Big Law Discussions
Billable Hours

What is more important to a firm’s bottom line—billable hours or worked amount/ collections? And what do they go by for promotion decisions? My billable hours were lower than last year but worked $ amount stayed the same and my collections went up.

I am a developer and one of my performance metrics is "Utilization" (billable hours). I am finding it hard to meet this goal (get enough work from my project team), accomplish all my admin tasks, and take vacation/holidays. Any advice?

Nervous for my annual review. Junior associate at a midsize ID firm. Most of my work is task based and I recently got a few of my own arb level cases (in the last month.) Between COVID and studying for a second bar admission as required by my firm, I did not meet my 2100 requirement for the year. Lots of non billable hours studying and business development, but firm doesn’t count it toward the minimum. Extremely burnt out and anxious. Any suggestions to make this review less awful?

I understand that the way to figure out whether you’re paid appropriately is to take your number of billable hours multiplied by your hourly rate and divided by three. Going into my annual review, I’m it even sure if I’ll be offered a raise, but if I am, should I apply that formula to my new hourly rate (if it’s increased) or my current one?

Have any of you taken "low bono" clients while working at a firm? I want to take on a low bono client or two but not sure who would get the money. This is a contract opportunity through a non profit so I'm assuming a 1099 will be issued. The per hour rate is significantly less than my billable rate. I would (obviously) like the money but my real objective is just getting experience/networking since I recently moved to a new state and don't have clients of my own.

16 weeks and so worried all of the stress I’m under is going to hurt the baby. Between work, my own scary (non-pregnancy) health stuff, the pandemic, my mom (who is a widow and lives alone, basically isolated by choice due to covid) is having health issues, and pressures to keep billable hours up, I’ve been having complete breakdowns. Today I spent almost the entire day crying and now have to make up the billable time this weekend. I really worry abt what effect this will have on the babe.

Anyone know what the base salary range is for mid-level attorneys at Akerman LLP? In particular the Dallas office. Billable requirements?

What are the typical yearly billable requirements for associates in big law firms? I saw that Hunton Andrews Kruth has only a 1500 yearly requirement. Is that correct? If so, that seems really low when compared to others.

If you keep track of your non-billable time, how much detail do you put in your time entries?

How many billable hours should I be hitting with a motion for summary judgement oral argument prep? I’m an associate starting my second year practicing law. Any advice for oral argument? I am very familiar w/ the facts. But the partner just told me to handle it. It’s pretty much a straight negligence premises liability case. Any insight would help

How does your law firm handle jury duty for associates? I’m a civil litigator and got called to serve on one week murder trial back in January. I tired to get out of it for various personal reasons but I was still stuck on the jury) Lost 40+ hrs of billable hours that week, and now in December I’ll probably finish the year 60 ish hours short of my 2000 hr target!

Any diplomatic tips to get interns/juniors to work faster?

Without having ever experienced the hectic nature of being in the office, ours seem to be working at a snail’s pace (3 billable hours to copy 4 blogs over to a different platform? With no SEO or image research? Dream on... 🐌) and considering it to be working under pressure. I’m not expecting the world from them and understand it’s a learning experience... but also want them to be working faster to be able to take more on. Unreasonable?

I am not motivated. I have billable work, but nothing urgent. I can't seem to get into anything... it's 2pm and I have 2.3 billable hours. What do you do to get through these days?

Do your firms have a billing code you use if you don’t get enough billable hours in the day? Like say you only billed 6 hours one day. What do I do about the other 2 hours?

Ever a good idea to out a lazy supervising attorney? I’m a mid level working for a junior partner that reports to managing partner. Junior partner misses meetings, calls, is always late, misses deadlines, etc. He meets billable requirements by taking easy assignments on large docket but does not actually work the cases until a big deadline comes up, when the case inevitably ends on my desk because I’m the “go-to” for very hard cases. Ever a good idea to put someone whose laziness goes undetected

What is annual billable hours looking like at LW NYC?

A question for the associates:
How should I talk to a new associate on my team (4 mos.) about critical issues including 1) spending too much time on a single project; 2) not meeting expectations in terms of number of billable hours; 3) botching easy procedural issues? This person has significant skills and writes very well. But their work is consistently turned in at the last minute, they have to be corrected on procedures regularly, and they never come talk to me without an invitation.

