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I have offer of 20 LPA from Oracle IDC Pune. Project is related to Oracle Primavera Cloud. I had a discussion with the hiring manager and everything sounded good to me.
I just wanted to know if there are any red flags I should be aware of. So please help me fishes.
YOE 4
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Depends on what you mean. If you mean "value" billing, I think that is very common practice and almost expected by any demanding clients. In my experience, clients care more about the value added and whether the bill is justified than the hours you put down. The tracking of hours is really just for your firm to measure your "performance" (and is a terrible metric for doing so).
Obviously, don't randomly add hours you didn't work on all matters. This will reflect poorly in your realization rate. But, if your client is incredibly demanding on very short turnaround times, I would premium bill and, if you have a good relationship, let them know you are doing so. I have never had a client complain when doing so.
I think it depends on the industry and billing rates. When the firm is billing $500+/hour, you will probably not see this. But if the firm is billing $200/hour, it becomes more common, like insurance defense.
Rising Star
Do you bill emails you read — no matter how short? Emails you respond to even if 30 seconds per email, etc.? How about formatting certain documents that your assistant can do but for purposes of speed, do it yourself? I never know what’s appropriate.
Amen. In patent prosecution and most my day is less than 30 minute questions or review of others work. If I did not keep track of 0.2 I would never bill some days. I track it all and sometimes choose to make the time client development or even bill no charge.
Rising Star
Can I bill for having nightmares and stressing about the client’s work? Thinking about work = bill, right ? 😂
It sounds like attorney work to me.
Pro
I don’t think outright making up significant numbers of hours occurs *that* often, though it certainly occurs at some rate since you hear about it in the news every so often. Padding as in double billing, churning absolutely unnecessary tasks or taking an unneeded 4th pass over a document, generous rounding up, billing for half thinking about a case on the commute, etc.: I’d think this happens an unfortunate amount. Speaking as someone who billed extremely ethically, it’s hard enough to hit 2000-2100 without wearing yourself thin and having tough overall work hours. The people billing 2500 or 3000 year in and year out while working 9-7 and having time for all sorts of things in their personal lives... something is amiss there.
Chief
As someone on track for 2600, can confirm, you do not have time for a life if you’re billing like this. Anyone who does has to be padding somewhere.
As a first year, I consistently find myself under-billing because I feel guilty if I bill too much time on what should have been a simple assignment— so I can’t say I relate to the whole “padding” thing.
Check in and remember - your taking longer is literally built into your rate. You’re the cheapest, so it’s ok if you’re learning on the job / not as whipquick as others. Speaking as someone who 100% did this as a junior.
Chief
I do not pad at all and it makes my life so much more difficult and less enjoyable, especially knowing that others are doing it all the time
I do not pad my hours and I don’t think that my colleagues intentionally do so. I think if anything I end up billing less time than I’ve actually worked on matters because I’ll forget to restart a timer and estimate time which ends up with me underestimating.
I'm going to be harsh here: padding billables may make you look good to the firm, but you're screwing the client out of money that you did not earn.
That is exactly what is wrong with the billable hour structure... our interests are not aligned with the client’s interests. We need to bill as much possible, client wants something done as efficiently possible. So unless your team is very busy and there are no workflow concerns, this system simply does not work.
Only if you consider every .1 for reading a 2 sentence email “padding”...
Hey if you don’t want to pay for it, I’m perfect happy ignoring your emails all day 🙂
Okay, sure FBI
C’mon all. There is no reason to steal. Is this job tough and draining at times? Yes, no doubt. Will plus 2600 hour years impact your life in very bad ways? Undoubtedly. Will you work with and against narcissistic misguided jerks who make you miserable? It is highly likely. But this is a choice, you control your narrative and you control where you end up. Please do not sell your soul and resort to stealing. Instead, if you are tempted than look for something else to do and stay true to yourself. You have many options throughout your life and likely have abilities and opportunities that the great majority of people will simply never have. Please resist the urge to steal, you will be happier in the long run regardless of your path.
Rising Star
Super agree.
Rising Star
To my knowledge: never. In twelve years in biglaw.
Did I do inefficient tasks because my supervisors told me to do the tasks (yes, efficiently).
Padding billables is morally and ethically wrong.
Did I see it done? Sure. Did it make me angry. Also yes.
Do the right thing.
🤨
I used to underbill when I was a junior associate because whenever I put down my narratives next to my hours, I thought that no one can possibly be stupid enough to accomplish so little in so much time. Stopped doing so because it’s unfair both to me and to the firm (while I’m doing this work I’m not spending this time on my personal life or on other client matters). All this padding talk makes me want to speak to the manager.🙍♀️
I did the same thing. As an associate, the partner is going to look at your billing and cut it if they need to, but it also helps them recognize an issue. For instance, I’d work on a draft for four hours (and that seemed excessive), but we’d talk about if I did anything else in that time and break it up that way. So I’d be reviewing docs in order to draft the report or the motion, so I’d still bill four hours in total but it’d be broken up into smaller billables.
Can we talk about clients arbitrarily cutting bills as well
Rising Star
Firms or attorneys have the ability to drop clients who don’t pay, require retainers, and/or try to recover the money due if a client refused to pay their bill. They can utilize flat fee or other alternative models and not hourly billing. The fact that firms don’t want to do this speaks more to the demand for the firms and their business models than the impropriety of bill negotiation.
I also do not buy the high billable minimum / rate pressure / profit margin argument. That’s a problem with unrealistic expectations set by firm leadership, not clients.
Sounds like you are advocating straight up stealing. I definitely don’t do that.
Good! Don’t do it! I definitely never advocated for doing so. I simply asked how common bill padding is. I did so in a provocative way in hopes of getting more responses, and it worked
I personally know lawyers who bill .1 for every two sentence email they read. To me, that’s padding. I wanted to see how common doing stuff like that is. Definitely never advocated stealing.
I was told by the managing partner way back before law school while working as a paralegal that I used “too sharp a pencil” when recording my time. My reaction was “ What the hell? Did he really just say that?” There was kind of a “wink wink, you know what I mean.” I’ve never forgotten it and I’ve been using my sharp pencil ever since.
I have the opposite issue - I forget to turn my timers on sometimes and then an hour or so later realize and then estimate a lower number. I still bill 8-10 hours a day, but I feel stressed if I overestimate (I don’t have an hours requirement for bonus, my life just sucks)
This was a super interesting conversation. Exactly what I was trying to start. Thanks for all of your comments everyone ♥️ now get back to work 😂
When I was at one firm I was instructed to round up and then I found out that they were rounding me up even further. At my other law firm they were very strict about keeping it as honest as possible…