Related Posts
.Net Lead
Dm for referral
Rising Star
Can we get into Japan yet?
Any DFT (Design for Testability) Engineers here?
Chief
Any plans for the long weekend?
Additional Posts in Law
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
We all went to law school. Hence, we all played ourselves.
You may be being played. I used to work at an IP boutique with several offices. Several partners required me to do many things for a demanding client that supposedly knew they were asking for a lot and would pay for it. Without going into details, I was doing extremely detailed custom high-quality work at commodity prices, once I saw my hours that the partners were billing through to the client.
As an example, the client managing partner said we had to prepare for each client meeting about a case as if it were an oral hearing in court, and know the case we were working on inside and out to be able to answer all questions in detail without needing to look up the answers and get back to the client. One such case was a patent application with a lengthy prosecution history, over 10 years and with about that many rejections, with appeals, etc. The case was given to me and I had never seen it before. A new in-house counsel was handling it on the client side. I had to explain the whole history of the case, all the claims that had been presented, all the rejections, the differences between the application and the art cited in the rejections, disclosure that had not yet been claimed that we could pursue, etc. Thousands of pages of documents. 0.5 hours was allowed to be billed through to the client. This was not uncommon at that firm.
Other partners on the board talked to me about my realization rate, how I should have a realization rate of about 90%. I explained the situation with these partners that were controlling about all my work. The partners on the board told me I should tell the partners for whom I worked that I will not do what they tell me to do because it is too time consuming and the client isn’t paying for it. When I tried to follow the board’s instructions, it did not go well. I left the firm. Other attorneys I worked with also had issues with the firm. Really bad culture. I busted my butt yet felt unappreciated.
It sounds like you are in a similar situation. You might want to find a better situation.
Played. Yeah, being played like a fiddle.
Chief
Depends on whether this is frequent or not.
Can you give an example of (without being too specific, obviously) what you’re doing that’s non billable? Are these like, firm projects?
Rising Star
Why do you think the prior work is non billable?
Rising Star
Gently, do what you need to do to remain employed. If there is no more billable work, then do this other stuff. Otherwise, focus on getting more billable work so you can turn down the other stuff. It is worth speaking with more senior associates about tips on how to "flip the mix"
This is an insane ratio.
There will always be some likely non billable stuff, let's call it admin duties. Think that your handler should manage your work type and flow a bit better. When I was doing that sort of thing I would strive to have the associstes get the billed hours and I and admit dud the relatively not billable tasks. Got to feed the birds in the nest!