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This makes me love my small firm plaintiff’s practice so much more. If I was billing, I’d log ridiculous amounts of hours no doubt, but I love the freedom to do what I need on a case and not have to track my time ever
Had a rainmaker who would reply "thank you" to every freaking email sent by responsible attys (including me) to his client for work he had absolutely nothing to do with. He billed the client for his inflated time, of course.
Can't remember now. But that sounds about right.
An attorney in my firm makes me attend every phone conference/zoom meeting he has on a case so that he can make me bill for that time and double charge the client for his and my time together. The problem is I never do anything else in the case other than attending these meetings. It’s been going on for a few months now.
I sat in those calls too - my senior lawyer always provided a courtesy discount on the bill and told the client it was too make up for double billing. I am grateful I was involved in the calls, as I was able to pick up a lot of corporate insolvency and restructuring strategy from listening to calls with trustees and debtors. My involvement on the files in the beginning was usually to prep pleadings/forms, find cases, deal with the employment and other issues that inevitably arose. Now I deal more directly with the corporate debtor clients and unsecured creditors with their counsel. Senior partner still handles the banks and trustees/receivers, but lets me take on the insurance/employment issues whenever one comes up. It's a good work split. That was a result from sitting on those calls. I know larger firms may not provide the discount, but now I am not afraid to involve my junior on a call where they can learn something and be compensated for their time. I don't mind taking a partial reduction. If I get hit by a bus, I want my client to have a reliable person in my firm they can go to, so in the end it is a service to the client.
My senior attorney billed 31 hours to writing and research for a court of appeals brief she had *nothing* to do with, except for a last minute read through the day before it was due lmao.
Lol as the junior attorney I asked 0 questions
There’s one firm in my state that does a ton of court appointed criminal defense work that got into a lot of trouble for over billing. One attorney claimed to have billed more than 24 hours on a matter in a single day
I also came across a case where one attorney was billing in .25 increments
My firm bill .2 for any time entries under 12 minutes. We bill in .1 increments after that
There’s this whole thing called the insurance defense industry…
Well when you squeeze attorneys with hourly rates 20% of normal rates and then give a haircut to multiple billing entries a month, you can't be surprised when the attorney is billing every single second of their time.