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One of the reasons why you are billed at a lower hourly rate than partners is to make up for the extra time that you will have to put in properly complete the project at hand. If a contract is taking you 1 hour at this moment, take 2 hours. Dont lie and put an extra hour down, but actually take an extra hour to re-read it, proofread, and fix mistakes. A lot of newer attorneys think you need to get everything done as fast as possible but in reality you need to do everything as correctly as possible. No one will remember if it took you 1 or 6 hours Theyll just remember the work product. Take your time, bill accordingly, and make sure the reputation you build is that you do things properly rather than quickly
Also in-house here and completely agree with this advice. Take the time to be thorough and it will save your partners and your clients time and money. It will build trust and you'll be given more work. The flip side of rushing is that when a client finds enough errors coming from an associate, they will eventually ask for a new associate and that can be a difficult challenge to navigate.
Others have said it but let me say it again for emphasis. Work slower.
(And as an aside, if you’re in the office for 14 hours you should have 11-12 billable hours on the clock. At your level don’t stay late for non-billable work without a very good reason. Otherwise you’ll crack up.)
Clients used to pay an uplift for the high pressure stuff. We still have it in our LoE template. But never charge it anymore because not market.
If clients want to pay for what it *should* cost, I’m happy to price on a fixed fee basis (and often do). But otherwise I want my staff to work carefully and let it take as long as it takes. Rushed work product is bad work product. I will very happily have that conversation with a client if they are pissed off about the figure.
Then again sometimes a junior will bill 8 hours to review a three page contract and in those cases it’s a write-down and a conversation about time management.
I can’t stress enough that you don’t want to do that. It’s not just unethical. There are always the edge cases people will talk about, like leaving a timer running while you’re using the bathroom but still thinking. Or having to wait on a document super late (imo, both billable depending on the case). But just deciding to inflate your numbers is against your ethical obligations, fraudulent, and a generally bad idea. Also, if you’re not even close to hours, how much time would you have to make up to hit hours? That’s a lot of fake work, and people will catch on. Even if they don’t, you’ll be worried about it.
Second on this. It will also give the impression to your boss(es) that it’s taking you longer than it should to complete a task, which is also not ideal.
When I started with billables I would work on planning out the day or week and consider if I had enough work. If I thought I didn’t, I’d mention to the partner something along the lines of “I’ll be caught up soon” to let them know I needed more work and make it clear I knew I wasn’t going to hit my hours until was there more to do.
Three thoughts for you: First, if you’re a first year associate, your hours may not matter much. Focus instead on doing quality work, on time. That should lead to more assignments in the future.
Second, if your firm allows you to get billable credit for pro bono work or business development, do that to boost your hours. It will show the firm that you’re serious about growing your skills.
Third, don’t falsify your hours. It is not only unethical—it may be criminal, too.
You’re a first year. You’re probably missing a lot of stuff. Work carefully and methodically. Don’t embellish your hours but don’t half ass things. There’s no prize for low hours and mediocre work product.
I really want to emphasize this - I prefer working with juniors who are slower but produce better work product (obviously you still want to meet deadlines or communicate really early on if you’re not going to meet it). I’d much prefer working with them over someone who gets me something super quickly but sloppy. Take the time you need to get it right, don’t worry about efficiency as a first year - that comes with time
You’ll find both ends of the extreme: people who are 100% accurate with their billing (they’ll stop their times even when they take a sip of water) and those that straight up lie (bill for meetings attended and work they never did).
Thing is, billing is not a science, it’s an art form. You don’t ask or talk about how you bill, at least publicly. Just do whatever you think is color or table. My general stance is that you should remain in the realm of honesty and be consistent. Here are some examples that some will be like “hell yeah I bill that!” to “it’s so illegal to bill that!” Fact is that there are no ground rules either way.
1. Work on a different deal while on a weekly call for a different deal and you double bill.
2. It’s 2am and you’re staying up to receive comments from someone.
3. Keep the timer running while going to the bathroom.
4. Keep the timer running while you’re getting IT to fix an issue that makes it impossible for you to access a document needed for your work.
5. Listening to a podcast while doing some due diligence, which effectively causes you to be about 20% slower because you’re not fully concentrating.
6. It’s 7am and you woke up two hours early because you’re waiting on comments.
7. You’ve been asked to stay late by the partner, at 6pm, but after three hours of waiting, they tell you there actually isn’t anything after all and you kept the timer running for those three hours.
