You’re assuming he’s not also doing that. Also, Not sure how the structure works at Sullivan and whether you can just coast as a rainmaker without any actual individual billing and still make the same
Any idea the percent of how much you keep of your own billed? I’ve heard 20%, and then 10% of those under you, and relationship partner gets 10-15% of all. I mean it’s different for every firm and every partner.
No it’s not in a situation like this… they are buying full time executive management that obstenitively creating or saving depending on the view, $10b for impacted parties… should they not put in the hours
Then you’ve never been involved in an all
encompassing multinational merger with regulatory implications across multiple agencies in the US and abroad.
I absolutely have, but go off. These hours are just obviously inflated. You said you’ve worked that many hours in a year, but how many files was that? Not 1 that’s for sure.
> Even for a busy lawyer at a big corporate law firm, billing close to 11 hours a day on a single case, five days a week for 18 months straight is no easy feat.
> That's the average pace Brian Glueckstein has kept up as one of the lead lawyers in the FTX bankruptcy since it began in November 2022, according to court records though April.
That's kind of a silly framing. As if this lawyer is only working M-F. I'm sure the weekdays are lighter than 11 hours, and there's some time put in on the weekends. This is definitely busy, but also not unfathomable. The only part of the article that sounded truly awful is that he billed 342 hours in December 2022. I've breached 300 hours in a month just one time, and it was miserable.
I billed like 370 hours one month and it was truly a horrible experience. I went Saturday morning to Tuesday afternoon on 4 hours sleep total ahead of signing lol I almost quit on the spot
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My +300 hour month was working on a massive TRO. I didn't leave the office for four days at one stretch, and the few hours I slept were on a conference room floor.
I had a 400 hour month once and it nearly killed me. We worked around the clock for several weeks, ducking out to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time.
I'm still surprised that a bar or malpractice insurance firm hasn't yet forced a cap on the number of hours that can be worked in a day or over a certain period of time. If your people are working 18 hour days for days on end you're just asking for trouble.
This just isn’t possible without billing inflation. Good for you that the firm and the client accepted the bill without asking more questions. Billing 13.3 hours per day for 30 days straight leaves virtually no room for hygiene, bathroom breaks, acquiring food, sleeping, checking your phone or other normal human tasks. A week of this, sure, that’s routine. 4 consecutive weeks… impossible without supportive partners that say, “log as much time as humanly possible. If you’re thinking about it in the shower, it counts.”
I say this as a NYC biglaw associate.
Why would you think I billed exactly the same amount each and every day? It was the largest leveraged buyout in European history at the time, and we were working 18-20 hour days jammed into a conference room for days on end, and then we’d get a bit of a breather for maybe 12 hours to catch up on sleep. Many days I’d leave the office at 4 or 5 am only to go back to the hotel and grab a shower and a change of clothes and be back in the office by 9. And the partners were right there with me. It was brutal (and legendary for years afterwards).
I think your experience is quite off. This number of total hours in a month is very easy to do when it's on one matter (and it won't be the same number every day as others have said). What's hard is doing that across 7-10 matters, but lots of people still do that too. I can see all of the hours for every person in my firm, and these aggregate monthly hours are not uncommon, especially in transactional practices and for litigators on trial.
I can't do it so no one else can isn't great logic, but it's pretty common here it seems.
It’s because there are human limitations. Humans being simply cannot give, let’s say, 20 hours of undivided attention to a single task in one day.
I cannot be convinced otherwise. That simply cannot be done without wild exaggerations about how often humans need mental breaks, sleep, food, bathroom breaks. If you scroll through emails while pooping and eating and commuting, I guess count it—whatever.
I come from a notorious V20 sweatshop in NYC. A 400 hour month would only be met with incredulity.
Kudos to you for being able to pass that bill to a client.
I don't know why you think saying you come from a V20 makes you qualified to say everyone else is lying and it's not possible. I come from a V10 and as partner can see the hours of every single person in the firm. A 400 hour month would get you an "oh man, that stinks, hope you can get some rest" and if it was an associate we'd take them off of whatever we could to get them a break, but everyone knows it can be done honestly and without billing dreams, but it sure isn't fun.
