Med mal defense. So sick of getting my time cut by the claims rep for being administrative, communication, etc. Obtaining pleadings, correspondence with the client/counsel, etc. are necessary tasks of a lawyer. Its like all they want us to bill for now are drafting pleadings and court appearances. Literally impossible to hit my hours this way. Considering a move to the plaintiffs side bc I’m just so over this.

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I feel this so hard. Which is why I switched to Commercial Lit. Someone in your firm needs to fight these cuts even though it’s time consuming. Otherwise, they will just keep cutting.

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How were you able to switch from ID to Commercial lit?

Have you already tried tying each entry to an outcome, eg “email correspondence with X re recently filed objections to Plaintiffs subpoena dt to ensure critical work product privileged documents are not produced” or “ensure docs exchanged with Y concerning abc are inclusive of the medical evidence needed for Dr. Z to advise on daubert challenge”

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Ye I do that for everything generally with good success (GL not Med mal)and then I guess the idea is if they are going to cut it anyway, I’m making them acknowledge they’re cutting time for stuff that I explicitly wrote was necessary for an attorney to handle or necessary for an MSJ to succeed

You can capture pretty much all the time If it’s phrased right. Don’t give them a break on anything. Get it all. When they cut, just bill harder.

Key is to tie what you’re doing to something. Correspondence regarding coordinated deposition strategy/planning. Or you can bill for reviewing those Correspondence to fold into preparing for status update to client (Even if it’s a quick email). There’s ways around all the bullshit in Med mal typically.

Get exceptions to guidelines confirmed by adjuster for certain things in writing (like review of medical records) and then say you had approval in the time entry.

It takes time but you’ll get it. I capture it all. The harder they cut the less breaks I give them and if they cut unreasonably too much and I’m not getting paid I’ll just decline the work. That hasn’t happened yet but I’m about to do it to one carrier I think. Don’t care anymore. Got plenty of work to do and if someday I don’t I’ll go in house or switch sides.

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Phrase it like Exchange x communications with client, Dr y, re finalizing and completing interrogatory responses, clarification on medical record entries, planning and preparation for deposition.

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I would always avoid certain words that get flagged in their system. Ex. When i had to check the docket, I would write Analysis of court history regarding blah blah. Small changes like that help.

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Just roll that time into something else they will pay for 🤷🏼‍♂️

Then the entry would get cut for “excessive time” 😆

likefunny

I’ve found that phrase billing as to make it appear more “important” allows me to bill time that would otherwise get cut. For example, say I am emailing about a date for a hearing (scheduling that would get cut as administrative task), I would phrase my billing entry as “Prepare letter to Plaintiff’s attorney discussing wrongful death settlement hearing and issues related to the same.” Once I started phrasing things like that, my time vary rarely continued to get cut. I am happy to share more specific examples too if you want and I have done such an entry before.

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