8. In a span of 6 minutes you draft and write three different e-mails for three different deals; you bill it as 0.1 for each.
So, opinions on all these examples will run all over the place, so do whatever you think is best. You’re not wrong either way. That being said, I would not straight up lie, I’d always have some sort of reason that you can give yourself while you’re still billing. I’ll also say that if it’s very quiet, it’s probably just the way it is and not blame yourself. It’s the partners’ fault there isn’t more work.
There are attorneys who refuse to bill for one email or 0.1s generally.
Mentor
None. This is an ethical violation, champ. You can lose your license for this shit. License>>>job.
I think you said you were a first year? Ain't nobody firing a first year for lack of hours. The partners know why you don't have enough hours (they don't have enough to give to you). First years regularly miss their hours by a wide margin.
When first years start getting canned, other people look for the door. The firm knows this and they're not trying to encourage a general mutiny. Chill, state your hours correctly. You'll probably get wrapped on the knuckles, but it's unlikely you will get fired.
My Freind is at a V10 and billed 6 hours this week as a 2nd year. She somehow isn’t worried at all about her job security. My advice as a partner, is that we’re not going to keep you if you’re not being utilized. If we don’t like your work, we won’t give it to you. If you aren’t needed we will condense staff.
K&E1: When partner productivity decline, their compensation also declines. When it falls below standard levels they are forced to leave the firm or retire. Fault or not, partners pay the price too.
Slow down, spend extra time when justifiable and capture all of your time, but don’t falsify or inflate your hours.
Excellent advice. Be great. You’ll get more opportunity to work and bill.
If you have established relationships with partners and SAs go to them first daily and ask for work. Second, reach out to the staffing coordinator (if your firm has one) and ask for work - in normal times lawyers avoid them so seek them out!
My advice is to use timers religiously - literally every task that touches a client matter you should start the timer, add a note re: the task, then begin work. Don’t self censor and finalize your time daily. You’ll capture time you’re letting slip.
Wait what? I’ve been using time trackers since 2L internship. So literally my entire career. What the hell do you mean by a “game changer?” It’s literally the game.
Apart from everything pointed above (ethical considerations being the most important), it might also backfire. I get staffed significantly more than everyone else in my class because I’m “efficient” (i.e., it takes me less time/I bill less time for completing the same tasks). Something else to consider if you work in a practice where clients tend to have tight fee caps/be bill conscious
Disagree strongly. Bad advice IMHO.
Well, are you billing everything you can ethically Bill for? Are you billing for every thought? Are you billing for every email you come across on a matter? Are you billing for every piece of conversation regarding a client? I'm a firm believer that you should spend at least 2 hours every day of thinking time.
DO NOT pad. Work more methodically on the projects you do have. Double check things, as there will be things that are wrong. Dig in extra on things you don't understand, but don't just add to your time.
Kid got fired from my firm for padding hours. A like 7k bonus after tax is not worth your career.
Also, there aren't any "right" marks really, especially for first years. Times are slow and the learning curve for first years is steep. It's only April, don't fret.
I feel this deserves extra context. What was considered “padding” in your case and how was this kid caught?
At my firm I’ve seen senior associates proclaim that they billed for something where I was like “but…you didn’t do anything?” I’m sure I’ve also billed stuff where someone could conceivably be like “well, I don’t think you can bill that.” I think generally speaking, with padding, there is always a reason you can give as to why you billed it and you should therefore be fine (even if somebody could somehow find out that you were padding, which seems impossible to me in the first place). Just don’t straight up lie.
Do not do this. Do take your time and bill everything unless instructed otherwise. Do bill contemporaneously as you work as you will capture more of your time that way. Waiting for the next day (or a few days, weeks etc) is a recipe for forgetting about a handful of billable tasks. May not seem like much, but if you lose .3 every day, you’re leaving 75 hours a year on the table (and I’d suggest people who don’t bill contemporaneously likely leave more than that on the table).
Don’t worry about your first-year hours
Zero! Period.
Don’t because people can tell.
Coach
How? lol. Some people are obviously gonna be fast or slower than others at doing things
Do I commit literal fraud? Huh?
10,000 to 1
not at all ever
Never embellish. Always bill whatever time it takes you to complete the task. (The partner decides what is ultimately billed to the client.) Have you heard about “feast or famine”? Lots of practices go through these cycles (e.g., M&A). My two cents - enjoy the famine so you don’t get burned out by the feast.