Vol. I · Published Fridays

Monday, September 7, 2026

FryDay Notes.

From the editor

FryDay Notes began as a place to think out loud about the questions that tend to linger after the meeting ends.

What does it really mean to price legal work well? How do firms explain value before the work begins, protect margin after it does, and decide which parts of the old model are worth carrying into the next one? AI has made those questions louder, but not simpler.

These are the weekly essays from the notes on my desk: part market read, part practical observation, and part open-ended curiosity. Longer than a quick take. Less formal than a white paper. Very much a FryDay.

This week · No. 016

The Going Rate

Ask thirty pricing people what pricing is and you get a variety of titles, descriptions and prerogatives. Three opposite rate strategies, one collected number, and a question about where strategy actually sits.

Legal Pricing · Strategy · Rates · Discounting/Jul 31, 2026

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The archive

15 notes

No. 015/Pricing · Mergers·Jul 17, 2026

Two of Everything

My July has been full of unions. Two transatlantic mergers went live this summer, and the trade press says both now carry two pay scales in the same London offices. A note on what a union does to the price and cost of legal work, and what it means for business services.

No. 014/Legal Pricing · Governance·Jul 10, 2026

The Sovereign Price

A weekend spent celebrating 250 years — and a reminder that the American founding was, among other things, a governance fight over price. What Boston Harbor teaches law firms about who should own the discount conversation.

No. 013/Pricing · AI·Jun 26, 2026

The Weekend Build

Vibe-coding put 'build' within a weekend's reach. But building isn't free — it's just billed where you're not looking.

No. 012/Legal Ops · Pricing·Jun 19, 2026

The Summer Class Forecast

Law school applicants are surging while BigLaw quietly shrinks its junior ranks. If firms train fewer juniors in the age of AI, who develops the judgment we can't yet commoditize — and how should we price it?

No. 011/AI · Legal Pricing·Jun 12, 2026

The Load-Bearing Hour

A tax-associate friend is the most efficient he's ever been, and still leaving the office at 11 pm. His firm's dashboards see nothing. The billable hour isn't how firms bill — it's how they count — and that's why AI's value keeps disappearing between the desk and the invoice.

No. 010/Private Equity · Legal Pricing·Jun 5, 2026

The House Always Benchmarks

What do PE-backed clients actually want from outside counsel? A lunch with a former asset management board member reveals it's not the pitch deck — it's whether the budget turns out to be true.

No. 009/AI · Process Design·May 29, 2026

Sweep It Under the Bot

AI doesn't fix broken processes — it scales them. A lesson from a 183-piece bed frame about why the crooked screw matters before you start automating.

No. 008/Client Retention · Legal Operations·May 22, 2026

The Loyalty Program

Partners lateral more than ever, but their clients don't always follow. The real driver of client retention may be the operational layer that rarely gets credit.

No. 007/AI · Pricing Strategy·May 15, 2026

Coupon Code: AI

Clients are starting to expect an "AI discount" on legal fees. Most firms can't yet prove what AI actually saved — here's how to start building the case before clients demand it.

No. 006/Write-Offs · Governance·May 8, 2026

Who Should Own Write-Off Approval?

Write-offs aren't just losses to clear off the books — they're a pattern-rich dataset about pricing, partners, and clients that most firms approve in minutes and never look at again.

No. 005/AI · Pricing Models·May 1, 2026

Your Mileage May Vary

When a partner's AI-assisted instinct and a pricing model built on pre-AI data produce wildly different numbers, both might be technically right — and that gap is becoming the central problem in legal pricing.

No. 004/AI · Communication·Apr 24, 2026

Compression Obsession: How Less Is Sometimes…Less

AI makes everything shorter. But in legal and finance, the sentence that gets cut for brevity is often the one that explains why the numbers look the way they do.

No. 003/AFAs · Alternative Fee Arrangements·Apr 17, 2026

The Phantom AFA

Most "alternative fee arrangements" are just discounted hourly rates in disguise. Here's what separates a real AFA from a phantom one — and why the difference determines whether your firm actually builds pricing capability.

No. 002/Curiosity · AI·Apr 10, 2026

The Question Mark Advantage

Why curiosity, not tenure, may be the real differentiator in legal pricing — and how firms risk training their most promising people to stop asking "why do we do it this way?"

No. 001/Legal Pricing · Psychology·Apr 3, 2026

The Shrink in the Spreadsheet

A psychology background turned out to be unexpected training for legal pricing — because budget conversations are really about loss aversion, trust, and how partners feel about the numbers, not just the numbers themselves.

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A new note, every Friday.

One short letter on pricing, profitability, and the quiet rewiring of legal work. No promotions, no filler.

Or read prior notes · the archive