BusinessTN

In an article published in the ABA Journal last year, lawyer and novelist Scott Turow (The Burden of Proof, Presumed Innocent, Pleading Guilty and Personal Injuries) wrote that the billable hour, the very staple of the American legal system, must perish. According to Turow--and, increasingly, others in the legal profession--the billable hour rewards inefficiency while making clients suspicious. Recent public pronouncements by a handful of law firms nationally that they would eschew the billable hour lends some credence to Turow's proclamation. That said, reports of the billable hour's demise in legal circles are overblown--or at least premature.

However, here in Tennessee, and specifically on Music Row in Nashville, the billable hour is increasingly being regarded as yet another victim in the ever-evolving business model of the troubled entertainment industry. It's one factor that contributed to the not-so-distant departure of one of the state's best entertainment lawyers from a top law firm to hang his own shingle on the Row.

A couple years back, the dean of Music Row attorneys, Mike Milom, amicably left Bass, Berry & Sims to start his own firm. With him went Robin Mitchell Joyce, Chris Horsnell and David Crow to form Milom Joyce Horsnell Crow, a group considered the best team of entertainment lawyers outside New York City.

Milom says entertainment law firms are increasingly more entrepreneurial--for instance, participating on a percentage basis in a deal, a development that doesn't always mesh with the needs and requirements of a corporate law firm.

"That had a lot to do with [our departure,] honestly," Milom says. "We deal almost exclusively with individuals who are within themselves small businesses, whether it's record producers, recording artists or performers. You simply have to provide legal services to individuals in a somewhat different way than you do when you are dealing with a corporate entity. There has to be greater flexibility both in structuring the fees and in collections."

Milom emphasizes that his firm has not yet joined the ranks of those who have turned their backs on the billable hour. But it is clear that, given the changing nature of the music and entertainment business and the more speculative nature of projects due to the smaller number of record labels and the declining opportunities for certain kinds of projects, it is increasingly the case for lawyers to bill based on performance or on a percentage of a deal or a project, understanding that they might not get paid unless a project succeeds.

In music parlance, "the times, they are a-changin'."