U.S. litigation firms charged a blended rate of $385 an hour, according to TyMetrix research

TyMetrix has produced an 8-page handout, the “Litigation Rate Snapshot,” based on its LegalVIEW data warehouse of billing and matter information. The full report covers $15 billion in fees submitted by 10,000 U.S. law firms and 147,000 individual billers. The total hours reached 39 million.

At the most aggregated level, therefore, the blended rate for all those fees and hours comes to $385 an hour. That rate reflects all write-offs and approvals, so the submitted blended hourly rate was somewhat higher. Since the counterpart figure for U.S. legal departments comes in just below $200, this appears to put an outside litigation hour at twice the cost of an inside hour.