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Bill it. If you have a supervising attorney that is willing to take an active role in your development, the hours are a useful starting point to identify inefficiencies and weaknesses they might be able to help with, especially if you are a relatively new attorney
Bill the exact time you spent on the matter. Let me give an example for that: Let’s say you’ve spent 3 hours but you entered only 2 hours. The accountable partner on the other hand would evaluate that the work you’ve done should be 1,5 hours. So they would decrease your time spent from 2 hours to 1,5 hours. However should you enter 3 hours, the partner would most likely decrease the billable to 2 hours. So you’re not only decreasing your billable hours but also negatively effect the performance of the company. The time you spent will decrease in any case as you gain experience.
Bill it. You’re a perfectionist, which means you take pride in your work—so accurately reflect that work you put in. You may also have a false sense of what’s “unusually long,” and by misrepresenting it as faster you are really setting yourself up to fail because the partner is now going to expect that same level of work product can be turned around in the shorter timeframe you’re reporting and may put you in a position where they only give you that much time next time.
For the partners on this thread, how many years did it take you to not take literally forever to do something? I’m still self-cutting my time & I’m a 4th year :/
My mentor was crystal clear that I had to bill every minute I worked and I think that was a huge benefit for me. It’s so hard to actually figure out what one task should take, all you can do is be honest with the client and yourself. (In the aggregate you can figure out if someone is over or under billing). I’ve been at it 14 years and there’s still plenty of imposter syndrome, I try to channel it and remind myself that almost everyone I deal with has it too.
Bill it. Let your bosses let you know if it’s taking too long and they should be able to help, if needed. I’ve never had a problem with an associate producing quality work that takes a long time - I’m happy to work with the client if it’s an issue.
I really don’t remember. Most probably when I started to evaluate whether a work has been over-billed or under-billed. Just keep entering the actual time you’ve spent. Another benefit you’ll see from that is that you can compare the time spent you entered with the time spent billed and you will see that the gap will close as the time passes.
Another thing, since you’re a perfectionist; while you’re working on a project always ask yourself ‘does this serve to the output of my work?’ If the answer is ‘No!’ You most probably doing something that does not need to be billed.
Don’t cut your own time! It’s probably so much more reasonable than you are worried about. I’m sure the work product is better quality because you put the time in too. Your rate is also lower than that of an experienced partner to account for the fact that it’s gonna take you longer. Don’t sell yourself short
Equate every billable hour you self cut as taking food from your family’s mouth and see it as time spent away from them/yourself with zero compensation
A1 - Wow. Lots of outstanding responses here, but this hits especially hard. It's a good thing to keep in mind.
I generally agree with not cutting hours. However, take into consideration the type of partner you work for and try to communicate expectations on time early on. I didn’t cut my hours for a task that took me much longer than the partner expected and was scolded for it.
Big disagree. There are better approaches if you’re having issues like this. You can clarify expectations up front when you get an assignment, and then before your time runs up / as soon as you know you won’t come in under time, go to the partner and explain the obstacles or reasons it’s taking longer and ask what they want you to do or if they want you to keep researching or whatever. Another good guard is to start putting those obstacles and explanations of why stuff is taking so long in your time entries — review X number of pages, follow up with client to obtain complete responses, research each specific issue or specific problematic precedent — including enough detail to help answer the question what took you so long and treating your billing as persuasive writing with the partner/client as the audience