Sounds like they think legals fees are “Giffen Goods”:

In economics and consumer theory, a Giffen good is that which people consume more of as price rises, violating the law of demand. In normal situations, as the price of such a good rises, the substitution effect causes people to purchase less of it and more of substitute goods. In the Giffen good situation, cheaper close substitutes are not available. Because of the lack of substitutes, the income effect dominates, leading people to buy more of the good, even as its price rises.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giffen_good

I would really like to get away from billable hours as they way to get paid altogether.

After years as a practing attorney in law firms and corporate legal departments, I now work for a LSO headquartered in Bangalore.  Having seen the colosal discovery screw-ups in practices in Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Denver, combined with billing practices that would make a whore blush and trial strategy designed not to optimize results but optimize attorney retirement packages ... I am not particularly worried about clients going running back to the US over a privileged document being improperly revealed.  Faster, better, cheaper.  It works in baseball.  It works in legal services outsourcing.

Baseball sometimes gets criticized for being hopelessly behind the times when it comes to business efficiency

I sometimes wonder if this isn’t because baseball is really less efficient, but because it’s more transparent.  We can make informed criticisms of baseball player moves precisely because we know a lot about projecting player performance and we know about the available alternatives.  We don’t know nearly as much about the decisions and alternatives available to other companies, so we’re simply less able to point out their mistakes.

Roger,

I think baseball has more inefficiency because there is a tremendous amount of satisficing taking place (something Boras is the unquestioned master of exploiting). Dredging out every last ounce of efficiency is a lot easier when a company deals with cordless phones or frying pans than baseball- there is a much less significant chance of emotion clouding rationality. Zito type contracts don’t happen as much in these markets.