My billable hours bonus requirement/target is 1900. Unless I pull a 300 hour month in December, I won’t be hitting that. The reason being is that in June, I had a parent pass which required me to travel overseas to take care of arrangements. I also had another family emergency in October that also required me to travel overseas. Do you guys think the firm will take this into consideration?

In years you don’t make your bonus, what do your billable hours typically look like? Are you missing it by a hair or is it normal to have some years where you’re only billing 1600? I just finished my first year and trying to figure out what a “normal” slow year looks like compared to a pandemic slow year.

For firms that are announcing year end special bonuses (and that have billable requirements for the bonuses) - are you required to hit the billable threshold to receive both the regular and special bonus? Or is the special bonus paid out to all regardless of hours?

When we’re all comparing/complaining about hours at the end of the year are we including pro bono hours in that total? I’m nearing 2050 billables for the year but I have another 500 pro bono hours that should be added on. At the same time, I keep hearing about all these people straight billing 2,400+. Trying to determine if I should’ve tried to pick up more billable work to stay in the middle of the pack (i.e. not interested in partnership, just trying not to get canned).

Is it possible to have an off day with billable hours? Corner office is always concerned about our mental health “in these trying times” yet the not-so-subtle “I noticed your hours went down this week” convos undermine that. Even if my hours are down from 2 weeks ago but still over 40 billable.

Is anyone willing to share billable requirements and salaries for mid-sized, Chicago market?

How long does it usually take for a firm to raise an associate’s billable rate?

Any good resource regarding big law salary and billable hours requirements in European offices?

How valuable is an associate attorney who can bring in 5-10 new insurance defense files per month, and how much more should that attorney be compensated for bringing in that business as compared to one who just meets their billable hours?

So, I'm happy at my current job and have been there about 18 months. Our pay is probably 15% below market (AmLaw 100) but so are our billable requirements. An interview for another firm kind of fell into my lap, and I'm debating whether to take it just for the sake of seeing what market really is. Is there something shady about interviewing somewhere you're not totally committed to accepting an offer from?

7th year associate in small RE firm, handling mostly commercial RE matters in an office that mostly deals with residential RE. Salary is 120k currently, with bonuses around 10k/year. We have no billable requirements; and this disturbs me because every recruiter I’ve ever spoken to asks what my billables are. We don’t even have a system to track billables. I’m concerned it makes me less employable in the event I want to switch jobs. What should I do, if anything?

I just started to Bill hourly recently and getting use to it. How do you tell your client your billable rate or that you’re billing for responding emails?

Are your firms expecting you to hit your normal billable hours target or making any adjustments because of covid? I just did my calculations and I would have to bill almost 500 hours between Nov 1 and Dec 31 to hit my minimum bonus target. Not looking good and feeling disappointed.

Our M has suddenly started assigning us firm initiative work, like creating account newsletters for the internal team. (Think about a long email with tips about WFH, exercise, hobbies, and other nonsense). We've tried to politely tell him we have project work to address and that the new monthly newsletter is frankly not a priority and that it's impeding billable work. He has screwed team members over during reviews for but listening to everything he says. I'm really not sure what to do. Advice?

I’ve hit my billable hours requirement for this year. But my workload is currently light. I’ve communicated my willingness to work/availability to multiple partners. No response. Overwhelming feeling of guilt for not working hard. What do I do?

I work small (tiny) law. I make mid-100s, so not great salary, but my firm is so laid back. If I bill 1000 hours, that's fine (we were a remote firm before COVID made it cool). Compared to all my peers getting crushed under 1800+ billable requirements, I've got severe imposter's syndrome. Did I do something right or have I set myself up for failure by avoiding the pressure cooker? (I was at a firm for 2 years that was 1800+.) Curious as to thoughts/experiences.

Just got into a full time grad program for international affairs that starts in January of 2021. (completely changing careers). I need to stay working at my firm until then and possible after to get the billable hours for my CPA. I passed all 4 exams and I refuse to give let that go to waste...... how do I tell my employer I'll be going to school in a way that they'll still let me work part time? Extremely nervous they're just going to let me go.

Got an offer from a big firm. I’m currently working at a small firm. The pay increase would be about 20% not including bonus. My concern with big law is obviously the stress level and billable hours but the small firm life concerns me long term because there’s only currently 6 lawyers and we just lost an office.

Can you thrive or survive in consulting by doing only client billable work?