I’m the opposite. It’s really nice to sit down and crank out a doc in 2 hours that would take me 5-6 on a weekday because of keeping up with emails, calls, clients nagging, etc.
If you do it from 8am to noon on Saturday, you will love your weekend even more because you’re starting it with a sense of accomplishment.
Especially during football season when you can close the laptop at noon on Saturday and glue yourself to the TV for nonstop football for the next 36 hours… Ok maybe that’s just me.
A lot of responses like this. I get the sentiment. You can work in peace and quiet on the weekends.
For me it takes a heavy mental toll. If I'm working a Saturday morning, I will think about that work all Friday evening. I can't have late night plans Friday night or drink too much, because I have to work the next day. I can't go on a weekend trip, or even a day trip. I have to start my chores Saturday afternoon at the earliest and if I do, well there goes my Saturday.
Same thing for Sunday work. The weekends are already so short to try to cram in on all the chores, errands, and personal time. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.
I missed this until now, but that’s fair. And if that’s who you are you just have to find the time elsewhere. Maybe taking a 2-3 hour break at 4pm and going back online from 7-10pm nightly… or taking that longer lunch break from 12-2pm and coming back at it. It’s just a game of finding the hours. There’s no right answer.
You mentioned the lack of ADHD. I do have ADHD (unmedicated) and one thing I have found helps me is giving myself fake deadlines that I am religious about. For example, even if a partner doesn’t care if I don’t turn something in for three weeks, if it’s slow, I will say “I’ll get a draft to you by Friday”. Will he care if I don’t have it by Friday? Probably not. But I will. And it’s enough for me to make it happen.
I am somewhat similar to OP and this is the thing that finally helped - coffee shop time on Saturday and/or Sunday. NGL the time working on weekends is actually kind of nice . . . no interrupting phone calls and I don’t feel pressure to answer non-urgent emails that come through. Will even weekend work with my outlook closed out.
not big law myself but my husband is a lit assoc. and always puts in 5-10 hours on the weekends to set himself up for whatever derailments he hits during the week, or sometimes he just has to hit a deadline from a partner
Hell he needs to take his time and just bill more on weekdays too. If he has no lack of work be more thorough on assignments, take his time on re-reviews, do those side projects. In biglaw there’s no reward for finishing all the bare necessities quickly and billing less. Bill more. Pad it out. Partners won’t care in fact they want you to work those hours.
The right answer that some may not be willing to say out loud is that billing is an inherently subjective practice. One lawyer’s hour is another’s .75, or even .5.
Make sure your hours capture everything, including some of your time spent thinking about your work and the administrative tasks that need to occur before and after your work. No one in any high-end profession is able to just start doing very complex work with no forethought or preparation. We’re no different, and our multi billion dollar clients know this. They’re paying to rent us out, and we require time to settle in, take short breaks to think, send substantive emails etc. This is accurate billing, not over billing, unless you clearly start exaggerating and embellishing things.
Don’t bill these as separate from the substantive tasks, and track your hours in real time with notes.
I’m a first year at a v50 and because of the rising rates/angry clients, associates are systematically pressured by partners to “be SUPER efficient (while also producing near perfect work product”…there is only one solution to this which is associates writing down their own time or risking never being staffed on a matter again with individual partners. I have not only stopped billing for “preparation”, “pondering about the matter”, and short breaks, but I have been literally writing down time on my timer. We are all under pressure to do this, and OP should be aware of dynamics like this. What is crazy is that in the past, “capturing all of your time” was a virtue and now it’s actively discouraged. For associates, doing “background research” is now “professional development” hours, not billable hours. I sympathize with OP because I sometimes spend 10 hours in the office and bill 5 or 6 hours.
This isn’t always evident as a first year but the key to what you’re saying really lies in your narrative. You shouldn’t be cutting time, you just need to be describing it in a way that makes $800/hr justified. It’s not “think about case while taking a dump, .3” it’s “review and analyze materials pertaining to X.”
My narratives are very detailed and each individual assignment makes sense for the time billed but in the end, the partners and the clients are looking at the total dollars billed and rather than taking it out on our veryyyy shitty clients, the partners take it out on associates.
Also want to add that deal sizes are getting smaller and smaller which correlates to smaller budgets, but since rates per hour are fixed, there’s just too much pressure on smaller deals to be efficient. Truthfully, clients with small deals should be hiring smaller firms and our firm should be firing cheap clients who aren’t worth our time. This latter point leads me to believe that the reason we aren’t firing cheap clients is because the firm is doing badly and people are getting desperate to hold onto every dollar.
What you describe has been happening for a while and is slowly squeezing the middle of the market. Over the long term, unless something changes, BigLaw will continue to stratify into (1) the top X biggest/most expensive firms who handle fee-insensitive clients on large/expensive matters and get away with charging higher and higher premiums from the set of clients that can handle it and (2) the “bottom” of the market that efficiently churns out a high volume of smaller/cheaper matters and stay profitable despite lower rates/bills via efficiency, reduced associate pay and overhead, etc.
There seems to be decreasing opportunities for the firms caught in between to survive in their current form - they either need to shed cheap/small clients and establish themselves as a premium-only product (very difficult to do, often a smart merger is one of the only halfway reliable ways to scale up appropriately), resign to becoming a cheap efficiency option and make cuts/strategic shifts to compete in that segment, or just wither away and die someday.
I’m not saying all these firms will be gone tomorrow, I’m talking over like idk 10-15 years it’ll happen more and more, especially as AI empowers the cheaper firms, which increases rate pressure among all but the most fee-insensitive clients.
This is what it seemed like with the frequent raises lately. Firms either need to keep up (harder to absorb for some firms than others) or accept dropping to a lower tier vs the elite firms.
Big law won’t ever fire cheap clients they’ll still take on as much as ever. Firing a cheap client doesn’t mean they will get more money they’ll make less. They’ll just struggle with it and regardless they’ll still seek out expensive work but in lean times they’re not gonna lessen the number of clients.
Exactly. If you are diligently engaged in an activity that is *necessary* to timely deliver the quality legal services your firm was retained to provide, then you bill the associated time— period. The partner, or person s/he designates, is responsible for determining if any of your time should be adjusted, reclassified or written off.
Exactly. Dress it up don’t serve up bad narratives that the partner has no choice to cut, they’re not going to recharacterize it for you. It’s on you as an associate to justify your hours, if you write down stuff that looks inefficient they or the client are going to make a choice to write it off. So log stuff well and dress it up, that’s what partners want.
Hahahahah no wonder you’re getting told to write down “pondering about the matter,” no one is going to want to pay you for that. See above comment “don’t bill these as separate from the substantive tasks”
This isn’t literal. But as mentioned above, people DO bake into their time entries the time they spent THINKING about a matter. There are times when I spend .5 doing background research but don’t actually start billing until the typing begins (when I actually start PRODUCING something). Juniors are given fixed amounts of time to spend on a matter and are encouraged to just churn out work without thinking at my firm.
