I am curious how efficient other associates are with their billing. It seems that if I am in the office 10 hours, I am lucky to bill 8 hours at the end of the day. 10 hours in the office usually results in 7.5 hours billed, forcing me to work 11 to get to 8.5 to 9 (in order to have enough hours to hit my minimum (1950) and take a few vacations). I typically only take 45 minutes for lunch and surf the web for 30 minutes throughout the day. The other hour lost seems to be wasted on non-billable activities such chatting with associates, non-billable questions from other associates, non-billable quick assignments from partners (can you give me the form we used on that deal last year, etc.). On top of that, we have interviews/recruiting, CLE, training, meetings, lunches, client events at night, etc. I'm guessing that I worked 2500 hours last year to hit 1950, but I have no idea. I think this is normal, but I'm curious what others think.

That does not sound unusual. However, if you are billing 45 hours a week and work 48 weeks (maximum holiday) you would still be at almost 2050. So you are flame.

HTH

Sorry, that should have read 42.5

2500 hours over 48 weeks is 52 hours a week.

52 hours a week may not seem like much, but I am a transactional attorney. We bill less per hour worked than the litigators and spend more time at the computer pecking our lives away. At least litigators get out of the office even if they have to wear a suit and crap their pants before a judge. All I ever do is sort through files, draft documents from our forms and respond to emails. Maybe that's why I'm so inefficient. I guess it's time to find a new career.

I am saying that your numbers are off. They do not add up.

Who's worried about efficiency; I'm just worried about hours.

Same boat here. I'll be in the office for 12 hours a day and will be lucky to bill 9. Maybe I'm a favorable biller; maybe I don't think it should take me as long to do things as it actually does; maybe I spend too much time screwing around. It can be frustrating though. Especially those days where you only bill 6 hours but you are in the office for 10 hours because people keep distracting you and you have a bunch of stupid loose ends to run down but you don't feel justified in billing that time. Now I'm done with my rant. Back to billing.

"Generally engaged without regard to efficiency." If you're at the office for 10 hours generally working on a matter and take an hour for lunch, you bill 9 hours to the matter. If you're inefficient, the partner will let you know or will write down the time. Don't cheat yourself by working 9 hours and billing 7, that's a fast ticket to either burnout from overwork or being fired for not meeting hours.

So you bill a 15 minute dookie (including reading the sports section)? What about when a potential client takes an hour of your time, but never actually brings business. Do you lump that hour into your day? Your explanation of generally engaged strikes me as unethical. That being said, I can vouce for the burned-out and overworked feelings.

Bill what you work. If you feel that you shouldn't be billing for something you're doing, you probably shouldn't be doing it. Perhaps its something that a secretary or paralegal can handle. If you're doing those less-lawyerly tasks because you're the most efficient person, bill it. Partners will deal with appropriate discounts. Also, this advice may be easier at a firm without a target billable requirement. But regardlessy, if you're working, you should be billing. You should never discount your time (and in NY at least, its an ethics violation to inaccurately bill, including shorting yourself).

I have partners that tell me how many hours a certain project should take to complete, and if I complete it faster, I'm told to bill the number of hours it "should" take. I think it's the bottom line dollar amount that matters, not the actual hour total that you end up with.

This is called fraud if the client is billed for how long it was supposed to take as opposed to how long it did take.

You're nuts. You bill the client a dollar amount, not a number of hours. Lawyers throw extra money on to a bill all the time, ALL THE TIME, when they feel they're under billing. Is that fraud too?

And what to you do if the client asks to see the time entries, which they will do if they think the fee is excessive? Do you tell them that you just threw extra money on their bill?

If the fee arrangement agreed to between a client and an attorney is that the client is to be billed on an hourly basis (plus expenses) it is unethical to charge an amount higher than the time spent on the matter (plus expenses). This is not a difficult concept. If there is an alternative fee arrangement, such as a lump sum cost or monthly retainer, then it just needs to be reasonable, but the billable hour seems to be the norm (except for contingency fees).

I agree with the last post. Partners fluff the bill with extra hours, but it has to be rare that they just raise the bill without some tie to hours.

Mar 06 11:40 AM - The answer is yes. It happens everyday. You're naive if you think otherwise. Law firms routinely, and openly, tell their clients they have tacked on additional fees because of the nature of the project, or one of a myriad of other reasons. I suggest you do some research on firm billing practices.

Billable hour is the norm, but at the same time, the agreement will have an implicit "goal" number, or an estimate of what the total bill will be. The client doesn't care how many hours you take to complete a project, they care how much it will cost them. You are over thinking the issue, and in my opinion, naively ignoring reality.

I don't disagree. I understand that there are a myriad of reasons why time billed doesn't equal dollars billed. Premiums, discounts, monthly retainers etc. My only contention is that if an associate is given a task and told it should take ten hours and its completed in 5, then 5 hours should be billed for that assignment. Whatever the client is ulitmately billed is out of an associate's hands anyway. If a partner tells an associate to bill more time than was actually spent on an assignment and later there is an issue with the bill, it is on the associate to explain why twice as many hours were billed. My whole point is that an associate should bill what they work and let partners figure out how to charge. Intentionally misstating your time is a bad move.

Disagree. No one should be punished for being efficient.

Not billing beyond the actual time it took is not punishment. You should not be rewarded for violating ethical rules of billing more time than it takes under a billable contact. Law firms do not reward efficiency, unless you can bill under a per job billing arrangement. If you are super efficient and want to be rewarded for it, go in-house, start your own firm with per job billing or do something outside of law without the ethical rules.

Too bad the mortgage industry went south. You sound like the perfect person to process liar loans.

Law firms that do not have minimum billables tied to compensation do reward efficient, accurate work, just not in direct, immediate monetary compensation.

If a firm can deliver the same product in half the time and at the half the cost as a competitor, that firm should be rewarded in the marketplace with more business. As an associate, if you complete tasks efficiently and accurately, you will likely have more exposure to more work and will ultimately become a better lawyer with a superior skill set that can command more money in the marketplace. These are both long-term rewards.

This thread shows why minimum billables are for short-sighted firms and do not make a lot of business sense in a time and materials field. There is absolutely no reason to incentivize associates to defraud client or drag their feet on an assignment. The more efficient a firm is, the more competitve they should be. Its no wonder that a lot of top firms do not have minimum billable requirements (and its not because everyone bills 2100 hours guaranteed every year at those places, trust me).

Mar 11 09:06 PM, That's laughable. What an incredibly myopic view of firm billing procedures you have. I suggest you try reading engagement letters and the manner in which they describe how the work they request will be billed. Law firms do in fact reward efficency, and if you disagree, I would venture to guess you work for a big, dinosaur like firm where you plan to slave away in the salt mines for the rest of your life. Good luck with that.

I think we've beat this issue to death already. I think it's fair to say that I am somewhat naive about billing and that you are an aggressive biller. With things as slow as they are now, I may have to be a bit more aggressive to keep my hours up.

I think you both need to get back to work. The irony in finding such a deep thread about billing practices. To whom are the two of you billing the time you wasted on the above discussion?

Said the guy who read it all and took the time to respond.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

I should spend less time reading this post.

Nah, it's a good amount of time.