A quite front-end market and a drop in activity levels in construction litigation has kept pricing in extremely competitive in the Queensland construction legal market.
Hourly Rates
While there’s a healthy and even spread of hourly rates for consumers of legal services to choose from there’s also potentially a race to the bottom. 28% of firms set their hourly rack rate at below $500 and 56% sit below $600 per hour. There’s still strong mid-tier and national firm options in the $typical $600-$700 per hour range but the pricing pressure placed upon these firms due to the aggressive pricing of others is significant.
The larger national and international firms price slightly below that of their interstate counterparts with rates of low to mid $700’s per hour being typical.
Brisbane Construction & Infrastructure Lawyers Pricing (Hourly Rates)
| Hourly Rate | Market Share |
|---|---|
| $350 - $400 | 2% |
| $400 - $450 | 15% |
| $450 - $500 | 11% |
| $500 - $550 | 21% |
| $550 - $600 | 9% |
| $600 - $650 | 11% |
| $650 - $700 | 14% |
| $700 - $750 | 8% |
| $750 - $800 | 6% |
| $800 - $850 | 3% |
Alternative Pricing
Perhaps due to the relatively low hourly rates on offer in the Queensland construction legal market there’s a lower than usual adoption of alternative billing arrangements with some 77% of the market reporting their use.
Fixed fees (89%) and capped fees (92%) were far and away the most common method of alternative billing used. The use of retainer style agreements (22%) was lower than than in other practice areas (normally at around 30%) and surprisingly performance or outcome based fees were uncommon (14%).