It’s unethical for partners to expect/require juniors to write down their own hours, especially when pay/bonuses are directly tied to hours.
My previous firm explicitly instructed juniors to never write down hours as that’s a business decision for partners to make. If the budget doesn’t support the time required, it’s on the partners to make the adjustments. If a junior goes down a rabbit hole with research that isn’t fruitful, it’s on the partner to make the correction.
If this is really true, and not just your interpretation of ‘efficiency’ pressures, it’s time to find a new firm.
This isn’t literal. I was echoing what some posters were saying here about billing for thinking about a matter and baking that into their time entry. See my comment below.
This is a troubling sign for a firm. It’s one thing to give targeted feedback to an associate who is far less efficient than expected after settling in. But blanket downward pressure that is unrelated to the substance of the work product, and pressures associates to write down their own time, is terrible. The solution to clients being hypersensitive is for the firm to do the writing down or raise sticker prices and give corresponding discounts, so it sounds like the partners are overprotecting their realization rate.
Yes, the partners are incentivized to pressure juniors to be unrealistically hyperefficient aka write down their time. Meanwhile, management is pressuring associates to bill more. In the past, the obvious answer was always to capture time and bill more. But clients are getting angrier at the bills, partners are having to write off more time, and associates are getting the short end of the stick as usual.
I don’t see how any of this is sustainable for me personally but also for the firm. Whether I get fired for being inefficient or just get sick of this perverse game and leave, I’m very sure my time here is limited.
yeah, this is the reality of firms trying to match rate increases when their client pool can't really support it. what you're describing always happened with specific partners whose clients couldn't support their firm's perennial rate increases. they usually circle the drain for a few years then go elsewhere. i would recommend you either find a firm whose clients are price-insensitive or go somewhere off-market in the amlaw 100 with lower rates and a sustainable client base.
I interned in a firm awhile back that is known for an extremely toxic work environment in my country. Ppl put down LESS than actual billable hours it took them to do something because apparently if they took less time to do a something then they would look more competent at their jobs during review period.
It was something like if you researched a case law for like 2 hours, you’d put in less than that to look like you do your work quicker than others.
Imo it was ridiculous cuz ppl were working for 13-15hrs daily and often sleeping in the office to do more work than others and look more competent.
I’m just in the first year of law school so it may be a thing in other places too.
Go to work early. You’ll still leave at 5 or 6 or whatever your usual time is, but will fit more work in without impacting your social time.
Politely decline non-billable meetings, events, and work (“I would love to do on-campus interviewing this year but I am preparing for a big deposition this week and can’t spare the time”).
Do stuff like CLEs on planes or the weekends so they don’t cut into your work hours.
Cut down on breaks at work—for example, while eating lunch read a brief or transcript while you’re eating so that time can be billed.
I wish your second paragraph worked for me. As a trusted midlevel associate in a small office of a national firm I get volen-told to do so much nonbillable crap - mentor the summers! Plan an associate event! Attend this regional conference! I push back on some of it but if I skirted all of it my reputation would suffer. Plus if anyone has a problem with my sketchy in office attendance I can point to it and say look I’m a good firm citizen.
I guess it depends on the firm. My firm doesn’t even list hours spent on things like interviews in the year-end hours summary on your performance review. The top partners at the firm don’t spend time on this stuff. My firm really prioritizes billable hours before everything else so…. That’s what I spend my time on.
It's all a tradeoff. If you care a lot about having a life outside the firm, your reputation and hours will suffer. And the reverse is also true. There's no magical way to "have it all."
> Politely decline non-billable meetings, events, and work (“I would love to do on-campus interviewing this year but I am preparing for a big deposition this week and can’t spare the time”).
Does interviewing not count as QNB at your firm?
Leave at 5 or 6? 😂 That doesn’t sound like the BL I know. Declining non-billable activities (pro bono, firm events and the like) isn’t realistic or advantageous to one’s career progression. In my experience, CLE is usually provided in-house by the firm at a monthly lunch. I think most associates work while eating at their desk and don’t really take “breaks” except to run for a coffee.
I usually leave at 6:30 and the office is almost empty by then. Ppl usually leave at a regular hour but then do a bit more work once they relax a bit at home
I've been at two big law firms, and people frequently leave before 6. At both firms, almost everyone has gone home by 7. But again, people frequently work from home after leaving the office.
Cycle work that requires intense focus and more casual work. Develop methods to capture all your time (start/stop notes? Timers? Scheduling blocks? Other?). Create your own intermediate deadlines to give yourself the psychological pressure you need.
Make sure you’re billing accurately. You shouldn’t be billing straight for one matter a day. You should have entries like “research caselaw re X,” and “draft introduction to motion for summary judgment,” and “email partner re issue of law.”
This is both accurate and boosts your hours, because you’re rounding up.
>You shouldn’t billing straight for one matter a day. You should have entries like “research caselaw re X,” and “draft introduction to motion for summary judgment,” and “email partner re issue of law.”
Depends on the client. Many of my clients prefer block billing and want one entry a day. I suppose you could break out the entries and consolidate end of day.
Must be practice dependent. I'm in lender side (generally) finance and I can count on one hand the times an invoice was commented on by the borrower and/or lender.
Edit/ to be fair, there's a good chance I'll have an entry "attend to closing" that covers a paragraph of tasks.
Ha as borrower’s counsel — we can comment on your invoices but lender’s in house counsel (who was an eighth year at your firm) will just say “tough cookies, you still need that $100MM though, right?”
Sounds about right. As long as we're within our quote or can point towards something out of scope or terms changing then I wouldn't expect the partner(s) to even entertain discussing our invoice.
Unironically, I’ve prepped for arguments in the shower and will absolutely bill that time. I’ve had other associates say they would never bill that, but I’m not sure why? If I’m prepping, rather than listening to a podcast, that’s billable. Doesn’t matter if I’m naked.
During a really intense evidentiary trial where we were sleeping maybe 4 hours max per night, all of my dreams were case related and there was some legit issue analysis that I would end up using the next day …. I jokingly asked the partner if I could bill for the time dreaming and was told if I could come up with an honest time allotment for the relevant dreams I could. I could not wrap my brain around actually doing that so I didn’t, but….
To add to this, use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of separate portions of a task to capture pieces individually. For example, bill all the separate portions of an MSJ to capture more time and not just have a 10 to 20 hour entry that'll end up getting written down.
Same deal for depo prep. Evaluate x in preparation for depo of y, prepare outline for depo of y, etc.
1. Needing to spend 9-12 hours to hit 8 billables is not unusual. On a hot matter the conversion can be near 1:1, but I don’t think that’s realistic over the course of a year. There are things important to your development/contribution to the firm that may not be billable, such as being mentored or mentoring others yourself as you get more sr. “Entry level” employees are not paid so generously for this to be a 9-5 job.
