Law firm gets rid of billable hours

From the Kansas City Star: "The Jackson Lewis law firm has done away with the billable hour as a device to measure associates' performance. You don't have to be a lawyer to know that the sweatshop reputation of large law firms was driven by hungry young associates striving to make partner who ground out long hours. The rule, tacit or explicit, was to put in time, lots of it. 'We took billable hours away as a measuring stick for performance,' said Brian Christensen, managing shareholder of the firm's Kansas City, Mo., office. 'The new measuring sticks are things such as efficiency, quality of work, teamwork.'"