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Bill every single minute you are doing anything anything even slightly related to a deal. For example, if you are taking the time to read emails related to a deal you are working on, even if there’s no action item for you based on that email, you need to be billing all that time. Taking 2 min to read 30 emails in a day adds up. If you’re at lunch with another attorney and ask them a question about how they would handle an issue if they were in your shoes, bill that time.
Also, if you’re in the middle of drafting and you get a text from a friend and spend a couple of minutes responding or if a co-worker pops their head in your office to talk about the big game last night, there’s really no need to stop your timer (if you used timers) or otherwise subtract that time from your bill - this is because there are likely many times during the day when you’re thinking about a deal without billing for it.
A senior associate once explained to me that there are so many times when you will just start thinking about a deal outside the office without realizing (like if you’re thinking about how to best draft a concept while commuting into the office), but that time generally won’t get billed since you’re not in front of your computer. The time spent thinking in the car will benefit the client, so if you aren’t billing it separately, think of it as filler time for the times when you get a little distracted during the day.
Also, theoretically your billing rate takes into account your skill and efficiency, so you should NEVER bill less time than you spend on something just because you think it takes you too long. Your rate is lower than a partner’s because they are more efficient and experimented. And if the billing partner thinks it took you an unreasonable amount of time, they can write your time off on the bill (which means the client won’t get billed for it, but you should still get credit for it).
Rising Star
Write it all down. All if it!
Great advice above—billing is an art, but if you’re writing down everything, you’re off to a good start. This is sometimes just the nature of transactional work. Not uncommon to have days where you work a full day and have nothing to show for it, and other days where you’ll bill 5 hours in 3 hours 🙃