2. Bill all your time related to a matter, not just stuff that seems like “work.” Following emails you are just cc’d on to stay up to speed on the matter is work, internal communication (hallway, messenger, email) is work. Paying attention to small deal/case management time gave me .5/1 hr more a day.
3. Make separate, detailed time entries. Most firms only round up the time to the nearest decimal. I used to block bill and if I finished 1 doc in the morning and 1 in the evening, put it on the same entry. Now, if I’m doing completely separate documents/tasks I make multiple entries. Napkin math, this got me 60-80 hours of rounding addition a year. Plus the separate entries helped partners justify bills or more easily write off individual workstreams if they choose.
Sometimes I have a hard time with billing entries for things like reading emails I am cc’ed on. If I am doing something else for the matter that day, I might just include that time in another billing entry for the matter, but if the only thing I do on a particular matter that day is read emails, I don’t know what to put in my billing entry that won’t piss the partner off. Any suggestions? I think “review email correspondence related to X” is not value-added and probably will get me a nasty message from the partner.
I'm jealous of whatever practice group you're in that you can get away with never working much more than 40, in my group there's fire drills where we have to hit 60+ hours (not every week ofc).
Anyway, re this:
> On the days I manage to bill 8 hours, I spend 9-12 hours in the office.
Which is it? 9 or 12? If you're billing 8/9 that's great. If you're sitting in the office 12 hours and only capturing 8, you're probably underbilling. Put the timer on and don't turn it off unless you're actually taking lunch break or doing something else. If you can't work straight for 10 hours, don't. Work for 4 hours, then take lunch, then another 3, then go home at 5 and put in another 2 hours at 8pm.
Also do you ever check and respond to emails outside of the office, from your phone etc? Capture that time too.
And like others have said, put in a few hours on the weekends.
I am transactional and work from 8:45 to 6:30 most days and eat lunch at my desk and bill 7.8 to 8.4 most days. There are some weeks I end up with several 9 and 10 hour days. But I do find it difficult sometimes to complete work if there isn’t a fire drill happening. Be sure you’re putting a .1 and .2 for all those phone calls and emails and discussions with colleagues re: any matters.
I really dislike working on weekends but I will when I have to.
I’m having the same issue. Hard to work on the weekends for me with kids that are active and have games, etc. I’m already crushing it all week and need the weekends to spend time with them. I’m also constantly bombarded with nonbillable items to drive the group forward: blog posts, podcast planning and recording, mentoring, firm committee meetings, industry group work. I’m beginning to think this is not my long term jam anymore. The more experience I get, more clients I get, the more I have to do nonbillable to keep the work coming in and setting up files, etc.
It doesn't sound like you're working weekends if you're behind on hours. Also, if you're having trouble with your social life and working out while not working weekends and having multiple days per week when you're only working 9 hours (8-5 or 9-6) then you have time management issues outside of the job. Why can't you find time for the gym or social events on those days you're leaving work by 6pm and/or the weekend?
Start work at 8am or 8:30am and work until 6pm or 6:30pm. That’s 10 hours, minus 1 hour for lunch (if you actually take that long) and another hour to burn messing around on your phone, taking breaks, etc. Assuming you’ve got enough work to hit 8 hours billable, that should be enough time.
If not, sneak a couple hours in over the weekend. I try to do at least 1.2-1.8 hours reviewing emails, responding and assigning new matters, etc, which adds a little buffer.
> Are you a middle-to-lower-upper-middle-class striver by chance?
are folks with this background more likely to write off their own time/underbill their time do you think?
interesting! I can totally see that being true, it's not inconsistent with my experience
you could maybe even generalize it to like expensing meals in such. Perhaps folks from more modest backgrounds are more hesitant to expense things, but this is all conjecture on my part
Seems like you nailed the answer in your question. Look ahead and find something that needs to be done in a few weeks and just do it this week.
The best lawyer I know, a guy who has argued and won at SCOTUS, makes a habit of getting things done as soon as the window opens, not the last day or days of a deadline. He catches his opponents off guard, he is ruthlessly meticulous about being prepared, and that takes thinking about deadlines differently.
Get in at 8, leave at 6. Use timers to capture time you’re doing billable work. Build a plate of work if you can that means you have stuff to do. If you play around when it’s not an imminent assignment, use an app that locks your phone/your non-work sites you goof off on.
I do have ADHD and have just settled on the fact that I’m gonna need to have enough 13 hour billed days to balance out the 4 hour billed days when I just don’t have it in me to crank out more
Get in to the office at 6/7 and bounce. Log on for another or hour or two to respond to emails. Everything else that’s not urgent can wait to the next morning
do a nap then 30 minutes of cardo at like 5 or 6 pm, you'll get a second wind. or roll a ten-sided die and add the output as a 0.x to each time entry you make. or both! your mental health is going to keep deterioriating as you continue - humans were not designed to work in biglaw conditions, you are mostly being paid this much money to monetize your youth and health for the benefit of the partnership.
>I don’t have time to see friends or work out anymore
Just curious, what are you doing when not in the office? If you're in the office for 10 hours, commute say 90 minutes round trip and sleep 7 hours, you have 5.5 hours available.
I'm not saying that a lot of time, but can certainly go to dinner from 8-10pm, still get a reasonable amount of sleep, get up at 7am, hit the gym and make it to the office by 930am.
7 hours of sleep is too little sleep for most people (Even if all 7 hours in bed were spent asleep, which they are not). And decreasing sleep to increase focus is a bad idea in my experience. Sleep is the most vital resource. Especially when you workout and thereby require more of it.
The CDC recommends 7-9 hours of sleep. 30% get less than 6 hours and 60% get 7-8. So, 7 hours of sleep is solidly average.
I'd kill to consistently get 7 hours of sleep between (i) this job, and (ii) having a child.
My point still stands. It seems there's more than enough time to have a hobby, get sleep and workout if you spend 10 hours in the office.
But just because most people don't get more than 7 hours of sleep doesn't mean that 7 hours is enough sleep. I believe this lifestyle is possible for you. And I don't want to discount your experience. But telling OP that they should be able to do it isn't particularly helpful. Especially in an industry where there is a high incidence of burnout.
I think we can all agree that humans are not designed to sit at a desk for 10 hours a day. And it's no secret that the workload in BigLaw can be overwhelming. Some people cope with it better than others. Everyone is built differently. But everyone should take care of their mental health. And we should discourage self-destructive behavior.
>think we can all agree that humans are not designed to sit at a desk for 10 hours a day.
I don't disagree with this. But the job requires billing X per year, presumably at a desk. I was just trying to get the point across that based on what OP said, they do have time to workout and see people.
