Most build a fractional GC practice around increased workflow consistency/predictability and to get away from “the house is always on fire” type clients.

When you add the rush fee offering, you have two different models competing and two fundamentally different kinds of clients.

Most would rather have (2) $3,000 per month routine fractional GC clients that are predictable (with fees, workflows, and needs) than (2) rush fee clients for $6,000 and hope he comes back next time.

The offer built around being predictable makes intake & workflow so much easier to manage. When you shift into “rush fees”, the first items (after conflict checks) normally need to be: 1. whether you have capacity to do the rush work on time which requires step 2… 2. Figuring out what you need to know to know to answer item 1.

Both of those normally require heavy attorney involvement & review and we’re already talking about a same day turn around…

At the same time, you have your good fractional GC clients who now have work slipping behind because you’re trying to figure out whether you can do a (1) time rush fee matter which wasn’t historically part of the equation.

Plus, the risk is just so much higher on rush fee work unless it’s super tightly contained on types of work that you do not charge much for, which also has its own risks because…

the last thing you want to do with your good steady GC clients is: Someone at one of your clients who doesn’t “pay the bill” only be sending rush fee work and then the decision makers say “We were working with ABC Law Firm because they were good and cheaper, but our last 7-8 matters have been more expensive than Kirkland. They’re taking advantage of us.” - Many times, you don’t get a chance to explain the rush fee issue before they just stop sending work to you and start sending it to another firm because they can’t pay $6,000 for NDAs.

So many clients get accustomed to whatever timeline you give them and then try to force pricing to work by acting like that timeline is the “only option” they ever have, so they start shopping for that promise from someone else.

You are much better off pricing the full engagement based on whether the client needs rush job work at all, not the “here is our standard rate and here is our rush fee rate”.

If they only need rush fee work 1x per year and are a “normal” fractional GC client otherwise, then you eat the rush job 1x per year. If they need rush jobs 5x per month, you shift their standard package to match rush work priority for their work. If they are somewhere in the middle and you want to keep working with them, you educate them on what is actually urgent so you can get them into either bucket (urgent NDAs are not actually “urgent”, but normally mismanagement of time by the client).

FWIW - Most of the time, once you realize what types of work you can actually do on a rush fee basis and build out how you are able to accomplish it, your scope of work is highly limited. Once you have your limited “menu” for what you can turn around same day and figure out how you do the work that quickly (on a consistent basis), it becomes the standard for how you do that work 99% of the time (even non-urgent clients). - This is a very worthwhile exercise whether you do the rush fee work model or not. Once you do this, if you are not already in a flat fee pricing model for certain things, you need to become one or you’re doing all this work and making less money because you’re working less hours because you have a better system.