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No. Partners want you to spend the time you need. They can write off excess time as they see fit.
No but I’ve heard it happen to others and it’s not appropriate for the partner to do, especially with juniors. As you get more senior responsibility for the bill can be discussed freely with associates.
Either way, if you are an aggressive overbiller, it’ll show up on your reviews.
Sigh no. On the contrary, I am regularly told, “You should bill for all your time,” which I take as a sign that I am not billing enough or being overly efficient in my work.
I actually had this complaint and it through me for a loop.
I started doing the ‘read out loud to me’ option on Word to waste time and actually became a much better writer because of it.
Some firms make it very difficult for a partner to write down time. This is a sign of a poorly managed firm.
Associates should enter all of their time. If a partner thinks a write down is needed, the partner should handle that.
If a partner wants to have a constructive discussion about how long a certain task should take going forward - that’s an entirely different conversation. But you should still enter that actual amount of time it took.
This. Been at firms where associate written off time penalized the partner. That meant if you put in too much time the partner basically cut off work flow to the associate
Depends on the client too and what that relationships like. Billing can be much more liberal for some, but for others (smaller / new) partners are often more conscientious
Yes. V100 lit. It was extremely frustrating because the partner re-framed his errors in assignment scope and billing pitches as my inefficiency. This was the only time I’ve experienced it, and I’m a mid level, so it could be worse.
Pro
Absolutely. This shouldn’t happen as a junior. But happens starting mid level and up. It’s honestly training you on the same questions the client is going to be asking you when you’re more senior and the same questions they now need to answer for the client. It doesn’t necessarily mean all your time is trash and you shouldn’t have billed it. But it is a vital skill to learn to explain what exactly you did, why it took as long as it did and how that added value to the matter and the client. E.g., partner/client simply may not realize that you handled a super complicated issue “behind the scenes” without their involvement, but once you explain that, everyone feels better that the bill is more justified.
Always remember everyone has a boss and all of them care about money being well spent. Your boss is the partner. The partner’s boss may be in-house counsel. In-house counsel’s boss may be internal business folks. Internal business folks’ boss may be their external clients who have to pay your legal bills as part of this whole arrangement.
Think about the business model. Partners want to bill as much associate time as possible. They only write off time if the client pushes back. It only becomes a problem for the firm If they have to write off too much of your time
Sometimes it helps to have well written time notes. Don’t mislead but sometimes more or less details helps the reader understand what you did and to justify the time. Instead of revised X agreement, you could say revised X agreement and exhibits 2-12 thereto; further revised X agreement per y comments. Or you could list out that you analyzed a certain topic and then separately drafted an agreement or portion of a brief regarding same topic. I’ve only received feedback to make sure I bill all of my time (since I used to cut my own time a little when I was a junior) and never have been asked why I spent so much time on a project.