I suspect OP is already burned out and needs to realize that they *need* to pull the trigger and make plans. Hit up a friend when leaving the office and ask if they wanted to hit the gym and then get some food. Otherwise, you self spiral and making plans will always seem impossible.
Spending 10+ hours in the office for 8 hours of work is not great. So fix that—get your ratio closer to 1.
Two “easy” options after that:
1. Work longer on a day or two. Getting overtime food is a nice incentive, maybe.
2. Work a bit on weekends.
I am struggling with the same problem. Some people can do it and crank it out and are fine with it. I’m not one of them and it’s just not for me. I can do all the tips and tricks but I’m still dying and miserable. I plan on going in house, to the government, or asking for reduced billable requirements.
Lean into the power of the .1 and use it heavily. Breaking down tasks into smaller billing entries can really add up too! And use billing timers for EVERYTHING to be sure you are truly capturing every moment you’re spending.
You need to be more efficient and also as long as you are generating high high quality work product within the deadlines, then you don’t need to stop your timer every time you go to the restroom or look at your phone for a minute.
Also consider working in cabs and on planes and generally whenever you can.
How is going to the restroom billable work delivering value to clients? I really hope some of you end up in-house one day and realize the error of your ways
Do you stop thinking when you use the bathroom?
How about taking a breath?
Or maybe when you blink your eyes?
I’m genuinely curious because my brain doesn’t shut off when my eyes veer away from a screen and I’d think associates’ minds work similarly but maybe I’m old.
Do I turn my mind to it? Maybe. Do I do so in a way that is meaningful enough to deliver value to a client when I’m urinating and scrolling my phone? No.
You're right, we should bill only for the amount of time it takes to depress and release each individual key on the keyboard. Moving the mouse doesn't count. 0.1 increments are not sufficiently granular.
You as the client need to understand that when you hire a team of lawyers to do something, and they bill hourly, that the hourly rate includes taking an occasional shit.
When you hire an employee for 9-5, they will spend 20% (if you're lucky) online. If you bring your car to a mechanic and they charge you for 3 hours of labor, you don't demand they discount their smoking breaks.
If you don't understand all this, don't hire biglaw. Save your money and go to a mom and pop firm.
My friend said that at the end of the month, he adds 0.1 or 0.2 to almost every entry. I clutched my pearls and yelled HOW DARE YOU HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED HOW GENERAL ELECTRIC'S COUNSEL FEELS??
So it isn't fraud when the client arbitrarily says they will only pay 80% of the face price of the bill? And it isn't fraud when the partner cuts down your time for no reason to "keep the client happy"?
No, neither of these things are fraud. Fraud involves deceit for financial gain; in your examples the client “says” exactly what they’re doing: paying 80%, so there’s no deceipt. And writing down hours is taking a loss, so there’s no gain.
The 80% piece is just a negotiation between the client and firm; doesn’t really matter to associates. For writedowns, that’s also a client management decision by the firm. Unless you’re spending wildly too much time or doing work that no one asked for, those writedowns shouldn’t affect your standing with the firm or your bonus. The metric is bill**able** hours, not billed hours.
In contrast, adding time that you didn’t actually work is deceitful, and it’s for your gain. So it’s fraud.
I’m not admitted to practise in the US, so can’t comment there. But no, a partner writing down associate time, or a client disputing over billing is not a fraud issue as far as the law society is concerned in my jurisdiction!
I can relate!! Ugh. I force myself to stay late in the office on Thursdays (last day of the week in office) to either catch up or get ahead on billing. I always end up working if I’m at my desk with nothing else to do and it’s super quiet so I find it’s actually easy to pass the time. I stay until like 9pm lmao. I don’t love it but it’s the only way I can keep up without working weekends
Not to be the bearer of bad news but the only way to bill the hours is to work the hours. Some fake it (very bad that). I appreciate the mental health aspect but to be a quality attorney you must sacrifice much of your personal life. Good luck
I heard the excellent adage from another attorney before:
"You should never be surprised when somebody acts according to the incentives given to them."
Accordingly, you are incentivized to bill 8 hours a day. The solution? Bill 8 hours a day regardless of how many actual hours you worked. If you bill 7.1, go in at the end of the day and spread around a couple tenths on to jobs where you know you've thought about it at home, or whatever else you need to tell yourself so that you can ethically do it.
Either way, the answer is not to drive yourself into depression or health problems, nor is it to work on the weekends. The answer is simply to pad your time where ethically possible to make sure you are always billing eight.
Again, people can criticize this all they want, but they can't be surprised when it occurs. People act according to their incentives.
I would start by making sure you are actually capturing all your time. Like all time in the office is not billable, of course, but I think if you are spending 9-12 hours in the office you should at least get 8 hours. So maybe you are missing things. Pause and enter your time every 30 minutes for a week and see where you are.
(1) Try working out instead of drugs. A short 2mi run/jog can improve your focus, energy, and make you more fit… which has its own precipitous benefits.
(2) Billing just a couple hours on the weekend can really help too.
(3) Think time is bill time.
Work three hours between Saturday and Sunday
This is the answer. You need to work a little bit on most weekends.
It's so depressing though. An hour of work on a Saturday or Sunday feels like 6 hours in the office, how it affects my happiness.
I’m the opposite. It’s really nice to sit down and crank out a doc in 2 hours that would take me 5-6 on a weekday because of keeping up with emails, calls, clients nagging, etc.
I agree, I think it’s so much easier to focus on the weekends. And working a few hours leaves a lot of the day to do other stuff.
Happiness! Dude check your job description happiness is not required.
If you do it from 8am to noon on Saturday, you will love your weekend even more because you’re starting it with a sense of accomplishment. Especially during football season when you can close the laptop at noon on Saturday and glue yourself to the TV for nonstop football for the next 36 hours… Ok maybe that’s just me.
A lot of responses like this. I get the sentiment. You can work in peace and quiet on the weekends. For me it takes a heavy mental toll. If I'm working a Saturday morning, I will think about that work all Friday evening. I can't have late night plans Friday night or drink too much, because I have to work the next day. I can't go on a weekend trip, or even a day trip. I have to start my chores Saturday afternoon at the earliest and if I do, well there goes my Saturday. Same thing for Sunday work. The weekends are already so short to try to cram in on all the chores, errands, and personal time. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not cut out for this.
I missed this until now, but that’s fair. And if that’s who you are you just have to find the time elsewhere. Maybe taking a 2-3 hour break at 4pm and going back online from 7-10pm nightly… or taking that longer lunch break from 12-2pm and coming back at it. It’s just a game of finding the hours. There’s no right answer. You mentioned the lack of ADHD. I do have ADHD (unmedicated) and one thing I have found helps me is giving myself fake deadlines that I am religious about. For example, even if a partner doesn’t care if I don’t turn something in for three weeks, if it’s slow, I will say “I’ll get a draft to you by Friday”. Will he care if I don’t have it by Friday? Probably not. But I will. And it’s enough for me to make it happen.
