Overview
There’s never any shortage of competition and pricing competitiveness in the South Australian legal market however construction appears to be one area where rampant undercutting and sharp pricing hasn’t effectively taken hold. Perhaps this is due to a relatively small number fo firms with genuine expertise in the area combined with a limited volume of significant projects.
In any event South Australia’s construction lawyers have all but moved away from hourly rate as a base model. Over three quarters of market participants use an alternative billing model and, it would appear using it regularly.
Of course fixed pricing was the go to model pricing method for those firms who have moved away from hourly rate with over 80% of firms having used this method.
Surprisingly over 60% of firms have used a retainer pricing model. As a guide, across other jurisdictions/areas generally no more than 30-40% of firms have used such a model.
Given the widespread use of models other than hourly rates outlining a recommended or average hourly rate is somewhat misleading. Suffice to say that while some firms still hover around the $350-$400 per hour mark, generally an hourly rate of between $450-$500 should be considered as reasonable.