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evilweasel posted:2000 is the standard for associates. Partners are more judged on revenues than hours, though obviously hours generally = revenue. Wtf are you kidding that's 38 per week God I'm glad I work somewhere that doesn't do the billable hours concept at all
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Mar 17, 2022 13:15
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Isn't 2000 the effective minimum for biglaw? It's been that way since before I started law school.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:08
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A medium sized law firm in the Midwest (30-50 ish attorneys) generally expects around 1800 billable hours for starting associates in my experience.
Pook Good Mook fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Mar 17, 2022 |
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Mar 17, 2022 14:10
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Mr. Nice! posted:Isn't 2000 the effective minimum for biglaw? It's been that way since before I started law school.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:40
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Man no wonder you guys keep telling everyone not to be lawyers. I have a friend who's a senior associate at a pretty decent size firm here who *once* did a normal work-week's hours in billable hours in one week and it was so unusual it was worth tweeting about how long a week she just had.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:47
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Organza Quiz posted:Man no wonder you guys keep telling everyone not to be lawyers. I have a friend who's a senior associate at a pretty decent size firm here who *once* did a normal work-week's hours in billable hours in one week and it was so unusual it was worth tweeting about how long a week she just had. For every billable hour I do I do like 3 that I don't bill for. Maybe that's just me.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:50
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Mr. Nice! posted:Isn't 2000 the effective minimum for biglaw? It's been that way since before I started law school. Below 2000 you aren’t getting a bonus but you won’t be fired for it. I missed 2000 plenty of years.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:51
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The goal is to get actual work/billable ratio as close to 1 as possible. Real billable bullshit masters have a ration below 1.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:53
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Shageletic posted:For every billable hour I do I do like 3 that I don't bill for. Maybe that's just me.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:53
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Shageletic posted:For every billable hour I do I do like 3 that I don't bill for. Maybe that's just me. Yeah that's the assumption I'm working off too. I guess it's less obscene if they're managing to make most actual hours billable hours.
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Mar 17, 2022 14:54
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In real lawyer land (small-mid sized) if you do 1400 a year you had an awesome year
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Mar 17, 2022 15:43
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But also it's very true that for every hour of billable work you do, you did at least two hours of non-billable poo poo
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Mar 17, 2022 15:44
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Shageletic posted:For every billable hour I do I do like 3 that I don't bill for. Maybe that's just me. This would utterly kill you in any decent sized firm that has billable expectations. I think you could only justify this in solo or close to solo, where you're dragging down a much higher percentage of your actual billing. Or for certain BigLaw partners, who can basically play golf and then just write $1,000,000 on each bill just because.
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Mar 17, 2022 15:49
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The last time I billed hourly it was in half hour increments and that feels good.
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Mar 17, 2022 16:06
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blarzgh posted:But also it's very true that for every hour of billable work you do, you did at least two hours of non-billable poo poo Christ, I'm glad I never went into law.
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Mar 17, 2022 16:23
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Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week?
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Mar 17, 2022 17:08
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blarzgh posted:But also it's very true that for every hour of billable work you do, you did at least two hours of non-billable poo poo For me (as a biglaw litigator, not now in my non-billable paradise) the ratio was usually between 66% and 75% of my time "at work" being billable. e: This does NOT mean that I had 25-33% non-billable time entry, just that not all of your time is going to even be trackable.
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Mar 17, 2022 17:08
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Kalman posted:For me (as a biglaw litigator, not now in my non-billable paradise) the ratio was usually between 66% and 75% of my time "at work" being billable. Yeah there are certainly “well I goofed off for an hour can’t bill that” times but nobody’s making me do that. First years might have high non-billable because they’re given make-work if the firm doesn’t have clients who pay for them but I don’t understand how people that that high non-billable unless it’s just a lack of cases to bill on.
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Mar 17, 2022 17:18
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evilweasel posted:Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week? It's small/mid-law world, so directing staff and brief client communications that, if billed, would enrage the client into leaving. This is easily a third of my day every day, so if I want to bill 7 I'm usually working 12+. This is in a firm with notably good organization and management for its region/size/practice area.