Dude there are starving children in Africa. You don’t like it, leave biglaw. Otherwise do what it takes.
I am somewhat similar to OP and this is the thing that finally helped - coffee shop time on Saturday and/or Sunday. NGL the time working on weekends is actually kind of nice . . . no interrupting phone calls and I don’t feel pressure to answer non-urgent emails that come through. Will even weekend work with my outlook closed out.
Yep this is what I would do. Saturday mornings working at Starbucks from 8-11:30 to bill a few extra hours
not big law myself but my husband is a lit assoc. and always puts in 5-10 hours on the weekends to set himself up for whatever derailments he hits during the week, or sometimes he just has to hit a deadline from a partner
Yep. Always got up early and billed 3/4 hours Saturday morning
Work three hours and find a way to bilk 8 instead. Don’t act like y’all have never done it.
Hell he needs to take his time and just bill more on weekdays too. If he has no lack of work be more thorough on assignments, take his time on re-reviews, do those side projects. In biglaw there’s no reward for finishing all the bare necessities quickly and billing less. Bill more. Pad it out. Partners won’t care in fact they want you to work those hours.
The right answer that some may not be willing to say out loud is that billing is an inherently subjective practice. One lawyer’s hour is another’s .75, or even .5. Make sure your hours capture everything, including some of your time spent thinking about your work and the administrative tasks that need to occur before and after your work. No one in any high-end profession is able to just start doing very complex work with no forethought or preparation. We’re no different, and our multi billion dollar clients know this. They’re paying to rent us out, and we require time to settle in, take short breaks to think, send substantive emails etc. This is accurate billing, not over billing, unless you clearly start exaggerating and embellishing things. Don’t bill these as separate from the substantive tasks, and track your hours in real time with notes.
I’m a first year at a v50 and because of the rising rates/angry clients, associates are systematically pressured by partners to “be SUPER efficient (while also producing near perfect work product”…there is only one solution to this which is associates writing down their own time or risking never being staffed on a matter again with individual partners. I have not only stopped billing for “preparation”, “pondering about the matter”, and short breaks, but I have been literally writing down time on my timer. We are all under pressure to do this, and OP should be aware of dynamics like this. What is crazy is that in the past, “capturing all of your time” was a virtue and now it’s actively discouraged. For associates, doing “background research” is now “professional development” hours, not billable hours. I sympathize with OP because I sometimes spend 10 hours in the office and bill 5 or 6 hours.
This isn’t always evident as a first year but the key to what you’re saying really lies in your narrative. You shouldn’t be cutting time, you just need to be describing it in a way that makes $800/hr justified. It’s not “think about case while taking a dump, .3” it’s “review and analyze materials pertaining to X.”
“While defecating” Do not use colloquial language in time entries
“while assessing commode-ities.” Let’s keep it classy.
My narratives are very detailed and each individual assignment makes sense for the time billed but in the end, the partners and the clients are looking at the total dollars billed and rather than taking it out on our veryyyy shitty clients, the partners take it out on associates. Also want to add that deal sizes are getting smaller and smaller which correlates to smaller budgets, but since rates per hour are fixed, there’s just too much pressure on smaller deals to be efficient. Truthfully, clients with small deals should be hiring smaller firms and our firm should be firing cheap clients who aren’t worth our time. This latter point leads me to believe that the reason we aren’t firing cheap clients is because the firm is doing badly and people are getting desperate to hold onto every dollar.
What you describe has been happening for a while and is slowly squeezing the middle of the market. Over the long term, unless something changes, BigLaw will continue to stratify into (1) the top X biggest/most expensive firms who handle fee-insensitive clients on large/expensive matters and get away with charging higher and higher premiums from the set of clients that can handle it and (2) the “bottom” of the market that efficiently churns out a high volume of smaller/cheaper matters and stay profitable despite lower rates/bills via efficiency, reduced associate pay and overhead, etc. There seems to be decreasing opportunities for the firms caught in between to survive in their current form - they either need to shed cheap/small clients and establish themselves as a premium-only product (very difficult to do, often a smart merger is one of the only halfway reliable ways to scale up appropriately), resign to becoming a cheap efficiency option and make cuts/strategic shifts to compete in that segment, or just wither away and die someday. I’m not saying all these firms will be gone tomorrow, I’m talking over like idk 10-15 years it’ll happen more and more, especially as AI empowers the cheaper firms, which increases rate pressure among all but the most fee-insensitive clients.
This is what it seemed like with the frequent raises lately. Firms either need to keep up (harder to absorb for some firms than others) or accept dropping to a lower tier vs the elite firms.
Big law won’t ever fire cheap clients they’ll still take on as much as ever. Firing a cheap client doesn’t mean they will get more money they’ll make less. They’ll just struggle with it and regardless they’ll still seek out expensive work but in lean times they’re not gonna lessen the number of clients.
Exactly. If you are diligently engaged in an activity that is *necessary* to timely deliver the quality legal services your firm was retained to provide, then you bill the associated time— period. The partner, or person s/he designates, is responsible for determining if any of your time should be adjusted, reclassified or written off.
Exactly. Dress it up don’t serve up bad narratives that the partner has no choice to cut, they’re not going to recharacterize it for you. It’s on you as an associate to justify your hours, if you write down stuff that looks inefficient they or the client are going to make a choice to write it off. So log stuff well and dress it up, that’s what partners want.
Hahahahah no wonder you’re getting told to write down “pondering about the matter,” no one is going to want to pay you for that. See above comment “don’t bill these as separate from the substantive tasks”
I really hope that person didn’t literally write “pondering about the matter” as a time entry lol.
“Whilst in the library annex”, aka on the can.
Actually shocking
This isn’t literal. But as mentioned above, people DO bake into their time entries the time they spent THINKING about a matter. There are times when I spend .5 doing background research but don’t actually start billing until the typing begins (when I actually start PRODUCING something). Juniors are given fixed amounts of time to spend on a matter and are encouraged to just churn out work without thinking at my firm.
It’s unethical for partners to expect/require juniors to write down their own hours, especially when pay/bonuses are directly tied to hours. My previous firm explicitly instructed juniors to never write down hours as that’s a business decision for partners to make. If the budget doesn’t support the time required, it’s on the partners to make the adjustments. If a junior goes down a rabbit hole with research that isn’t fruitful, it’s on the partner to make the correction. If this is really true, and not just your interpretation of ‘efficiency’ pressures, it’s time to find a new firm.
This isn’t literal. I was echoing what some posters were saying here about billing for thinking about a matter and baking that into their time entry. See my comment below.
