Big Law Discussions
Billable Hours

Finally, now that WFH is more accepted (thanks 2020), do you think more industries will “reimagine” this arbitrary 40+ hr. work week?

Some orgs tried/have proven to be more productive with less (e.g. 6hr work days, 4 day work weeks) but I don’t know if consulting leaders are enthusiastic about normalizing this since “it’s the land of billable hours”...

What would it take?

I love my firm, but just got an offer to move firms for a bigger chunk of change and lower billable hours requirement. Logically, it makes sense to move, but I’m hesitant. Both firms seem great culture-wise. I am young and succeeding at my current firm. Any thoughts?

I am 6 billable hours away from my Nov. 1 target. Can I go back to bed? 😴

Do you count Sundays as a weekday? Somehow I always end up with an ASAP billable work. Not complaining, just making observations.

What are your thoughts on contingent pay for associates based upon a percentage of billable hours collected? What percentage is fair? What about when paid in conjunction with a base salary?

At my new job, we’re told to get 8 billable hours of work a day on our timesheet. Even when I thought I had a lot to work on, the most I could get was 5 hours.
I’m super stressed about getting in trouble, even though I have actively asked for more work. I was unemployed for 9 months during this pandemic and I now I’m super afraid of losing my job again. Is this a normal practice? Idk how I’ll ever consistently have that much work.

Im a third year associate and I’m frequently asked to give presentations (on new case law, legislation, ect.) during a weekly meeting for my section. There’s a first year associate and a law clerk in my section who are never asked to present. Should I push back on this? Would it look bad if I delegate some of the work to the others? I spend a lot of non billable time prepping for these presentations...it seems unfair that I’m the only one who has to do them.

What’s your typical ratio of billable hours to actual hours worked?

One of the partners I work for keeps telling me to write off my own time, even though the standard practice at my firm is that associates bill for all their work and the billing partner writes it off. It’s made me lose a lot of billable hours this year. Any thoughts on how to proceed?

Hit my bonus hours yesterday and have no billable work today. What should I do with my day today?

This may be just a naive/dumb question, but how do you relax when you’ve got a really stressful file? I’m a junior and I’ve been putting in ~10ish billable hours a day recently, which is more than I’m used to. The evenings (post-8pm) are generally my time to decompress - read a book, watch dumb tv, whatever - but it’s been all work lately until 10 or 11pm and I struggle to go straight from work to bed. Any insight on what everyone else does?

If you don’t make your billable hours requirement at your firm, are you ineligible for a bonus? It seems strange that if you bill 1899 hours, you get no bonus, but if you bill 1901 hours, you could get a bonus of 10% of your salary. Asking because I’m at 93% of my billable requirement.

Can anyone share with me how much free work they provide clients in the software creation or implementation space? For example what percentage of your time do clients benefit from that they don't pay for? Commonly this is referred to as non-billable time but not every company tracks or and some that do track it differently. So if you work 8 hours for a client but only bill them for 4 hours, that'd be 50%. Any comments?

I’m back to having no billable work again. My department almost completely dried up when covid started, so I’ve been relying on work from other busy departments at my firm to keep me busy since March. I feel like I start a new job every couple of weeks and am constantly begging for work. I’m just exhausted. Can anyone else relate?

mid-level/senior associate here at a 50 lawyer firm. This year I will generate about $300k in new client work in addition to meeting my billable hours quota. What is a fair percentage to request in respect of this $300k that I have brought into the firm?

Had no billable work and spent the entire day yesterday in bed. Today, I‘ve gotten enough work that I’ll be working the entire weekend. Why does it always happen that way 🤦🏽‍♀️

Accounting is my new career but I have a prior work experience where I didn’t have to track my hours per client, project, etc. Ever since I was an audit intern, I had a hard time filing out my timesheet. I tend to jump from one section of the audit to another reviewing mostly at first and then kind of completing all at once. I feel pressure to have enough billable hours from performance point of view but also pressure from partners not to go over budget so I mostly split my time with training...

Currently a second-year associate at a regional firm. I have become really unhappy with the life-style at a firm and the constant stress of meeting my billable requirements. It was always my goal to go in-house, but I know I likely lack the requisite experience to make a move somewhere that can offer meaningful advancement. Any advice? I know it will likely be that I need to “stick it out” for a few more years, but I am just extremely dissatisfied with the prospect of being at a firm for years.

