What is the minimum acceptable amount of billable hours per day/week at your firm? What is the target amount?

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Pretty sure most firms don't have a minimum billable hours target per week. That structure doesn't work in the legal field since the hours are hardly ever steady. Some weeks you have 10 hours, other weeks you have 60 hours.

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Mine wants us to be doing at a minimum 30 hrs, but they strongly encourage more then that.

I am reading this thread feeling so fortunate my employer is not pressuring associates like this. It isn't normal times, and we can't be treated like robots who should be churning out billables like widgets. If your employer micromanages your hours and does not give you any leeway, just know there are much more reasonable and humane places to work!

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I'm in CA. Come on out! The water's fine, at least until fire season ruins the air quality 😅

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I generally try to bill at least 35 hours/wk. My target amount is around 45 or 50 and I sometimes hit it. My highest was around 75 -80 but that was during trial.

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My last firm was 9hr/day (10 to bonus) with little to no regard for ebb and flow. My current firm is 1800hrs/year.

I’m learning my firm expects 40+/week, no exceptions. The monthly billable hour requirement is 160 (1900/year) but I recently learned through the grapevine that they want us to be around 180. For me, I’m just never going to do that unless I have a trial or hearing - in other words, I’m not going to look at my hours (I’m on track to Bill 160 this month) and think, I better start working weekends to get to 180. My goal is always to Bill 40/week. Some weeks I have more and other weeks I have less. My lower weeks are never a result of less work but rather, life (eg sick kid) and I’m not going to kill myself to make the hours back up, especially when I’m still on track to meet the firm’s expressed goal.

We’re expected to bill 35/week. And we’re required to submit weekly time sheets - if we didn’t hit 35 hours, we need to explain the reasons why and the efforts we made to find more work. It’s god awful.

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Ok, maybe this has been done before, but I want to get a real life sense of the difference between EPLI and Private L&E (management side) practices. Let's do a poll:

1.) Primary source of business: EPLI or Private Companies?

2.) Number of matters you are currently working on

3.) Average billable rate (your year)

4.) Normal working hours/wk

5.) Percentages: Litigation vs Counseling

6.) Type of firm: ID, Big 4, Boutique, BigLaw, etc.

I'll kick things off in comments.

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Our general targets are 75% util. Billable or qualified non-billable time. Bonuses will be $1000 per quarter just meeting that. $25/ hr for every billable hour beyond that on top.

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