Despite difficult market conditions and strong competition for the relatively little work that is going around, Perth’s employment lawyers have, by and large, managed to hold on to the pricing levels they enjoyed during the good times of the resources boom. Hourly rates for WA based employment lawyers are, on average well in excess of those in Queensland and Victoria and while alternative pricing is used the method and manner of its usage differs significantly from the way in which it used by other employment lawyers nationally.
Hourly Rates
Perth’s employment lawyers, as a whole, are a expensive as their Sydney counterparts and charge considerably more than their counterparts in a similar sized states/markets such as Brisbane. Some 45% of Perth’s employment lawyers charge between $600-$700 per hour and 62% of the market charges above $600 per hour. In Queensland, half that figure in only 31% of the market, manage to crack the $600 an hour mark.
There’s also a lack of the keenly priced employment lawyer in the WA legal market. Only 4% of respondents listed an hourly rate below $500 per hour. Amongst Queensland’s employment lawyers this figure was some 30% and when compared to Perth’s property lawyer where 49% of the market sat under $500 per hour the state’s employment lawyers enjoy a level of financial comfort that, quite frankly, looks unsustainable.
Alternative Pricing
86% of WA’s employment lawyers have used a pricing model outside of the traditional hourly rate firms in the past 12 months a figure in line with employment lawyers nationally and indeed lawyers across all areas in the Australian market. WA’s employment lawyers do differ though in one significant aspect. They have not embraced the concept of fixed pricing as many others have and instead opted for capped fees ahead of the fixed price model. It’s this preference towards capped fees that we’d suggest has allowed them to hold on to relatively lofty pricing levels.