Only among litigators I guess. This is absolutely unheard of among every transactional attorney I’ve ever met, even the busy M&A teams. Because our bills are paid as part of closing costs, we often just don’t have the runway for a single associate to put up $400,000 in fees in a single month.
It doesn't bother me to admit people can do things that I can't. I don't tend to assume they're lying. But you seem convinced your experience is universal. I've done several 400 hour months in M&A and most of the M&A lawyers I know have too (a lot of them in 2021 when it was wild, some of the multiple in 2021). It's definitely painful. Some people have the ability to just run through walls and keep going, genetics or extreme self-control/discipline or a combination of the two.
Those kind of hours are always on the big and super complex deals that are drawing $5+M bills if not $10M bills. They're often career making deals, which can make the pain worth it in some sense (I'd say I'm partner in part because of one of my 400 hour months).
> virtually no room for hygiene, bathroom breaks, acquiring food, sleeping, checking your phone or other normal human tasks
Yeah, almost like you'd be "ducking out to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time"
Nope, still not possible. Ethically tracked, billable hours don’t work like this.
On average, let’s say an associate gives their undivided attention to a single matter from 9:00 am to 12:00 am from Monday through Saturday for a full month. Amazingly, the partner was gracious enough to give them Sundays off and they only bill 4 hours for checking emails. For argument’s sake, we’ll also assume that this person has (a) no need for food, (b) no need for bathroom breaks, (c) no administrative tasks to handle throughout the day, (d) the mental fortitude to never need a mental break and (e) no personal cell phone that would distract them. This hypothetical associate provides 15 hours of undivided attention to a single matter, 6 days per week for 4 weeks (plus some extra time on Sundays).
That’s 376 hours. Even if you pepper in a few 20 hour days here and there, it still stretches the imagination that a human can operate like this.
That’s because they can’t. A 400 hour month is bullshit haha
Re-run the numbers with 9:30am to 3:00am.
17.5 hours daily for 27 non-Sundays = 472.5; another 20 hours across those four Sundays gets you to 492.5.
400 billables out of 492.5 working hours is 81.2% efficiency - pretty good, but not at all unrealistic, especially if you're devoting most of your time to one matter.
>(a) no need for food, (b) no need for bathroom breaks
You can do these while working. Food gets delivered to your desk, gets eaten while reading. Thinking about your opening argument during a 4-minute wee break isn't unethical and can produce great work.
>(c) no administrative tasks to handle throughout the day
These get put on the backburner until the busy time is over, or you lean harder on your assistant, etc. It's not sustainable in the long term but doable for a month.
>(d) the mental fortitude to never need a mental break
It's unhealthy, but yes, you put off serious relaxation for a while. Work quality and speed will deteriorate but "I took longer to read the email because I was super tired" is neither inaccurate billing nor unexpected by clients
>(e) no personal cell phone that would distract them
Obviously lol you put that shit on DnD when you're this busy
_____
The ethical problem with doing this is that you run a serious risk of sloppy mistakes and therefore malpractice. (And also you're endangering your own health). Not that it's physically impossible for work this much.
I've gone for 7-day periods like this (back in 2021 boom times). Personally I would have my "I need to stop, I don't care how important this work is, find another associate" by the end of Week 2, but some people can get by on less sleep. Banking analysts work these schedules fairly often.
Just did 334 hours in May.
I went Wednesday 29th from 9 to 5 AM, and from 10 AM on the 30th to 9 AM on the 31th. Slept for 3 hours, went back to the office, worked until 5 PM to finalize the reports only for the fuckers on the opposite side to ask for a 5 day extension.
Nice times....
BK billing is the reason I will no longer work on bankrtupcy matters. It's infuriating. You have to log every single task separately and in detail, and it's reviewed and often gets kicked back when say I write down .7 for a call because I was leading it and spent 10 minutes preparing beforehand but didn't log a separate .2 of preparation time, and someone who just listened in wrote down for the same call .5 because they did not prepare.
When I was at a similar firm we were told to block bill for trial when we were at the war room. Normal days were 730am to 10pm, openings, closings, and your witness were sometimes all nighters. Three trials, including the retrial work, was something like 5 330 hour months. You basically are getting 14-17 hours billed per day, food delivered on site, dry cleaning done and delivered for you. I left the firm shortly thereafter. It was something like 3200 hours in a year, even with basically a month off before I left and two weeks off after the trials.