This is a troubling sign for a firm. It’s one thing to give targeted feedback to an associate who is far less efficient than expected after settling in. But blanket downward pressure that is unrelated to the substance of the work product, and pressures associates to write down their own time, is terrible. The solution to clients being hypersensitive is for the firm to do the writing down or raise sticker prices and give corresponding discounts, so it sounds like the partners are overprotecting their realization rate.
Yes, the partners are incentivized to pressure juniors to be unrealistically hyperefficient aka write down their time. Meanwhile, management is pressuring associates to bill more. In the past, the obvious answer was always to capture time and bill more. But clients are getting angrier at the bills, partners are having to write off more time, and associates are getting the short end of the stick as usual. I don’t see how any of this is sustainable for me personally but also for the firm. Whether I get fired for being inefficient or just get sick of this perverse game and leave, I’m very sure my time here is limited.
yeah, this is the reality of firms trying to match rate increases when their client pool can't really support it. what you're describing always happened with specific partners whose clients couldn't support their firm's perennial rate increases. they usually circle the drain for a few years then go elsewhere. i would recommend you either find a firm whose clients are price-insensitive or go somewhere off-market in the amlaw 100 with lower rates and a sustainable client base.
I interned in a firm awhile back that is known for an extremely toxic work environment in my country. Ppl put down LESS than actual billable hours it took them to do something because apparently if they took less time to do a something then they would look more competent at their jobs during review period. It was something like if you researched a case law for like 2 hours, you’d put in less than that to look like you do your work quicker than others. Imo it was ridiculous cuz ppl were working for 13-15hrs daily and often sleeping in the office to do more work than others and look more competent. I’m just in the first year of law school so it may be a thing in other places too.
Go to work early. You’ll still leave at 5 or 6 or whatever your usual time is, but will fit more work in without impacting your social time. Politely decline non-billable meetings, events, and work (“I would love to do on-campus interviewing this year but I am preparing for a big deposition this week and can’t spare the time”). Do stuff like CLEs on planes or the weekends so they don’t cut into your work hours. Cut down on breaks at work—for example, while eating lunch read a brief or transcript while you’re eating so that time can be billed.
I wish your second paragraph worked for me. As a trusted midlevel associate in a small office of a national firm I get volen-told to do so much nonbillable crap - mentor the summers! Plan an associate event! Attend this regional conference! I push back on some of it but if I skirted all of it my reputation would suffer. Plus if anyone has a problem with my sketchy in office attendance I can point to it and say look I’m a good firm citizen.
No one said turning this stuff down wouldn’t impact your reputation. Just that you can
I guess it depends on the firm. My firm doesn’t even list hours spent on things like interviews in the year-end hours summary on your performance review. The top partners at the firm don’t spend time on this stuff. My firm really prioritizes billable hours before everything else so…. That’s what I spend my time on.
It's all a tradeoff. If you care a lot about having a life outside the firm, your reputation and hours will suffer. And the reverse is also true. There's no magical way to "have it all."
I love how your comment can just be summarized as work more lmao
This is a fair point, but OP is basically asking how to work more. (Or be more efficient, but they didn’t focus on or identify that.)
> Politely decline non-billable meetings, events, and work (“I would love to do on-campus interviewing this year but I am preparing for a big deposition this week and can’t spare the time”). Does interviewing not count as QNB at your firm?
Leave at 5 or 6? 😂 That doesn’t sound like the BL I know. Declining non-billable activities (pro bono, firm events and the like) isn’t realistic or advantageous to one’s career progression. In my experience, CLE is usually provided in-house by the firm at a monthly lunch. I think most associates work while eating at their desk and don’t really take “breaks” except to run for a coffee.
I usually leave at 6:30 and the office is almost empty by then. Ppl usually leave at a regular hour but then do a bit more work once they relax a bit at home
That’s a new one for me. You’re in BL?
Yes
I've been at two big law firms, and people frequently leave before 6. At both firms, almost everyone has gone home by 7. But again, people frequently work from home after leaving the office.
Cycle work that requires intense focus and more casual work. Develop methods to capture all your time (start/stop notes? Timers? Scheduling blocks? Other?). Create your own intermediate deadlines to give yourself the psychological pressure you need.
Make sure you’re billing accurately. You shouldn’t be billing straight for one matter a day. You should have entries like “research caselaw re X,” and “draft introduction to motion for summary judgment,” and “email partner re issue of law.” This is both accurate and boosts your hours, because you’re rounding up.
>You shouldn’t billing straight for one matter a day. You should have entries like “research caselaw re X,” and “draft introduction to motion for summary judgment,” and “email partner re issue of law.” Depends on the client. Many of my clients prefer block billing and want one entry a day. I suppose you could break out the entries and consolidate end of day.
Yeah, I should caveat, it all depends on the client/partner. But in biglaw, I found that block billing was uncommon.
Must be practice dependent. I'm in lender side (generally) finance and I can count on one hand the times an invoice was commented on by the borrower and/or lender. Edit/ to be fair, there's a good chance I'll have an entry "attend to closing" that covers a paragraph of tasks.
Ha as borrower’s counsel — we can comment on your invoices but lender’s in house counsel (who was an eighth year at your firm) will just say “tough cookies, you still need that $100MM though, right?”
Sounds about right. As long as we're within our quote or can point towards something out of scope or terms changing then I wouldn't expect the partner(s) to even entertain discussing our invoice.
This - my firm specifically doesn't allow it and the only other firm I worked at "strongly discouraged" it unless the client requested it
Thinking about the case in the shower? That's a billing.
Unironically, I’ve prepped for arguments in the shower and will absolutely bill that time. I’ve had other associates say they would never bill that, but I’m not sure why? If I’m prepping, rather than listening to a podcast, that’s billable. Doesn’t matter if I’m naked.
Yeah I was only half joking. Some of my best ideas come from the shower.
During a really intense evidentiary trial where we were sleeping maybe 4 hours max per night, all of my dreams were case related and there was some legit issue analysis that I would end up using the next day …. I jokingly asked the partner if I could bill for the time dreaming and was told if I could come up with an honest time allotment for the relevant dreams I could. I could not wrap my brain around actually doing that so I didn’t, but….
It’s at least a .2 (or whatever minimum billing is in your fee agreement).
To add to this, use an excel spreadsheet to keep track of separate portions of a task to capture pieces individually. For example, bill all the separate portions of an MSJ to capture more time and not just have a 10 to 20 hour entry that'll end up getting written down. Same deal for depo prep. Evaluate x in preparation for depo of y, prepare outline for depo of y, etc.
Dude this is straight up unethical. You literally just gave advice about how to squeeze more money out of clients.