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Mar 17, 2022 17:21
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I just talk to my friends too much
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Mar 17, 2022 18:40
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SlyFrog posted:This would utterly kill you in any decent sized firm that has billable expectations. I think you could only justify this in solo or close to solo, where you're dragging down a much higher percentage of your actual billing. Or for certain BigLaw partners, who can basically play golf and then just write $1,000,000 on each bill just because. Yeah thats the one. Small practice not willing ti bust the bank of smaller clients. maybe more like 2 to 1. The ratio is pretty high E: can't wait to be back on a salary lol
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Mar 17, 2022 23:04
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evilweasel posted:Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week? Work in a violate area of tech. A lot of research, alot of getting familiar, alot of getting things organized, alotta trying to keep clients happy
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Mar 17, 2022 23:07
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evilweasel posted:Below 2000 you aren’t getting a bonus but you won’t be fired for it. I missed 2000 plenty of years. Depends on the firm. There is genuine variation on this. 1900, 1800, etc. are not uncommon bonus hurdles.
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Mar 17, 2022 23:55
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evilweasel posted:Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week? Friend comes into my office, wants to bounce an idea off my head asking about a case and a strategy, but it doesn't make sense for me to bill that half hour because the client's bills are being paid byan insurance company that requires preapproval for every timekeeper on a bill.
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Mar 18, 2022 00:00
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Many small to midsized places are always seemingly “struggling” in that associates only bill 1500-1800 hours but of course they were still profitable for the firm. When I worked at places like that I never collected less than 2.5 times my salary and usually was like 3-4 times. Some practices (not lit) you can kill it billing 1400, like my friend who is a partner at a big regional firm doing health care work at $500 an hour. It’s not major market BIGLAW income but it’s still like $350-$400k.
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Mar 18, 2022 00:37
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Mr. Nice! posted:Isn't 2000 the effective minimum for biglaw? It's been that way since before I started law school. evilweasel posted:Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week? gvibes fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 05:53
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evilweasel posted:Below 2000 you aren’t getting a bonus but you won’t be fired for it. I missed 2000 plenty of years. We’re 1800 for bonus. I’m over halfway there already this year woohoo.
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Mar 18, 2022 23:29
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evilweasel posted:Virtually all of my work is billable, except for biz dev stuff and entering my time. What the gently caress are people doing that much non-billable stuff for except as a time-fill because you’re slow that week? The other big non-billable category is recruitment. That can be a huge time suck during the summer, especially for juniors. I guess pro bono counts as well in the sense that it isn’t billed but we still usually get a client matter number for that. All this having been said, most biglaw firms worth a poo poo give credit towards the 2000 hour threshold for non-billable work (usually up to a cap). As long as you can plausibly say you’re doing something productive for the benefit of the firm you should get credit for it.
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Mar 19, 2022 01:23
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disjoe posted:As long as you can plausibly say you’re doing something productive for the benefit of the firm you should get credit for it. That's an extremely optimistic characterization.
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Mar 19, 2022 02:31
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So what I'm hearing is that the most strenuous target in biglaw is about 39 hours of work a week. And I thought us poor government workers had it tough with our 40 hour weeks...
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Mar 19, 2022 05:39
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39 hours of billable work, and it’s a minimum not the number that will put you in range of partnership. But yeah.
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Mar 19, 2022 13:52
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Vox Nihili posted:That's an extremely optimistic characterization. I…. feel like it isn’t? Basically everything productive I do in the office that isn’t billable I get firm credit for. Maybe I’m extrapolating this to other firms but that’s been my experience. But I don’t think it’s an optimistic viewpoint to say “you should be getting credit for non-billable work” when the other side of that coin is “but it doesn’t really matter because if you’re worth a poo poo you’ll get to 2000 in billable hours alone.”
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Mar 20, 2022 06:09
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Yeah when evaluating the 2000 billable hour thing, you gotta realize that (a) work for clients that’s written off counts unless it got written off because you are an idiot (and usually not even then) - write offs happen on the partner’s dime not yours, if they don’t want to charge it they gotta write it off not tell you not to bill it; and (b) usually MOST of the non-billable stuff you do for the firm counts (this can vary a lot between firms however - I know one firm that refuses to give credit for recruiting which is, uh, dumb).