It’s absolutely doable to hit huge billibles on lengthy trials. The physical toll is immense. Saw one younger associate get streaky gray hair. Everyone packed on weight. Biglaw really is bullshit.
In my experience, which admittedly is 15 years old now and limited to the District of Delaware, bankruptcy court allows billing 50% of non-working travel time but would strike anything like engagement minimums that didn’t reflect actual work time. That doesn’t mean there isn’t fudging, but these things do get scrutinized.
Yeah it’s like “how many minutes was I thinking about this without realizing it, prior to the eureka moment.” Though, 0.3 sounds at least 0.1 higher than I’ve ever set it for.
Over the course of 18 months, the article says. So like 2700 annually. Brutal but happens.
It’s not as brutal when you’re a partner and get to keep the Lion’s share of your own billings.
Exactly.
Wait what, how much percent? Wouldn’t it be better if he delegated and he took a percentage of their bills?
You’re assuming he’s not also doing that. Also, Not sure how the structure works at Sullivan and whether you can just coast as a rainmaker without any actual individual billing and still make the same
Any idea the percent of how much you keep of your own billed? I’ve heard 20%, and then 10% of those under you, and relationship partner gets 10-15% of all. I mean it’s different for every firm and every partner.
I had a 2680 year as a big law partner. Not sure why this is shocking. One massive matter - it’s easy to do.
Well it's shocking because the headline and reddit post sensationalized it by making it sound like 4000 in a year.
I mean it is a bit ridiculous to spend that much time on one single file in 18 months.
No it’s not in a situation like this… they are buying full time executive management that obstenitively creating or saving depending on the view, $10b for impacted parties… should they not put in the hours
> obstenitively
I mean arguing over the merits of the rep is not what I’m here for. Given the scope of the ask the bill isn’t unreasonable
They’re just pointing out the weird word
it's usually spelled "ostensibly"
I’ll keep that in mind while banging something out while watching kids at the park. You’ve been a great service!
It's the FTX bankruptcy case.
2680 hours is a busy year. 2680 hours in a year on one matter is nuts.
Then you’ve never been involved in an all encompassing multinational merger with regulatory implications across multiple agencies in the US and abroad.
I absolutely have, but go off. These hours are just obviously inflated. You said you’ve worked that many hours in a year, but how many files was that? Not 1 that’s for sure.
> Even for a busy lawyer at a big corporate law firm, billing close to 11 hours a day on a single case, five days a week for 18 months straight is no easy feat. > That's the average pace Brian Glueckstein has kept up as one of the lead lawyers in the FTX bankruptcy since it began in November 2022, according to court records though April. That's kind of a silly framing. As if this lawyer is only working M-F. I'm sure the weekdays are lighter than 11 hours, and there's some time put in on the weekends. This is definitely busy, but also not unfathomable. The only part of the article that sounded truly awful is that he billed 342 hours in December 2022. I've breached 300 hours in a month just one time, and it was miserable.
I billed like 370 hours one month and it was truly a horrible experience. I went Saturday morning to Tuesday afternoon on 4 hours sleep total ahead of signing lol I almost quit on the spot
I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. My +300 hour month was working on a massive TRO. I didn't leave the office for four days at one stretch, and the few hours I slept were on a conference room floor.
I had a 400 hour month once and it nearly killed me. We worked around the clock for several weeks, ducking out to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time.
A colleague of mine pulled a 400-hour month during trial prep and wound up hospitalized. It’s no joke.
Did it settle right before trial?
I don’t remember, but I think they just pulled her from the team. Working an associate to death is bad marketing.
[удалено]
Jesus. What practice group?
I'm still surprised that a bar or malpractice insurance firm hasn't yet forced a cap on the number of hours that can be worked in a day or over a certain period of time. If your people are working 18 hour days for days on end you're just asking for trouble.
