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Most days I leave the office by or before 5:30 and I don't have to bill jack poo poo. I'm content with the dramatic trade off in pay.
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Nov 5, 2018 08:03
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Yeah I work 10 to 430, with no time accountability. I don't bill, but I have to sign in by 10 or they'll charge me leave. Once I'm in though, I can disappear for 2 hours+ without anyone caring. So long as my work gets done. I know some of y'all like the work and money and prestige, but I know I couldn't work that hard. Im guessing the firm's at oci could see my lack of grind and that's why I was screened out. Also I believe profit is a moral wrong.
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Nov 5, 2018 12:58
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Yuns posted:This is true. I thought billable time for individual associates was calculated after it was reviewed and some of it was written off?
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Nov 5, 2018 13:26
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Saying I read this thread sometimes should be enough to get me out of jury duty today right?
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Nov 5, 2018 13:32
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Residency Evil posted:Saying I read this thread sometimes should be enough to get me out of jury duty today right? Hell, it should get you beat up outright. E: My billing is dogshit this year but it doesn't matter because nobody who works mid (norwegian definition) small (US definition for sure) should ever have a billable requirement. It's picking up though, the last part of this year has been crazy.
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Nov 5, 2018 13:35
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Alexeythegreat posted:I thought billable time for individual associates was calculated after it was reviewed and some of it was written off? I'm not sure if that happens anywhere; if it does, only at the absolute worst firms where no human being should work.1 There's a partner at my firm who has a reputation for cutting associate time like that and basically no one will work with him but first and second years (because they have no choice). I'm not sure anything could make associates revolt against our oppressors in a violent rampage faster than them loving with our time like that. We can get a talking to if too much of our time gets written off, but that would really only happen in a case of padding so extreme and shameless that it looks bad for the firm. Really there's no incentive for a billing attorney to want to do that either. When I get a prebill where it's clear some moron first year has inflated it, whether deliberately or through incompetence, I slash it before it goes to the client and it looks like they're getting a nice lil discount, because I care so deeply about them or whatever, the associate still gets full credit, and everyone's happy 1: insert obvious joke here
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Nov 5, 2018 13:36
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Doesn't WLRK not bill clients by the hour? Maybe their associates don't track hours either?
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Nov 5, 2018 13:54
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Alexeythegreat posted:I thought billable time for individual associates was calculated after it was reviewed and some of it was written off? Firms use all kinds of metrics to evaluate performance and productivity, like collections and time actually billed. But usually for billable requirements the gross figure is what they use as others have said.
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Nov 5, 2018 13:57
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Soothing Vapors posted:I'm not sure if that happens anywhere; if it does, only at the absolute worst firms where no human being should work.1 There's a partner at my firm who has a reputation for cutting associate time like that and basically no one will work with him but first and second years (because they have no choice). I'm not sure anything could make associates revolt against our oppressors in a violent rampage faster than them loving with our time like that. Phil Moscowitz posted:Firms use all kinds of metrics to evaluate performance and productivity, like collections and time actually billed. But usually for billable requirements the gross figure is what they use as others have said. Well then. Good thing that the billable hours goal at my last firm was wishful thinking, not an implicit rule
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Nov 5, 2018 14:20
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Throatwarbler posted:Doesn't WLRK not bill clients by the hour? Maybe their associates don't track hours either? How do Dubai law firms handle it, Throatwarbler?
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Nov 5, 2018 14:38
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What percentage of your actual work hours is billable hours? Or what I’m actually interested in, how many actual hours do you have to work in order to reach X billables? Like I probably work about 2200 hours per year at a nonprofit where I have decent but not Government Job-tier work-life balance. My impression of big law types I know is they work way more than me.
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Nov 5, 2018 14:48
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I fuckin love Throatwarbler
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Nov 5, 2018 15:30
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Soothing Vapors posted:How do Dubai law firms handle it, Throatwarbler? I will go ahead and assume that it's done through some form of emails
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Nov 5, 2018 15:37
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The Dagda posted:What percentage of your actual work hours is billable hours? Or what I’m actually interested in, how many actual hours do you have to work in order to reach X billables? Depends, but 70-80% is a good rule of thumb (at least in litigation, no clue on transactional nerds). Goes higher as you get closer to trial and generally bill in bigger blocks of time.
