Big Law Discussions
Billable Hours

Does anyone have experience working for a ALSP? How does compensation work (pay and benefits)? Are you an employee or technically an IC? Do you have billable requirements like at a firm? How do you think it prepared you to potentially move in house? I'm currently at a firm but thinking of taking a position with an ALSP but my goal is to go in house.

Does anyone have any insight to the billable hours and culture at Quarles & Brady in the Minneapolis office?

Is it normal for firms to have *daily* minimum time entries? Like if you don’t enter 7 hours of billable/non-billable time each day then you get docked? Thanks

Anybody have any insight into salary and billable requirements for Adams and Reese? Or just culture there in general?
From what I've garnered, seems like 1800 billable and around 125-150 for first years?

Am 2 months in to a new job with billable hours and I am miserable. How do I seamlessly go back to my old firm? Is this move a career killer?

When work is created for you - staff. When you create work - Partner / MD / Principal or what whatever you call people who create billable hours for you 👍

Advice for transitioning into privacy law? Been in employment lit for my first 3 yrs and no matter what have not been able to get a privacy position. CA based, got my U.S. CIPP cert, great academics, but everyone wants the elusive prior experience.

- is a LLM in the area worth it?
- does anyone care about CIPP?
- is 3 yrs too long to make a change?
- could I transition to in-house in a new field? I’m so burnt out from billable hours and firm life but I don’t want to give up on this career

Would you rather have a higher or lower hourly billable rate?

Any tips on negotiating salary at a small firm?
I'm at law student interning at a small firm, i know the firm wants to grow and im ready to grind billable hours. The problem is, I don't think they can afford to pay be me more than $100k for about 1750 billable hours. I am willing to do more billables but im looking for a TC closer to $130k. Has anyone negotiated equity? Is that common practice at small firms?

Looking for input: I am new to the industry and just started as a consultant in a PD team. I was asked to research and come up with a few ways to increase the engagement levels of the associates (summer to 8 years). This conflicts with the “more billable hours” ideology and I am lost. Any inputs on improving the engagement would be great for me to research further.
Talking to a few associates, here is what I have collected so far. Trainings, webinars, feedback portal etc. thanks

4th year. Happy to do billable work but hate firm socials, recruitment, all the extra circular stuff. Apart from impacting my chances of making partner, can I get into trouble for not participating with the firm stuff?

My company wants me to “mentor” new hires and help get them billable.

So I’m rolling my best friend onto my project. He started at my company 6 months ago. Gonna get him 40 billable hours. This is gonna be fun. I’ve known him since 1st grade. Our project is gonna go until 2028. I just jump started his career

Just curious what’s your productivity % and rating? What’s your billable hours in average per year? And which department (audit, tax, etc) you work for?

Worked 120 hrs on a project , got only 50 billable hrs ...ye kya trend hai Deloitte ka?? And How to escape such situations ?

So I found out that at my new firm there is an associates committee, who is also made aware of your progress on your billable hours. Why? What’s the purpose of the associates committee?

My work flow is extremely slow & Idk what to do about it.
1st year lit associate at satellite office in v20. My office lost 20 attorneys since I started last September. Ive had less than 25 hours of billable work per week since March. Ive asked for more work to a partner in charge of lit work, but never heard back. Ive asked other partners for work & get biz dev projects. Asked other associates & was told everyone in office is slow, but now I'm hearing some ppl have work & am nervous. Advice?

Received a job offer. Was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on a concern I had about it. It's an entry level position, and I don't have much experience. The billables are 2040 a year. For billable hours in civil litigation and insurance defense, is 2040 hours for a 1st year associate on the high end in this field for a small or midsize firm? It seems like most attorneys I know have minimum requirements of around 1800. The compensation is around 80k a year.

Considering a jump from a staff (no billable hours requirement) position to one with a 2000 billable requirement that will be client facing. Does anyone have tips to make that more manageable / avoid procrastination / deal with the pressure? Thanks!