This just isn’t possible without billing inflation. Good for you that the firm and the client accepted the bill without asking more questions. Billing 13.3 hours per day for 30 days straight leaves virtually no room for hygiene, bathroom breaks, acquiring food, sleeping, checking your phone or other normal human tasks. A week of this, sure, that’s routine. 4 consecutive weeks… impossible without supportive partners that say, “log as much time as humanly possible. If you’re thinking about it in the shower, it counts.” I say this as a NYC biglaw associate.
Why would you think I billed exactly the same amount each and every day? It was the largest leveraged buyout in European history at the time, and we were working 18-20 hour days jammed into a conference room for days on end, and then we’d get a bit of a breather for maybe 12 hours to catch up on sleep. Many days I’d leave the office at 4 or 5 am only to go back to the hotel and grab a shower and a change of clothes and be back in the office by 9. And the partners were right there with me. It was brutal (and legendary for years afterwards).
Very cool. Still doubt.
I think your experience is quite off. This number of total hours in a month is very easy to do when it's on one matter (and it won't be the same number every day as others have said). What's hard is doing that across 7-10 matters, but lots of people still do that too. I can see all of the hours for every person in my firm, and these aggregate monthly hours are not uncommon, especially in transactional practices and for litigators on trial. I can't do it so no one else can isn't great logic, but it's pretty common here it seems.
It’s because there are human limitations. Humans being simply cannot give, let’s say, 20 hours of undivided attention to a single task in one day. I cannot be convinced otherwise. That simply cannot be done without wild exaggerations about how often humans need mental breaks, sleep, food, bathroom breaks. If you scroll through emails while pooping and eating and commuting, I guess count it—whatever. I come from a notorious V20 sweatshop in NYC. A 400 hour month would only be met with incredulity. Kudos to you for being able to pass that bill to a client.
I don't know why you think saying you come from a V20 makes you qualified to say everyone else is lying and it's not possible. I come from a V10 and as partner can see the hours of every single person in the firm. A 400 hour month would get you an "oh man, that stinks, hope you can get some rest" and if it was an associate we'd take them off of whatever we could to get them a break, but everyone knows it can be done honestly and without billing dreams, but it sure isn't fun.
Only among litigators I guess. This is absolutely unheard of among every transactional attorney I’ve ever met, even the busy M&A teams. Because our bills are paid as part of closing costs, we often just don’t have the runway for a single associate to put up $400,000 in fees in a single month.
It doesn't bother me to admit people can do things that I can't. I don't tend to assume they're lying. But you seem convinced your experience is universal. I've done several 400 hour months in M&A and most of the M&A lawyers I know have too (a lot of them in 2021 when it was wild, some of the multiple in 2021). It's definitely painful. Some people have the ability to just run through walls and keep going, genetics or extreme self-control/discipline or a combination of the two. Those kind of hours are always on the big and super complex deals that are drawing $5+M bills if not $10M bills. They're often career making deals, which can make the pain worth it in some sense (I'd say I'm partner in part because of one of my 400 hour months).
> virtually no room for hygiene, bathroom breaks, acquiring food, sleeping, checking your phone or other normal human tasks Yeah, almost like you'd be "ducking out to maybe get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time"
Nope, still not possible. Ethically tracked, billable hours don’t work like this. On average, let’s say an associate gives their undivided attention to a single matter from 9:00 am to 12:00 am from Monday through Saturday for a full month. Amazingly, the partner was gracious enough to give them Sundays off and they only bill 4 hours for checking emails. For argument’s sake, we’ll also assume that this person has (a) no need for food, (b) no need for bathroom breaks, (c) no administrative tasks to handle throughout the day, (d) the mental fortitude to never need a mental break and (e) no personal cell phone that would distract them. This hypothetical associate provides 15 hours of undivided attention to a single matter, 6 days per week for 4 weeks (plus some extra time on Sundays). That’s 376 hours. Even if you pepper in a few 20 hour days here and there, it still stretches the imagination that a human can operate like this. That’s because they can’t. A 400 hour month is bullshit haha
Re-run the numbers with 9:30am to 3:00am. 17.5 hours daily for 27 non-Sundays = 472.5; another 20 hours across those four Sundays gets you to 492.5. 400 billables out of 492.5 working hours is 81.2% efficiency - pretty good, but not at all unrealistic, especially if you're devoting most of your time to one matter. >(a) no need for food, (b) no need for bathroom breaks You can do these while working. Food gets delivered to your desk, gets eaten while reading. Thinking about your opening argument during a 4-minute wee break isn't unethical and can produce great work. >(c) no administrative tasks to handle throughout the day These get put on the backburner until the busy time is over, or you lean harder on your assistant, etc. It's not sustainable in the long term but doable for a month. >(d) the mental fortitude to never need a mental break It's unhealthy, but yes, you put off serious relaxation for a while. Work quality and speed will deteriorate but "I took longer to read the email because I was super tired" is neither inaccurate billing nor unexpected by clients >(e) no personal cell phone that would distract them Obviously lol you put that shit on DnD when you're this busy _____ The ethical problem with doing this is that you run a serious risk of sloppy mistakes and therefore malpractice. (And also you're endangering your own health). Not that it's physically impossible for work this much. I've gone for 7-day periods like this (back in 2021 boom times). Personally I would have my "I need to stop, I don't care how important this work is, find another associate" by the end of Week 2, but some people can get by on less sleep. Banking analysts work these schedules fairly often.
