What percentage of lawyers do you think pad their billable hours?

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Probably 10%, but if you ask them it’s more like 10.7%

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110%

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Yup

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Don’t hate the player, hate the game

- everyone in ID

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100%. The real question is the degree to which they take the padding.

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Lender’s counsel

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Probably a small minority are just making up hours, but I’d say at least half the people I work with bill for stuff I wouldn’t or otherwise overbill by estimating their hours instead of using timers.

Blows my mind that some people (especially older attorneys) just estimate their hours based on how long they worked that day.

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This is the norm

Over 9000

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I think a lot of people do it and don’t even realize. For example, people that are social and make small talk before they start digging into work or get sidetracked during a meeting. Even if they’re just doing it for 15-20 minutes per day , that’s 80+ billed hours at the end of the year. On paper it looks like they did an entire extra deal. That is padding their bill and it does make an impact at the end of the year bonuses but it’s probably not malicious.

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100%

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My group’s billings are 90% flat fee. So literally everyone.

100%

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