Big Law Discussions
Billable Hours

Who is your employer and what is the required billable hours in this tax season?

Let’s say you get sick for one day during busy season, and you end up making up the time later in the week and weekend reaching the minimum 60 hour billable goal. Would you take PTO for the day you missed. Why or why not? Assume this is a company that does not have unlimited PTO.

What’s the bench policy like at WPP?
How many non-billable hours till they send you off?

Anyone work for NYC HEALTH & HOSPITAL that can talk about quality of work? Benefits, WLB, WFH, workload (!!), billable hours (??) etc? TYIA

Canadian lawyer here. 9 years in practice and am just feeling burnt out. I practice immigration and business law. Because I’m not a superstar I haven’t been able to find a firm I can stay at for more than 1 year. They either let me go for not meeting billable targets, COVID, or for asking for my boss to consider a raise at the 1 year mark. I could leave law, but will have to start at the bottom again, and don’t really have any other skills. Any ideas on how to get my career back on track?

When your firm requires billable hours, how are they calculated? Actual vs realized (I.e. what you put on your billing sheet vs what is billed to the client). Does your firm differentiate? Which number do they go by? My mind is somehow not comprehending how some big law hours are under my small firm requirement?

Please help clarify the confusion. Biglaw pays majors bucks with 1950 hours. Associates bill exactly 1950 (sometimes lower) and don’t get fired at BigLaw (although they won’t make partner, w.e.). Meanwhile, Regional and mid size firms pay significant less and expect 1850 billable hours, like why? 🤯 what’s their value proposition? It’s still a lot of billables and still sucks. What am I missing?

Anyone else’s firm not give billable credit for trainings? For context, we’re being required to do 3 full days of training with a 1950 billable goal as mid levels. Seems unreasonable to me, but can’t think of a polite way to say “hard pass”.

Looking for feedback on Meta work life balance. Current interviewing for a lead counsel role and would be coming in from biglaw. I’m trying to get a sense of what to expect if I decided to make the switch since I’ve never seconded or worked anywhere other than biglaw. Currently at a firm with 1950 expectation, which I barely meet each year. Getting tired on billing, late nights and non billable work but am still looking for interesting work, just with consistent M-F, 9-5. Sound possible?

I know there are a ton of posts on billable hours requirements at many firms but do any other mid/senior level associates spend a TON of time on non-billables - group/dept./firm meetings; training; events; business development (writing articles, doing webinars, networking; outside association events); etc.? I feel like the number of hours spent on this is lost in the discussion sometimes and I know I spend an additional 300-400 hours on this per year. Anyone else?

How many Firm (non-billable hours) a year do you commit, where do most of them go, and what’s your gender?

I am in the unique position of being a severely underworked big law associate. I am a second year in an Appellate practice who cannot seem to get any billable work. Any advice for getting experience when you are in a small department with a mid level who hoards all the workflow?

Anyone know if Reed Smith has a balanced hours option (i.e., reduced pay with reduced billable requirements)?

How many “billable hours” would you say you work on average being in house?

Can you get fired for having low utilization as a senior? My billable hours this busy season have been much lower than my peers.

Can anyone who works close to billing speak to the rationale behind why vacation days aren’t billed 8.0 per day, and why they don’t count toward an associate’s billable hours?

I know some of my colleagues are recording their standard fees as time so that it counts towards their billable hours. It infuriates me but am I just being naive by not doing the same?

I was offered a secondment for a period of three months at one of the firm’s clients (a private equity fund). No billable hours. Any cons I should take into account?

I need career advice. I’m at a boutique firm but it’s Meh. I have two job offers from new firms & a job offer from a gov agency to do similar work. Each offer is better pay ($8k-35k raise w/ better bonus potential at the firms than my current bonus). However, I hate billable hours.

Just as I’m negotiating, a recruiter for an in house role called me. She has other roles open too. Do I turn down the guaranteed firm job & raises on the chance of an in house role? In house seems ideal. Based in LA

Case just settled, no billable work ... so I have to clean out my car. No excuses left. Sigh.

Does everyone with experience just ignore the onboarding when they tell us NOT to burn/eat billable hours to our clients? Everyone here clearly does it, and shrugs off the compliance warnings. Every gig I've had in Consulting is the same way as well.

Been to several consulting firms now, one boutique and two Big4..

Cap billable hours.

PPMD how do u know that a client has budget so that you can position billable work ?

My ideal long term job is a litigation role where I do partner-level work but don’t have business development requirements or billable requirements over 1500 or so. I’m willing to take the pay cut that would accompany it (but not totally clear how much I could expect to make). Does this exist? Is this what Counsel means? What type of roles should I be looking for?

Is 180 billable hours per month a high “target” (to use the firm’s vernacular) or expectation?Although it may not be unreasonably high, I believe it is a high number and would at least appreciate someone at my firm acknowledging that. Perhaps I’m wrong and I’m sure you’ll tell me if so.

I just found out my billable rate, can I use this in negotiations for a higher salary? It’s almost 5 times my hourly rate.

Do firms generally pro-rate billable hours required for a bonus if you take parental leave? Or does it completely depend on the firm?

Any insight into the IP group at Proskauer? I’m considering a fully remote position, interviewing with partners from NY and LA. Mostly interested in the culture of the group, the no-billable hours requirement, and working remotely with the firm. Thanks!

I'm a staff in a specialty s&t group and have to beg for work because they say work volume isn't as high as prior years. I'm also harped on for my billable hours being low. Honestly very sick of it and miss always having something to do in audit. What should I do? I've only been here for a few months.

When should I start to get worried that corporate is so slow? Have only billed 230 hours for the year so far and it doesn’t seem like things are picking up soon so getting nervous since my firm has a billable hours minimum requirement.

A remote boutique law firm with 1500 billable hours requirement - what else would you want to know about the firm to see if it was a good fit?

Time to admit that I hate billable hours because some days I just want to do a bare minimum four hours of work without having to make it up later and not for any high minded ideological reasons.

Hi there, starting new in private practice. My job requires billable hours. Anyone know where I can find a list of terms and descriptions I can use when I am billing clients? TIA

Seeing an increasing number of clients demanding fixed fee quotes. Will billable hours be a thing of the past? Interested to hear your views.