16 weeks and so worried all of the stress I’m under is going to hurt the baby. Between work, my own scary (non-pregnancy) health stuff, the pandemic, my mom (who is a widow and lives alone, basically isolated by choice due to covid) is having health issues, and pressures to keep billable hours up, I’ve been having complete breakdowns. Today I spent almost the entire day crying and now have to make up the billable time this weekend. I really worry abt what effect this will have on the babe.
Mentor
It is funny that none of you know how this is determined. My firm literally is negotiating with me right now to raise my rate. I try to keep my rate low but if I go too low they tell me I can't have a big raise. My collections are already high (3.7 x base this year) so I am generally allowed to do whatever I want. The person in charge of setting the rates at my firm is an admin person but each partner approves their own within reason. Anyone outside of their reccomended range has to get special approval. We are a big firm but it is eat what you kill around here except for massive firm clients controlled by partners in NYC/Chicago/LA. Also, the massive firm clients negotiate special rates that we only renegotiate every 2 years. The pressure to raise our rack rates comes from the fact that those clients don't care about rack rates but want overall discounts. So my rate is high overall but low enough that a 15% discount gets me a meaningful number that I can sell to new clients but doesn't hurt me with the existing massive firm clients.
Mentor
There are others at my firm that all set their rates high and give massive discounts. Like our tax partners rack rates are 1400 but I see them mostly billed out at 850.
Subject Expert
Location usually has a role.
Subject Expert
It can also vary by matter and group too. I.e. different clients will negotiate different rates, and different groups will charge different rates, etc. It’s hard to know exactly what is going on unless you’ve seen the bills firm-wide or have partner access.
I've heard in lit at least they also bump up your billing rate if you've clerked. Not sure if that's a permanent bump though cause seems weird to bill an 8th year more because they clerked over half a decade ago. (Also this is based on a pretty old source - not sure if it is even true.)
Mentor
In BF’s first year (2020) at a major lit firm, they billed him as a third year since he did two post-graduation clerkships.
Many factors. All of the above plus it generally ties into your salary and/or experience and rank.
Enthusiast
Per office, per experience, per client.