Does the history of lawyers' billing practices prior to the introduction and dominance of hourly billing demonstrate that value billing, or some other alternative billing method, can be an effective basis for reforming the ethical malaise which hourly billing has created? This paper argues that...

This paper tests Harry Arthur's theory that Canadian law societies engage in an "ethical economy," in which they use their regulatory powers only in high reward/low risk cases - i.e., where the practitioner is less likely to resist their authority and the offence is morally unambiguous....