Germany: What salary (raises) can be expected within the first 5 years of SAP consulting? Is 10-20% per year realistic? Seems a lot compared to non-consulting jobs, however the gain in experience and billable days increase a lot during this time...

How does everyone else’s firm track billable hours? My firm only gives billable credit for the hours that go out on a bill to the client. Anyone else’s firm do this?

I cannot stand the billable hour. I love litgation but I would rather charge anyway other than a billable hours it's such a pain to enter to the 1/6th of an hour when I was doing.

How many billable hours do you normally hit in a month? And compared to this summer?

My current big law firm gives guaranteed bonuses in December but what happens if, before they’re paid out, I lateral to another big law firm that conditions bonuses on billable hours (that I obviously won’t meet)? (I plan to work through referrals so I won’t get any perks from recruiters.)

New to billing and having trouble getting used to the concept that I get sick time only if I make up all the hours later. On sick days, I am not able to work, even at home. There must be lawyers out there with chronic conditions that need regular sick time off (say a day or two per month.) If this is you, how do you handle billable targets? Do you just have to ratchet up daily/weekly targets to try and build up a bank of hours?

Non-political poll - how many non-billable hours have you logged so far this year? I’ll start: 143

Need advice for resigning while on bench. I already have a start date with the new employer. Should I do a traditional two week notice or give <=1 week notice instead? My goal is to not burn bridges, but I also don’t want to get let go on the spot since I have nothing to “wrap up” besides HR tasks. I’ve read on here that sometimes they will let you go day of and pay you out for two weeks but I don’t see why any firm would do that for somebody not currently performing billable work...

For the last four weeks or so of WFH I’ve been making it to my desk around 7:30/8am and working basically without a break—lunch at desk- but cannot maintain momentum past like 6:30/7:30pm. Most of the day is billable work, but I cannot bring myself to finish outstanding assignments after 8pm, but then feel so guilty when I’m not working past that time. Am I burnout or fucked up? (Also I hate this gig & am not in it for the long haul, just hate not turning things quickly)

Hi all! I received an offer at an insurance defense firm but recently received a slightly better offer at a plaintiffs firm. Not sure which direction to go in. The defense firm has a crazy billable hours requirement and at the plaintiffs firm I will be managing a large docket of cases. Not sure which is more or less stressful.

There’s a practice group that I’ve been trying to find work in but whenever I volunteer to help, I always get roped in to do non billable work. In the beginning it was fine but now I’m feeling it’s never going to amount to actual work. Any tips to get more involved without all the non billables and how to approach this gently?

Is litigation for everyone? Forget about the billable hours I know that’s going to be there but is it the way to “pay your dues” before getting an opportunity in, in house counsel positions? If this is true how long do you have to be in litigation? And how likely is it for you to get an in house position? What type of skills/experience are they looking for?

Left a job in government (prosecution), currently at a mid-size firm. I’m really starting to not only hate law firm life, but the practice of law generally. Is this part of the transition? I left my last job because I was on-call 24/7. Now I’m 24/7 again but due to billable requirements. I have no hobbies, no free time, and only spend about an hour/day with my kids. Not sure I want this life. At least I had insane PTO for govt work.

How do you respond to getting called out for low billable hours? Had a come to Jesus call and I mean I get it, my hours are low, but now I'm getting follow up emails. I don't know how many times I can say I understand. Is there something else they're looking for me to say or are they just hounding me to hound me?

Switching consulting agencies atm.
Currently I earn way below average at 42k€/p.a + car. Next week I am negotiating with another company wanting to employ me. I am actually bringing in a customer with a fixed 2 year project @ 1000€ all-in/day rate (5 billable days/week). What salary should I aim for - and what bonuses? I would love something around the market average of 65-75k is it realistic even though I am in my mid 20s?

Just started at a Family Law firm and am low on work (came from another state so didn't bring my clients with me). It has been a while since I started fresh. I make a decent base salary but I need those billable hours to make more. How long does it take to be busy again!? I've joined an expanding firm and the lead attorney is helping me by giving me tasks to do. Just not as busy as I'm used to (this will be my 3rd week). Just need a pep talk I think 😊

Most disrespectful thing Managers and above do to subordinates? And how do you deal with it?

My current example... dealing with some hot industry leader we hired full time who basically just doesn't answer emails or pings and then gets mad and says the team pesters them. They just claim to be way too busy, even for questions on our billable work.

Client wouldn’t settle this afternoon for the dollar equivalent of less than an hour of my billable time. Clients, man, clients.