complexity can be high, volume is critical to making investment attractive. And so, for complex documents in particular, it is important to drive g
