How is the billable rate for each associate determined at your firm? Does everyone in the same class bill out at the same rate?

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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.

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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.

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Location usually has a role.

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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.)

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.

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Many factors. All of the above plus it generally ties into your salary and/or experience and rank.

Per office, per experience, per client.

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