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Cause it hurts their numbers.
Rising Star
It’s bad management for sure (the firm should see how much things cost) but A1 is right: if they routinely have to write off a large chunk of WIP, it doesn’t look good for them.
So I agree with everything above. In my firm you can get dinged for writing off too much associate time. We monitor shareholder profitability numbers.
On the other hand, when I have associates who always go the extra mile, plus some who like to churn. That kind of statement is a friendly warning to be as reasonable and efficient as possible, because I will cut your time if I think you are churning or doing unnecessary work. So…check with me before you go down a rabbit hole.
Makes sense—thanks everyone. Just seems dumb because turning around a good work product is expected and is going to take a certain amount of hours regardless of how “fast” you try to go so at the end of the day it’s the associate who is stuck cutting their own hours.
I think the point is not to cut your own hours. It’s to do things as efficiently as possible. I agree that there are plenty of times when there’s a disconnect between partner and client expectations and the amount of time it reasonably takes to produce something anywhere near the expectation, but in those circumstances you have to communicate with the partner about the challenges presented by an assignment and how much time is going to have to be billed (also shrewd billing helps!). But it’s a (possibly poor) way of communicating the importance of efficiency in law.
Pro
Every time I hear “cost conscious” I hear “malpractice”
Rising Star
No clients want that - if they do, the firm should turn them down. Most of the time, clients want four star service at something below seven star prices; that - or proximity to it is achievable.
I had issues with this when I was more junior. I’m just fortunate now that given there is enough work to go round and that I’m in a large firm (numbers of people-wise) I can now avoid the select few partners who got themselves a reputation for doing this. I just refuse to work for them when asked by resourcing/operations. Resourcing/operations tend to get the message pretty quickly, as I am (rarely/never) the only one to mention it, and it ends up getting escalated to the head of the team. The impression I got was that the other partners do seem to look down on partners who can’t seem to get fees paid. Anyway, long story short - I ignore these sorts of comments, record the time that it takes me and it’s up to the partner to deal. I did once slightly snap at a partner (over email) as regards this - as I was on no sleep and she’d told me to be cost conscious about three times in twenty four hours (on top of the numerous times before) while simultaneously asking me to complete about 16390262 thousand tasks.
Thanks—this is helpful!
As a client some things we ask the partner to do. I know they then give it to an associate but if my boss saw that on the bill. They’d be pissed. It’s not always about cost sometimes they don’t want to give us a bill with a ton of associate hours.
Rising Star
Why would you give away free legal work? If a client isn't willing to pay as much, then they don't get top quality work. Writing down time just teaches them they can get the same work product for less money. This is a business.
Rising Star
I'm biglaw now. I was previously at a small firm that pulled this bs all the time. Don't discount the value of the client your firm can attract. Moving to biglaw was definitely worth it for me.
One thing I like about M&A, is that I’m almost never asked to be “cost-conscious”.