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Nov 5, 2018 15:42
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Alexeythegreat posted:I will go ahead and assume that it's done through some form of emails How do you bill the work that your Sri Lankan slave does?
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Nov 5, 2018 16:21
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Hot Dog Day #91 posted:You all live a miserable existence. Yuuup Look I’m just here to pay off my loans/save some money and learn poo poo for when I inevitably burn out and go in house. Life becomes a lot easier when you plan to not become partner. e: I lied life is in no way easier. Caught up on my hours and I billed roughly 230 last month, which includes a few days of "vacation". Go to law school. disjoe fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Nov 5, 2018 |
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Nov 5, 2018 16:29
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Pook Good Mook posted:How do you bill the work that your Sri Lankan slave does? General Admin 100-000001
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Nov 5, 2018 16:39
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Yuns posted:Sorry I shouldn't have generalized. I know it's different at different firms. No need to apologize. I appreciate your insight and perspective.
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Nov 5, 2018 20:08
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Associates are kind of like kids. They're loud, they make messes, need to be taught everything and are always asking for help cutting out paper and stuff. But you can fire them if they are too annoying. Once you make partner you'll have a corner office and you can hire your actual kids and then you can spend lots of time with them.
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Nov 5, 2018 20:46
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As a cautionary tale for anyone who is considering law school: I'm a senior associate in transactional, and year-to-date, I've billed ~2750 hours. I would say most of my time spent working is billable - there is not a lot of non-billable admin work (other than entering time).
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Nov 5, 2018 22:10
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For your sake I hope you're raking in cash, because drat that's a lot of billables.
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Nov 6, 2018 00:05
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TheMadMilkman posted:For your sake I hope you're raking in cash, because drat that's a lot of billables.
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Nov 6, 2018 01:40
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I haven’t had a single billable hour yet because we’re prepaid for basically everything. I’ll be in court 3-4 days a week from the looks of things. Everything is either when keeping it real goes wrong, someone getting railroaded by the cops because they’re a minority, or some combination of both.
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Nov 6, 2018 02:13
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Pook Good Mook posted:How do you bill the work that your Sri Lankan slave does? There's a linguistic quirk, maybe left over from the days of the Raj and pith helmets, where runners and executive assistant type workers in the Gulf are referred to using the English term "boy". "Office boy" is an official position i.e. people have it written on their name tags. In an Arab office, Arab office workers sitting at their desks would snap their fingers and be like "go fetch me those documents from the copier, boy!" Was the darnest thing when I first saw it. "Boys" are typically Indian men in their late 20s to mid 30s. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-XznvufPl8
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Nov 6, 2018 02:41
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Oh Jesus Christ, come on
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Nov 6, 2018 02:49
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This video speaks to me https://youtu.be/Ff2KCEIck1Q
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Nov 6, 2018 03:38
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Yuns, what does your firm's realization rate look like for associate time? My feeling from mid-size firms in my town (20-80 attorneys) is associate realization tends to be at least 85%. Unless someone was bullshitting me, which is totally possible. Even at 85%, take a 5th year associate that someone's billing at $400/hr, 1900 hrs, gets you...$646,000 in the door. A third to overhead, a third to associate salary and bennies, and I can see a third going to partner profit.
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Nov 6, 2018 04:19
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Early access to bar prep started today, and the only scheduled days off are Christmas Day (lol Jew) and New Years. With 3 months instead of 2, the daily schedule actually isn’t bad.
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Nov 6, 2018 08:08
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Arcturas posted:Yuns, what does your firm's realization rate look like for associate time? My feeling from mid-size firms in my town (20-80 attorneys) is associate realization tends to be at least 85%. Unless someone was bullshitting me, which is totally possible. Even at 85%, take a 5th year associate that someone's billing at $400/hr, 1900 hrs, gets you...$646,000 in the door. A third to overhead, a third to associate salary and bennies, and I can see a third going to partner profit.