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Mar 20, 2022 13:32
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evilweasel posted:Yeah when evaluating the 2000 billable hour thing, you gotta realize that (a) work for clients that’s written off counts unless it got written off because you are an idiot (and usually not even then) - write offs happen on the partner’s dime not yours, if they don’t want to charge it they gotta write it off not tell you not to bill it; and (b) usually MOST of the non-billable stuff you do for the firm counts (this can vary a lot between firms however - I know one firm that refuses to give credit for recruiting which is, uh, dumb). Yeah until my current firm, I worked at small firms with a model that was very much "only your actual collections matter, so we don't give a poo poo about billed time that gets written off, in fact that counts against you." Which resulted in lower hours by nature, because gently caress doing work that doesn't either (a) result in getting paid or (b) have any effect on how you are viewed for partnership, productivity, etc. My current firm is a small boutique but the founding partners came from big law firms so they operate on the "just do the work and bill your time, we'll write stuff off but that's not how we judge anyone's productivity." Which is actually liberating in a way because you don't have to make decisions about what to do or what to bill based on whether it will be collected, you just do the best work you can do and put as much time into something as it needs, and it all works out in the end. This is much easier to do when you're not doing shitlaw at shitlaw billable rates for shithead clients who audit your bills (i.e. loving insurance companies)
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Mar 20, 2022 14:26
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evilweasel posted:Yeah when evaluating the 2000 billable hour thing, you gotta realize that (a) work for clients that’s written off counts unless it got written off because you are an idiot (and usually not even then) - write offs happen on the partner’s dime not yours, if they don’t want to charge it they gotta write it off not tell you not to bill it; and (b) usually MOST of the non-billable stuff you do for the firm counts (this can vary a lot between firms however - I know one firm that refuses to give credit for recruiting which is, uh, dumb). Ok so then it's not actual recognisable billable hours, it's just "work a full time workweek and don't slack off". I guess that makes sense but it feels weird to talk about it in terms of billable hours then. We just have billing targets based on how much money is actually recovered from clients, provide almost entirely fixed fee services and pretty much don't keep track of hours at all.
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Mar 20, 2022 15:33
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Lol billing Bill my dilz
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Mar 20, 2022 18:41
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Mar 20, 2022 18:48
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Phil Moscowitz posted:
My dad's rule is never represent an insurance company unless they come begging on a 9 figure case they don't trust with an insurance defense firm so you can set the rules. Jokes on him, because I've never billed an hour.
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Mar 20, 2022 21:05
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Organza Quiz posted:Ok so then it's not actual recognisable billable hours, it's just "work a full time workweek and don't slack off". I guess that makes sense but it feels weird to talk about it in terms of billable hours then. i mean, if you just spend 40 hours on some bullshit for a client you didn't get asked to do or that should have taken you an hour, that's going to piss people off. thats the "being an idiot" part. if you get a reputation for generating time that has to be written off (that wasn't intended to be written off) that's a lot worse for your career than being short on hours. if your work ebbs and flows at all (and it usually does) you will have slow weeks you have to make up elsewhere, and you do have an hour or two of "spaced out" "ate lunch" and "did time" and other bullshit that can add up too. but yeah: as an associate, it's your job to do the work you got asked to do. it's not to decide if the client will pay for it, because you're not the client relationship partner. if a partner asks you to do something for a client, you bill for it. if the partner doesn't want to bill the client for it, they have to write it off (and the firm doesn't like that, because that's less money for the firm). a partner asking you to do work they're not going to bill the client for is giving the client a discount, and that's not your problem. as a first year i was specifically told to always bill this stuff and to push back on a partner trying to get something done without billing for it, because the firm wants to know when partners are cutting these sort of discounts. what discounts a partner can give a client is a matter decided by firm management, and they will push back on clients that aren't profitable enough. but once you get to partner level (even income partner) it's all about the money actually realized. so if my time is getting written off that comes out of my paycheck - and, when we had an emergency case where the client paid a significant increase on our usual fees, that went into my paycheck. neither of those things affect associates. if associates are short on hours, how bad that is depends on why. if the whole practice group is slow, associates aren't going to meet their hours. that's not reflective of them personally, but probably not great for them (as the firm may consider cutting one or two loose). it's more relevant where you are relative to other associates. if you're the associate everyone thinks is kind of incompetent and useless, you're going to be the last person people go to, and your hours will reflect that regardless of if your group is busy or not. if you're declining work when you're not busy enough, that will also not look great. but if you get 1800 hours because your practice group is slow that's not a career-killer. if you get 1800 hours when everyone else in your group has like 2200, that's bad. i have always thought of the billable hours/bonus link as sort of like an overtime/undertime bonus. if i had a slow year and didn't get a bonus, that sucks for my wallet - but was good for my personal life. if i had a busy as gently caress year, at least i got paid for it. evilweasel fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 14:37
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Hey Privacy Law chat was awhile ago, but CIPP/US was the certification you want to get, right? I read the textbook (fun) and I'm paging thru the study guide, thought might as well take the $550 test while the memory is fresh, thinking of scheduling it this Sunday. Thought I should check in before spending that chunk of change.
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Mar 21, 2022 15:52
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