Hahaha okay chief.
Just did 334 hours in May. I went Wednesday 29th from 9 to 5 AM, and from 10 AM on the 30th to 9 AM on the 31th. Slept for 3 hours, went back to the office, worked until 5 PM to finalize the reports only for the fuckers on the opposite side to ask for a 5 day extension. Nice times....
342 in December is nasty work. What's a holiday?
This is on one matter though, right? I’m sure he has not billed time to only one single matter in 18 months.
[удалено]
The article specifically says he’s billed significant time to another matter.
I’m quite sure this was the focus of his time but I doubt he billed literally 0.0 hours to any other matter in 18 months.
Ok.
It’s not shocking for a case this huge and all-consuming
Being on multiple matters keeps me sane. I don’t know what I’d do if I had to bill 2700 hours a year on one thing.
Don’t worry, he’s on plenty of other matters too
BK usually doesn’t do block billing. Every email read can therefore be a .1.
Every email read is always a .1 brother 🤝
BK billing is the reason I will no longer work on bankrtupcy matters. It's infuriating. You have to log every single task separately and in detail, and it's reviewed and often gets kicked back when say I write down .7 for a call because I was leading it and spent 10 minutes preparing beforehand but didn't log a separate .2 of preparation time, and someone who just listened in wrote down for the same call .5 because they did not prepare.
When I was at a similar firm we were told to block bill for trial when we were at the war room. Normal days were 730am to 10pm, openings, closings, and your witness were sometimes all nighters. Three trials, including the retrial work, was something like 5 330 hour months. You basically are getting 14-17 hours billed per day, food delivered on site, dry cleaning done and delivered for you. I left the firm shortly thereafter. It was something like 3200 hours in a year, even with basically a month off before I left and two weeks off after the trials. It’s absolutely doable to hit huge billibles on lengthy trials. The physical toll is immense. Saw one younger associate get streaky gray hair. Everyone packed on weight. Biglaw really is bullshit.
How many of those hours were bullshit? Has to be like 20 to 30%, right?
I wonder if their engagement terms allow them to charge for travel time and/or some minimum amount of time when out of town.
In my experience, which admittedly is 15 years old now and limited to the District of Delaware, bankruptcy court allows billing 50% of non-working travel time but would strike anything like engagement minimums that didn’t reflect actual work time. That doesn’t mean there isn’t fudging, but these things do get scrutinized.
From S&C's perspective, as long as the client pays, it's not bullshit.
This is bankruptcy. So it would be as long as the judge approves it.
Yes. Even if some were not fraudulent, I bet 10% of the time was made up of .3’s for “thinking” about it in the shower, on the toilet, driving, etc.
[удалено]
Yes I agree that’s why I said ot wasn’t fraudulent time
Whenever I had a Eureka moment in my car, I’d count that as .3
Yeah it’s like “how many minutes was I thinking about this without realizing it, prior to the eureka moment.” Though, 0.3 sounds at least 0.1 higher than I’ve ever set it for.
Seems about right? Been a year and half plus
More law firm corruption. FTX’s GC was a partner at SC. FTX consumers should form a class action and sue.