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Nov 6, 2018 09:43
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Arcturas posted:Yuns, what does your firm's realization rate look like for associate time? My feeling from mid-size firms in my town (20-80 attorneys) is associate realization tends to be at least 85%. Unless someone was bullshitting me, which is totally possible. Even at 85%, take a 5th year associate that someone's billing at $400/hr, 1900 hrs, gets you...$646,000 in the door. A third to overhead, a third to associate salary and bennies, and I can see a third going to partner profit.
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Nov 6, 2018 13:23
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I heard El Chapo's trial had started and they were in the process of juror selection, and they were taking measures to ensure the jurors' identities were kept secret. Honestly lol at the idea of presumption of innocence when you're going into it with the presumption that the jurors are inherently unsafe just for being empanelled.
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Nov 6, 2018 13:38
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Going in for an interview, wish me luck.
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Nov 6, 2018 13:39
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Nice piece of fish posted:Going in for an interview, wish me luck. May your victory guide you to the rainbow bridge to Valhalla.
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Nov 6, 2018 14:07
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Nice piece of fish posted:Going in for an interview, wish me luck. Ride eternal, shiny and chrome
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Nov 6, 2018 14:50
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Arcturas posted:Yuns, what does your firm's realization rate look like for associate time? My feeling from mid-size firms in my town (20-80 attorneys) is associate realization tends to be at least 85%. Unless someone was bullshitting me, which is totally possible. Even at 85%, take a 5th year associate that someone's billing at $400/hr, 1900 hrs, gets you...$646,000 in the door. A third to overhead, a third to associate salary and bennies, and I can see a third going to partner profit. Where is your town? Your realization rate looks okay, if a tiny bit low (my recollection from the consulting firms that aggregate data in my city and from my own firm is that 85%+ is pretty normal, so if they're at 85% they might be on the bottom edge). I have no idea what billing rates for mid-sized firms are in LA, Silicon Valley, or NYC, but in a non-Chicago midwest mid-law firm (using your definition of 20-80 attorneys), you're not billing a 5th year associate out at $400 an hour. P.S. Mr. Nice - congratulations on the new job. I am very happy for you. 
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Nov 6, 2018 16:46
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Alexeythegreat posted:I thought billable time for individual associates was calculated after it was reviewed and some of it was written off? No. You're gonna get in trouble in your reviews if your time consistently needs to be written off, or gets written off much more than usual - but generally speaking write-offs are considered a partner problem. Everyone knows a lot of write-offs are just the client demanding a discount, the partner making the case fit in the budget given by the client, or the general counsel trying to look productive by finding things to insist be written off (which will always be around the same percentage of the bill, magically enough, especially if an insurance company is paying the bill). That's not on the associate: that goes into the evaluation of how much business the partners bring in for their evaluations and divvying up the loot. It's only if you're consistently terrible that you do stuff to get time written off that's entirely on you that people are going to be grumpy at your review. If you billed forty hours to nonsense, it all had to be written off, then maybe that goes into the various fudge factors around your evaluations.
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Nov 6, 2018 16:51
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SlyFrog posted:Where is your town? Your realization rate looks okay, if a tiny bit low (my recollection from the consulting firms that aggregate data in my city and from my own firm is that 85%+ is pretty normal, so if they're at 85% they might be on the bottom edge). The $400/hr figure isn’t the going rate in my town. I just though we were talking about profit per associate at NYC/LA/SF big law. I think local rates for someone in that age range are at least 25% less, possibly an even higher discount, but I haven’t done a reasonable survey of firms to know what folks are charging. My realization figure was a lowball guess, glad to know it’s typically higher.
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Nov 6, 2018 19:27
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I make 80k regardless of how much or little I work.
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Nov 6, 2018 20:41
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Nice piece of fish posted:Going in for an interview, wish me luck. Did Alexy ever report back from his interview?
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Nov 6, 2018 22:17
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nm posted:Did Alexy ever report back from his interview? If I was less than 1% suspicious he might be sleeping with the fishes for accidentally making a joke about their government I might joke about it.
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Nov 6, 2018 23:37
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