Deloitte: Hourly Billing Share Expected to Fall from 72% to 44% Within Two to Three Years

The Deloitte Legal AI Imperative report projects that the share of legal work billed by the hour will fall from 72% today to 44% within two to three years, as AI enables fixed-fee, subscription, and outcome-based pricing at scale. Among the survey's in-house respondents, 85% believe AI will change how law firms price work — a figure that substantially exceeds the share of law firms that have yet revised their pricing models in response. For law firm pricing and BD teams, the 72% to 44% projection creates a planning timeline: firms that have not designed AFAs, subscription models, or matter-level fixed-fee structures for their highest-volume, most AI-accelerated practice categories will be designing them reactively in client negotiations rather than proactively as a competitive positioning tool. The Ballard Spahr Syllo deployment (which specifically tied firm-wide litigation AI rollout to client fixed-fee options) is an early example of what proactive pricing model adaptation looks like.