How many billable hours should I be hitting to stay “safe” as senior creative/ACD? For context, I work at a well-known holding company agency.

Is your salary based on billable hours? Or actual revenue? I’m a 9th year at an insurance defense firm. I’m billing ~1850 hours a year, making $100k. Very high cost of living area in south Florida. My billing rate is $160 per hour. I asked my boss for a raise yesterday and he said I need to be billing 180 a month (2160 per year) to get a raise, but wouldn’t say how much of a raise I would get. He said my collectibles are low, apparently the insurance carrier cuts everything across the board.

Happy to report that the week gone by was very relaxing compared to an intense June. Less than 40 billable hours on my timesheet last week. Went to the gym four times. And finished Season 1 of Stranger Things on Netflix. Life is good again!

My Shareholder came into my office yesterday and proceeded to tell me that "we" were getting sloppy & "we" needed to get our billable up and that she had missed things. She made a point to say hers were low & she never gave me info regarding billable time. Our biggest client cuts half our time.
During the interview they never mentioned there were billable req.
1 month ago she was singing my praises. Had been real sick last 2 months and went to HR re med accommodation and now this.

What is the typical wait time for quarterly bonus (2Q) based on billable hours at a small/mid size litigation firm? I don’t want to hound them about it but I also need real expectations if they expect me to bust my ass again for 3Q.

Does your firm require Pro Bono? If so, how many hours and is it counted towards your billable hours?

Ever since I became a lawyer, almost ten years ago, I feel like the time just flies by. I suppose this is a combination of being extremely busy (2200+ billable hours per year) and dealing with litigation deadlines. Any suggestions as to how I can make the time feel slower, the way it did in college and law school?

I’m new to billable hours, I come from a litigation firm where we didn’t have any billing requirements. Now a few months in I’m being called out by my managing partner each month for not meeting the hours.
I set expectations that it will take me time to get the hang of things and I haven’t missed any deadlines reports or appearances. Additionally, my hours have been increasing month over month and last month I was only 5 hours under the minimum. I have only been here for 6 months. What to do?

Billable rate jumped 11% once our fiscal year began July 1…. Smells like a raise??

I need advice…. a partner is moving my time to non-billable codes rather than writing it off. He’s doing it to make his numbers look good when fees exceed the quoted fee cap. He is doing it without first giving me a guide on how much time to record and is sending my work without amends (ie my work is good). In my firm billable hours recorded go towards performance, promotions and bonuses. Write offs and realisation are not part of those assessments.

What, in your opinion, is considered a healthy billable hours per month that is good enough and sustainable?

What are the respected boutique firms in Houston? What are the billable hours and what is the salary for junior attorneys?

BONUS. What’s amount bonus do you get, and how often? Including bonus structure (ex for meeting billable hours), firm/boss randomly bonuses you, Christmas bonus, etc)

Do any litigation associates have any experience working for a firm that pays based on how much you bill & your billable rate as opposed to flat salary + bonus? At first blush it sounds okay but as a litigator I know there are slow periods and I’d hate to have the constant pressure of working as much as possible to not make less money during that time. I’d love to hear your stories and how that ended up working out.

How many hours do I need to work/bill a day to reach 170 billable hours a month?

I’m an IP associate (focused mainly on trademarks) in an AMLaw 200 firm (slightly below NY market pay) and I’m curious to know what IP groups (mainly trademark related practices) at V50 firms are like. My practice is relatively chill. No major fires to put out - steady and predictable 8-9 billable hours a day. I can generally not work on weekends. Am I at a unicorn shop or is this normal for Trademark practices?

So my last two companies did not have billable hours for the paralegals. I am interviewing now and of course most places do have billables for paralegals. What are your average doable billable hours?

Does anyone have any insight into billable hours and associate salaries at Ballard Spahr in Minneapolis?

Does anyone have any insight into billable hours and associate salaries at Ballard Spahr in Minneapolis? I've got 4 years of experience, graduated in 2018.