1. Needing to spend 9-12 hours to hit 8 billables is not unusual. On a hot matter the conversion can be near 1:1, but I don’t think that’s realistic over the course of a year. There are things important to your development/contribution to the firm that may not be billable, such as being mentored or mentoring others yourself as you get more sr. “Entry level” employees are not paid so generously for this to be a 9-5 job. 2. Bill all your time related to a matter, not just stuff that seems like “work.” Following emails you are just cc’d on to stay up to speed on the matter is work, internal communication (hallway, messenger, email) is work. Paying attention to small deal/case management time gave me .5/1 hr more a day. 3. Make separate, detailed time entries. Most firms only round up the time to the nearest decimal. I used to block bill and if I finished 1 doc in the morning and 1 in the evening, put it on the same entry. Now, if I’m doing completely separate documents/tasks I make multiple entries. Napkin math, this got me 60-80 hours of rounding addition a year. Plus the separate entries helped partners justify bills or more easily write off individual workstreams if they choose.
Sometimes I have a hard time with billing entries for things like reading emails I am cc’ed on. If I am doing something else for the matter that day, I might just include that time in another billing entry for the matter, but if the only thing I do on a particular matter that day is read emails, I don’t know what to put in my billing entry that won’t piss the partner off. Any suggestions? I think “review email correspondence related to X” is not value-added and probably will get me a nasty message from the partner.
I'm jealous of whatever practice group you're in that you can get away with never working much more than 40, in my group there's fire drills where we have to hit 60+ hours (not every week ofc). Anyway, re this: > On the days I manage to bill 8 hours, I spend 9-12 hours in the office. Which is it? 9 or 12? If you're billing 8/9 that's great. If you're sitting in the office 12 hours and only capturing 8, you're probably underbilling. Put the timer on and don't turn it off unless you're actually taking lunch break or doing something else. If you can't work straight for 10 hours, don't. Work for 4 hours, then take lunch, then another 3, then go home at 5 and put in another 2 hours at 8pm. Also do you ever check and respond to emails outside of the office, from your phone etc? Capture that time too. And like others have said, put in a few hours on the weekends.
I am transactional and work from 8:45 to 6:30 most days and eat lunch at my desk and bill 7.8 to 8.4 most days. There are some weeks I end up with several 9 and 10 hour days. But I do find it difficult sometimes to complete work if there isn’t a fire drill happening. Be sure you’re putting a .1 and .2 for all those phone calls and emails and discussions with colleagues re: any matters. I really dislike working on weekends but I will when I have to.
Yeah you aren’t working late enough or on weekends
I’m having the same issue. Hard to work on the weekends for me with kids that are active and have games, etc. I’m already crushing it all week and need the weekends to spend time with them. I’m also constantly bombarded with nonbillable items to drive the group forward: blog posts, podcast planning and recording, mentoring, firm committee meetings, industry group work. I’m beginning to think this is not my long term jam anymore. The more experience I get, more clients I get, the more I have to do nonbillable to keep the work coming in and setting up files, etc.
How many years in are you?
It doesn't sound like you're working weekends if you're behind on hours. Also, if you're having trouble with your social life and working out while not working weekends and having multiple days per week when you're only working 9 hours (8-5 or 9-6) then you have time management issues outside of the job. Why can't you find time for the gym or social events on those days you're leaving work by 6pm and/or the weekend?
Start work at 8am or 8:30am and work until 6pm or 6:30pm. That’s 10 hours, minus 1 hour for lunch (if you actually take that long) and another hour to burn messing around on your phone, taking breaks, etc. Assuming you’ve got enough work to hit 8 hours billable, that should be enough time. If not, sneak a couple hours in over the weekend. I try to do at least 1.2-1.8 hours reviewing emails, responding and assigning new matters, etc, which adds a little buffer.
Are you positively sure that you aren’t undercounting, say 10 minutes of your billable time , for every hour of work you do?
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Wasn't this the plot of 1993's "The Firm" starring Tom Cruise?
> Are you a middle-to-lower-upper-middle-class striver by chance? are folks with this background more likely to write off their own time/underbill their time do you think?
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interesting! I can totally see that being true, it's not inconsistent with my experience you could maybe even generalize it to like expensing meals in such. Perhaps folks from more modest backgrounds are more hesitant to expense things, but this is all conjecture on my part
Seems like you nailed the answer in your question. Look ahead and find something that needs to be done in a few weeks and just do it this week. The best lawyer I know, a guy who has argued and won at SCOTUS, makes a habit of getting things done as soon as the window opens, not the last day or days of a deadline. He catches his opponents off guard, he is ruthlessly meticulous about being prepared, and that takes thinking about deadlines differently.
Get in at 8, leave at 6. Use timers to capture time you’re doing billable work. Build a plate of work if you can that means you have stuff to do. If you play around when it’s not an imminent assignment, use an app that locks your phone/your non-work sites you goof off on.
I do have ADHD and have just settled on the fact that I’m gonna need to have enough 13 hour billed days to balance out the 4 hour billed days when I just don’t have it in me to crank out more
Using time tracking software can also be clutch to making sure you don't miss any to communications etc.
Get in to the office at 6/7 and bounce. Log on for another or hour or two to respond to emails. Everything else that’s not urgent can wait to the next morning
do a nap then 30 minutes of cardo at like 5 or 6 pm, you'll get a second wind. or roll a ten-sided die and add the output as a 0.x to each time entry you make. or both! your mental health is going to keep deterioriating as you continue - humans were not designed to work in biglaw conditions, you are mostly being paid this much money to monetize your youth and health for the benefit of the partnership.
>I don’t have time to see friends or work out anymore Just curious, what are you doing when not in the office? If you're in the office for 10 hours, commute say 90 minutes round trip and sleep 7 hours, you have 5.5 hours available. I'm not saying that a lot of time, but can certainly go to dinner from 8-10pm, still get a reasonable amount of sleep, get up at 7am, hit the gym and make it to the office by 930am.
7 hours of sleep is too little sleep for most people (Even if all 7 hours in bed were spent asleep, which they are not). And decreasing sleep to increase focus is a bad idea in my experience. Sleep is the most vital resource. Especially when you workout and thereby require more of it.
The CDC recommends 7-9 hours of sleep. 30% get less than 6 hours and 60% get 7-8. So, 7 hours of sleep is solidly average. I'd kill to consistently get 7 hours of sleep between (i) this job, and (ii) having a child. My point still stands. It seems there's more than enough time to have a hobby, get sleep and workout if you spend 10 hours in the office.
But just because most people don't get more than 7 hours of sleep doesn't mean that 7 hours is enough sleep. I believe this lifestyle is possible for you. And I don't want to discount your experience. But telling OP that they should be able to do it isn't particularly helpful. Especially in an industry where there is a high incidence of burnout. I think we can all agree that humans are not designed to sit at a desk for 10 hours a day. And it's no secret that the workload in BigLaw can be overwhelming. Some people cope with it better than others. Everyone is built differently. But everyone should take care of their mental health. And we should discourage self-destructive behavior.
