The Western Australian litigation market punches well above its weight both in terms of the quality of practitioners therein and the size/importance of matters sourced out of the state. It’s perhaps for these two reasons then that the state’s litigators are some of the most expensive in the country.
Hourly Rates
Perhaps the best display of where Perth sits in terms of pricing against other states can be found in the table below:
Commercial Litigation Pricing - Nationally
| Hourly Rate | NSW | Victoria | Western Australia | Queensland |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $400-$500 | 3% | 12% | 8% | 17% |
| $500-$600 | 4% | 21% | 11% | 38% |
| $600-$700 | 14% | 15% | 54% | 25% |
| $700-$800 | 22% | 28% | 23% | 20% |
| $800-$900 | 51% | 22% | 4% | |
| $900+ | 6% | 2% |
Alternative Pricing
Western Australia’s litigators were not only generally expensive but also tend not to be comparatively favourable towards any move away from the traditional hourly rate. With only 72% of the market using some form of alternative pricing in the past year Perth’s litigators don’t use alternative billing as much as their local counterparts in other practice areas or as much as the litigators in the majority of other Australian states.
Fixing and capping fees were unsurprisingly the most common form of alternative pricing and the state trended towards average with some 27% of firms using retainer style arrangements. Somewhat surprisingly for a state with a strong entrepreneurial culture and postive attitude towards risk Perth ranked lowest when it came to the use of performance based fees with only 11% of the respondents using such a model (compared to between 22%-44% nationally)