Lawyers and general corporate travelers spend about the same amount of money, on average, for business travel, but financial services firms spend more lavishly, according to a new report.
The report from The Lawyers Travel Service in New York is based on average airfares and hotel room prices paid by samples of frequent business travelers from the second quarter of 2008 through the first quarter of 2010.
The data in the report for those eight quarters show:
. Financial services frequent travelers paid an average airfare of $1,360 (almost twice the law firm rate) and an average hotel room rate of $308.
. Law firm frequent travelers paid an average airfare of $727 and an average hotel room rate of $269.
.Corporate frequent travelers paid an average air fare of $752, slightly more than lawyers, and an average hotel room rate of $259, slightly less than lawyers.
. Financial services travelers fly first class far more often than lawyers or general corporate travelers.
Two consultants to law firms, Joel F. Henning of Joel Henning & Associates, and Ward Bower, principal of Altman Weil Inc., said lawyers have good reason to be economical with their travel arrangements.
"I am finding more of my law firm clients are folding travel expenses into fees," Henning said, "which means they are much more cost-conscious about travel expenses. I am finding this even among some high-end, corporate transactional lawyers. This they hope is helping them compete with local firms."
Bower said: "Lawyers usually are traveling at client expense and many corporate clients refuse to reimburse first-class airfares. They also apply scrutiny to hotel bills."
The data in the report shows that over the two years, frequent travelers from financial services firms flew first class almost 29 percent of the time, or 28.65 percent.
Lawyers and general corporate frequent travelers both flew first class on average less than 9 percent of the time.
Typically, the travel policies in some financial services firms, said Michael Steiner, executive vice president of Lawyers Travel Service, "are more flexible . than law firms." Also, business class or first-class plane tickets for financial services firms are "more of an accepted practice than for some law firms."
Asked why financial services frequent travelers paid more for hotel rooms than lawyers, Steiner said, "Typically, the per diems with financial services clients on average are higher than at most law firms."
Steiner said the data for lawyer travel are based on the 5,000 most frequent lawyer travelers each quarter from a total of 130 law firms that are clients of Lawyers Travel Service.
The data on financial services firms come from the 2,500 most frequent travelers each quarter from a total of 80 financial services firms, he said. These are clients of an LTS' affiliated company, Ovation Corporate Travel.
Most companies in financial services category, Steiner said, "are investment banks, asset management companies, private equity firms and hedge fund companies."
The data on general corporate travelers are taken each quarter from the 16,500 most frequent business travelers from 85 "very large" corporations, who are also clients of Ovation.
The data on frequent travelers from law firms show that the average airfare for lawyers dipped from $824 in the second quarter of 2008 - before the economy crashed- to $637 in the first quarter of 2009.
In the first quarter of this year, average airfare for lawyers from law firms had crept back up to $738.
The proportion of air fares for lawyers that were for first class was at 7.2 percent in this year's first quarter, the lowest in the report.