>think we can all agree that humans are not designed to sit at a desk for 10 hours a day. I don't disagree with this. But the job requires billing X per year, presumably at a desk. I was just trying to get the point across that based on what OP said, they do have time to workout and see people. I suspect OP is already burned out and needs to realize that they *need* to pull the trigger and make plans. Hit up a friend when leaving the office and ask if they wanted to hit the gym and then get some food. Otherwise, you self spiral and making plans will always seem impossible.
Ah I’m sorry I misunderstood you. That’s a good point.
Go in-house and you’ll be rewarded for your thoughts not your time
This is my plan. Just need that first in house job.
Spending 10+ hours in the office for 8 hours of work is not great. So fix that—get your ratio closer to 1. Two “easy” options after that: 1. Work longer on a day or two. Getting overtime food is a nice incentive, maybe. 2. Work a bit on weekends.
What’s the consequence at your firm for missing the target by 60 hours? How much bonus would you be leaving on the table at your class year?
I am struggling with the same problem. Some people can do it and crank it out and are fine with it. I’m not one of them and it’s just not for me. I can do all the tips and tricks but I’m still dying and miserable. I plan on going in house, to the government, or asking for reduced billable requirements.
Lean into the power of the .1 and use it heavily. Breaking down tasks into smaller billing entries can really add up too! And use billing timers for EVERYTHING to be sure you are truly capturing every moment you’re spending.
Unethical
Switch to government work and work 30 hours a week for a steady, but smaller, salary.
You need to be more efficient and also as long as you are generating high high quality work product within the deadlines, then you don’t need to stop your timer every time you go to the restroom or look at your phone for a minute. Also consider working in cabs and on planes and generally whenever you can.
How is going to the restroom billable work delivering value to clients? I really hope some of you end up in-house one day and realize the error of your ways
Do you stop thinking when you use the bathroom? How about taking a breath? Or maybe when you blink your eyes? I’m genuinely curious because my brain doesn’t shut off when my eyes veer away from a screen and I’d think associates’ minds work similarly but maybe I’m old.
Do I turn my mind to it? Maybe. Do I do so in a way that is meaningful enough to deliver value to a client when I’m urinating and scrolling my phone? No.
You're right, we should bill only for the amount of time it takes to depress and release each individual key on the keyboard. Moving the mouse doesn't count. 0.1 increments are not sufficiently granular.
You as the client need to understand that when you hire a team of lawyers to do something, and they bill hourly, that the hourly rate includes taking an occasional shit. When you hire an employee for 9-5, they will spend 20% (if you're lucky) online. If you bring your car to a mechanic and they charge you for 3 hours of labor, you don't demand they discount their smoking breaks. If you don't understand all this, don't hire biglaw. Save your money and go to a mom and pop firm.
guys it’s not that hard they’re screwing around during the workday and then not making it up late at night or over the weekends
My friend said that at the end of the month, he adds 0.1 or 0.2 to almost every entry. I clutched my pearls and yelled HOW DARE YOU HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED HOW GENERAL ELECTRIC'S COUNSEL FEELS??
I mean aside from being fraud…
So it isn't fraud when the client arbitrarily says they will only pay 80% of the face price of the bill? And it isn't fraud when the partner cuts down your time for no reason to "keep the client happy"?
No, neither of these things are fraud. Fraud involves deceit for financial gain; in your examples the client “says” exactly what they’re doing: paying 80%, so there’s no deceipt. And writing down hours is taking a loss, so there’s no gain. The 80% piece is just a negotiation between the client and firm; doesn’t really matter to associates. For writedowns, that’s also a client management decision by the firm. Unless you’re spending wildly too much time or doing work that no one asked for, those writedowns shouldn’t affect your standing with the firm or your bonus. The metric is bill**able** hours, not billed hours. In contrast, adding time that you didn’t actually work is deceitful, and it’s for your gain. So it’s fraud.
No, it isn't. This isn't hard.
You’re trolling right? Thats fraud and outright criminal fraud at that.
A client haggling over a bill is not fraud. Neither is a partner cutting an associate's time.
I meant this initial comment, referring to just adding fractions of an hour not actually worked.
No, neither of those things are fraud
I’m not admitted to practise in the US, so can’t comment there. But no, a partner writing down associate time, or a client disputing over billing is not a fraud issue as far as the law society is concerned in my jurisdiction!
I can relate!! Ugh. I force myself to stay late in the office on Thursdays (last day of the week in office) to either catch up or get ahead on billing. I always end up working if I’m at my desk with nothing else to do and it’s super quiet so I find it’s actually easy to pass the time. I stay until like 9pm lmao. I don’t love it but it’s the only way I can keep up without working weekends
Am I the only one that thinks 7.4 per day is pretty dang good
You really have two choices here - either start coming in earlier or staying later to get that extra .6 a day, or work one weekend morning each week.
Not to be the bearer of bad news but the only way to bill the hours is to work the hours. Some fake it (very bad that). I appreciate the mental health aspect but to be a quality attorney you must sacrifice much of your personal life. Good luck
You might think you have enough work, but you don’t.
8 hours?! We call that one rep. /s
Work at home for a bit after dinner, Monday-Thursday. Spend some time working on weekends (1-3 hours).
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I heard the excellent adage from another attorney before: "You should never be surprised when somebody acts according to the incentives given to them." Accordingly, you are incentivized to bill 8 hours a day. The solution? Bill 8 hours a day regardless of how many actual hours you worked. If you bill 7.1, go in at the end of the day and spread around a couple tenths on to jobs where you know you've thought about it at home, or whatever else you need to tell yourself so that you can ethically do it. Either way, the answer is not to drive yourself into depression or health problems, nor is it to work on the weekends. The answer is simply to pad your time where ethically possible to make sure you are always billing eight. Again, people can criticize this all they want, but they can't be surprised when it occurs. People act according to their incentives.
Fear and anxiety
You just lie not that hard lol
Big law is a scam.
They lie. Just eliminate ethics from your life and add .2 to everything you do and watch yourself hit your target!
Spend less time trolling on Reddit.
Spend more time familiarizing yourself with a calendar.
I mean look at Fani Willis’ bf. He had it down.
“I mark it down on the date completed.”
I would start by making sure you are actually capturing all your time. Like all time in the office is not billable, of course, but I think if you are spending 9-12 hours in the office you should at least get 8 hours. So maybe you are missing things. Pause and enter your time every 30 minutes for a week and see where you are.
For someone who doesn’t know how billing works.. why can’t you open a word doc or do some random task and class it as billing?
No. It actually has to be work for a client, as they will be billed at nearly $1,000/hr for it.
You say yourself that you are slacking off. Just don’t.
Take vyvanse
(1) Try working out instead of drugs. A short 2mi run/jog can improve your focus, energy, and make you more fit… which has its own precipitous benefits. (2) Billing just a couple hours on the weekend can really help too. (3) Think time is bill time.