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I feel you. I have to sit for like 9-10 hours to actually bill 8 hours. I’m usually happy with 6.5-7 a day and then I do work on sundays to catch up if need be.
Apparently being ethical does not also mean you will be able to meet your yearly requirement
I work for a trial firm, so billing 9+ hours on some days is not hard. Remote court appearances have helped me cut down the hours I’m working without a break. Depositions, mock trials, and trial prep will do evil things to your work hours when you already have a ton of pleadings to get out.
You are under billing then
I agree. This was my issue when I first started.
If I’m at my desk for 9 hours I’m now finding a way to bill 9 hours. I’ve under billed for over a year, no more.
I obviously don’t know your situation, OP, but could it be that what they meant by “no entries longer than ~3-hours” is that when you’re working on a matter for long, you should try to itemize your entries a bit? I can’t imagine they want you to eat the time because the firm loses money on you doing that.
I’ve been told that, for instance, if I spend 10-hours going through a database for a deal, downloading docs, reviewing, and putting them in schedules to try to itemize it so the client doesn’t see just one big 10-hour entry for “review items in data room and put together disclosure schedules.” That’s not to mean I can’t take as long as I need to work on this or should cut my time. But that they’d prefer I break down my time entries to, for instance, 1-hour reviewing documents in the financials folder and putting together schedule 1.56, another hour reviewing tax docs and putting together schedule 1.57, and so on so the client gets a clearer picture of what is that I spent 10-hours billing him for because “review documents” and “draft disclosure schedules” may mean next to nothing to some clients, they’ll just see you did one task over a long ass day and they have to pay a few grand for it.
Maybe that’s what they’re getting at?
I used to underbill until I got a serious evaluation for ADHD, and now with the help of medication and other tools, I'm more focused.
Rising Star
^ same
Rising Star
the fear of being fired keeps you going. and caffeine.
Become a litigator.
Haha on a serious note just make sure that you are capturing all your time. If you’re at your desk and working from 8-1 then 5 hours should be billed. If you worked those 5 hours and only billed 3.5 then you need to figure out why and where those hours are going. Talk to your partner(s) as well, maybe you’re cutting down your own time that they think you should be billing for.
Depends on the practice group. When I pivoted to a transactional practice, it became very difficult for me to bill the hours I billed doing litigation and regulatory work. Also, your colleagues are (likely) padding their hours, but you didn’t hear that from me.
Agree that some engage in time padding, I look at some time entries for the highest billers at my firm and am like 🤨
Honestly, I heard that too @gc. I never bill it though. I think some of this stuff gets out of hand.
Junior year and I think I am underbilling- what does it really mean to underbill?
I try to target 10 hours a day. Usually don't work weekends
I bill on average 140 hours a day, so 7 hrs a day on average. Goal is to get to 7.5 - 8 a day
Take a look at the retainer agreement or your firm’s policies on minimum billing. 0.1 is fine unless your firm specifically says you have a 0.3 minimum (for example) or if the client has something in their retainer that limits how you can bill certain events. For example a client may get a discount in travel, but you can bill a minimum number of hours for a hearing.
How many real hours does it take you to hit 6/6.5 hours? Are you rushing through your work?
AA then big law, or at least my life style in BL, probably isn’t a good fit for you.
Yes on days that I have trials or depos. Easy to bill that for travel, prep, and in-court trial
Well if I'm working 9-5 or even 9-6, it's pretty hard. It's a lot different if you're in litigation vs corporate though -- it's usually easier to find consistent slow burns in litigation than corporate
Trials and depositions.
I’m a first year with adhd and I have billed 11 hour days but trust me, it’s with the help of caffeine and panic that I’m not gonna make my hours this week. Deadlines help too. My firm has a billable requirement of about 1800. You just have to ask for more work and do the low brain power things at the end of the day.
I really do have trouble with billing too. One thing that helps us just try to make sure that everything I do is accounted for.
can you make overtime with Job #2?
How confident do you feel making the target income for Job #1?