Related Posts
Is Deloitte usi have office in Chennai?
Headhunter recommendations in London?
Additional Posts in Big Law
Mentor
Mentor
When did you receive your signing bonus?
Subject Expert
When the partner asks why I missed his deadline
Mentor
Do you think Milbank hate DPW?
Subject Expert
Coach
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
Once you are an associate you usually have access to the full rate schedule (at least in my experience). I suspect minimum hourly rates will be at least over $300/hour. There is usually a partner level rate attached, and a maximum discount that can be applied before needing some level of management approval.
Are you a licensed attorney with the firm? Asking to confirm because title says law clerk.
I will also say that sometimes small matters are not worth it due to the administrative overhead and headaches. By the time you generate an engagement letter, open a new matter, discuss the matter with the client, discuss why it was $500 more than what the client expected (this is always an issue with cheap matters), finalize and submit the bill, then send a closing letter, you have at least 7 hours into it. Even if you push some of this to admin support it is still time consuming. This doesn't even consider the potential malpractice liability that can attach depending on the type of matter and advice.
I used to work at a smaller firm and generated a significant amount of business. The amount of work that can be generated under $2,000 is truly endless. So many small clients need legal work. You need to set a minimum for matters that are worth your time, and balance that against whether the client is truly going to need future work. I am now in regional big law and generally won't pursue anything under $5,000. There is definitely a headache associated with client matter management and relationships.
This. I brought in a few small clients when I was a junior, and it was good experience, but otherwise the money wasn’t really worth the headache. I’d also add that smaller clients/matters can be much harder to collect on, which makes it even less worth it. I’ve had a lot of potential clients over the last year get sticker shock and back out, but I’m not sad about that because that means that it wasn’t a good fit. They probably would have fought me on bills or not paid, which is way more trouble than it’s worth, especially for small matters.
In my firm there’s a minimum matter value size it’s so very difficult to bring in small clients unless you have a good business case for why the client will generate a large amount of work in future.
I was lucky enough to bring in work from a huge foreign company so I had no issues with getting my partner's approval.
I have an arrangement to get 10% of all fees billed on the matters I bring in, and will be counted as my client book when I'm up for partnership (as it counts towards my partner's equity at the moment).
There's a maximum of 10% discount from my rates - been told there is no chance it goes down to 100 or the likes.
Subject Expert
No firm will be ok with you billing out time at $100/hr.
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a matter where fees were under $50k.
Also, it depends on the firm you’re at. More regional biglaw firms (Polsinelli and Akerman, for example) would probably love this. V20s, not so much. A lot of business at the most profitable firms relies on institutional clients that have existed for years/decades. Your job as an associate is to maintain that relationship. There’s this false notion that you NEED to develop business to become an equity partner. I’ve seen numerous people make equity partner by inheriting the business of the senior partner.
Subject Expert
A8, good to know it’s changed a bit if at the one I was at. BD used to be shoved down our throats.
I’ve tried to take on small matters before and usually talked to the office managing partner about it. The firm declined the small matters but did allow me to do basically the same work pro Bono when I was trying to help out a friend.
Coach
If you’re coming in as a first year to big law there is a very slim chance they’d let you bring in clients (unless they’re bigger) that you’d work on exclusively. It’s risky for the firm for malpractice purposes since they have to assign a partner to supervise the work and their hours are very far away from $100 an hour
Are firms open about how much they charge? Am I not supposed to discuss money? Any detail would be helpful!
Coach
People are referring to sticker shock/surprise at the bill because bl is SO much higher than most small firms or solos. I tried this when I was a younger bl associate and generally it doesn't pay off. People are spooked by the cost or they just need one-off advice, like a problem tenant or something. My experience was that focusing on developing relationships with firm clients and expanding my business network were much more beneficial to my career than bringing in an extra $2000 here and there.