ABA Journal

3000 billable hours a year? That’s not terriby credible and sounds like some serious bill-padding to me.

By Robin on 2010 03 26, 1:24 am CDT

It is possible to do 3,000 billed hours a year without padding.  You just have no life outside your practice, and you are perpetually tired.

By Phil Byler on 2010 03 26, 6:13 am CDT

It’s definitely possible.  I have not done it, but I have seen other do it.  We have a partner - a single woman - who bills 3,000 consistently, year after year.  She’s a machine - and she’s always here.  I don’t know if she sleeps or ever goes home.  Maybe she lives here.

By BigLaw Associate on 2010 03 26, 6:54 am CDT

This is kind of funny, “striking” the allegations after they have made the rounds in several news stories on the worldwide web.  Quaint little exercise there.

By B. McLeod on 2010 03 26, 7:30 am CDT

I certainly believe it is possible for a Sedgwick associate to bill 3000 hours in a year.  In fact, I think it is rather low for that firm (I have several cases where Sedgwick lawyers are on the other side at this very moment).  It only works out to 57.6 hours each week and if he’s working Saturdays, that’s just over 9 hours a day.  Work a few Sundays each year, and you can still take off for the holidays. 

Haworth was probably asking Levy what the hell he was doing with all his down time.  I have been in that boat before.  If you don’t like it, leave it like I did.  Don’t be a wuss and go have a breakdown then sue the firm you’re going to need a reference from.  It’s not for everybody.  It wasn’t for me and apparently it wasn’t for Levy either. 

The part that amuses me is that I left my former firm on good terms, had another job before I walked out the door, my salary is slightly less (only by a couple of thousand dollars), but I am home at night to help my daughter with her homework, I have my weekends to myself and my family, and I actually do have a life outside of my office.

This guy takes an long leave of absence, comes back when the legal profession has taken a bad turn, gets discharged, and rather than leaving on good terms (which he should have done before he had a breakdown), he sues.  Now he’ll be lucky if he can get a job anywhere ever again (a simple Google search will ensure that).  I bet he thought that he was going to get a law degree, play his X-box every day, show up to the office around 1:00, leave at 4:00, head over to the bar across the street, and get paid six figures for doing so.  It never occurred to him that being a lawyer actually involves hard work.

There are too many crybabies in the legal profession.  I think Levy is one of them.

By Just another Lawyer on 2010 03 26, 9:09 am CDT

Re: Just another Lawyer
Mar 26, 2010 9:09 AM CDT

Seems like you forgot to add all of the administrative tasks, writing, meetings, and other non-billable hours.

By RO on 2010 03 26, 9:45 am CDT

Makes me wonder if 3000 billable hours = quality legal work.

By Workin' Joe on 2010 03 26, 9:57 am CDT

Well said, #5. There are just far too many crybabies out there.

One extreme:

3000 billable hours = lots and lots of $ = possible mental breakdown, no social or family life, pissed-off attitude

Other extreme:

What billable hours? = enough $ to coast by = plenty of time off, normal social and family life, care-free attitude

Pick your extreme and face the consequences, good or bad they may be.

By CreazioneDiAdamo on 2010 03 26, 10:37 am CDT

Look.  I had offers to work for some pressure city firms but decided to have a life instead.  Retired at 55; now 70…just back from Caribbean cruise…Bermuda in April…and sailing off Cape Cod all summer.  Three thousand billable hours, you have to be crazy.  Some of my law school friends haven’t had a real vacation in years and are still working!  There are other things for Levy to work at that pay well and preserve one’s sanity.

By Retired Lawyer on 2010 03 26, 11:33 am CDT

I believe it. I once billed 2876.  It nearly killed me, bu I did it.

By Kathleen on 2010 03 26, 11:49 am CDT

3,000 hours a year is about 8.2 hours a day seven days a week which equals a 56 hour work week.  This doesn’t seem that unusual.  Average billable firms require at least 200 hours a month for a total of 2400 a year—even more, if there are bonus incentives.  Also, it appears alot of the fee schedules are based upon pre-determined billable time units for certain tasks.  So, for example, let’s say it takes a lawyer 1 hour to draft and type a complaint from scratch.  Each bill for “draft complaint” gets billed for an hour, more or less.  However, with an experienced legal secretary and the use of templates, a lawyer can simply speak: “draft automobile complaint” into a dictaphone—which takes 2 seconds—and then the firm bills an hour for the task.  While the complaint is being drafted the attorney is on to his next billable task.  This seems to be the way billing firms work.  On the other hand, let’s say a lawyer is on his way to court with 3 files from 3 different clients.  He has to travel to court, wait in court for each case to be called and heard, and the total time spent in court results in one hour.  Well… he is going to bill each client an hour for the time spent in court on that client’s file.  That’s 3 hours for one actual hour of time.

By C. Pierce on 2010 03 26, 12:54 pm CDT

3,000 is a good bit, but easily done in big law, even with the quality of hours and work intact (quality of life, of course, is different). 

Being frugal and paying off loans is the best strategy, because nothing in big law is guaranteed, other than the fact that it is not a “fair” place to work, nor is it advertised as such.  Hard work, an excellent work product and good results will get you an extension of your time in purgatory, but it will not get you out of purgatory.  Even if you make partner, you have a steep hill to make equity partner.  Once you make that, you have to fight hard to keep it. 

Those are the basic facts.  Have at it, but, while you are there, learn more than just how to bill hours, because odds are you will end up somewhere else.

By Choices on 2010 03 26, 1:19 pm CDT

Just to add to #5.  I have to agree with some of this.  I have worked for billable firms in which I was required to show up on Saturdays and to otherwise live your life at the firm.  I’ve worked for plaintiff’s firms that required insane hours too.  I’ve had abusive partners and senior associates that made my stomach churn getting up each morning to go to work.  I accepted my situation and made the most of it by learning as much as I could from these firms and tyrants.  I did not have a mental break-down and take off work for a whole year on disability and then return as if there should be a thriving relationship.  I finally decided life is way too short and precious to slave at a firm that dribbles out a pay check to me every 2 weeks and holds the purse strings over my head.  I also decided I had learned enough from the tyrants and became a solo practitioner.  Guess what friends: out of the frying pan into the fire!!  But, it is mine!  Some weeks/months I find myself working constantly.  Other weeks/ months I have gobs of free time.  The income is feast or famine sometimes.  But, again it’s mine and I chose it!!  Nobody said it was easy and it isn’t.  (Maybe I should sue myself for being to hard on myself or for being under the stress of work)  Most importantly, after I became my own boss and when everything became solely my responsibility, I did come to realize that the firms and lawyers I had worked for in the past that were slave-drivers and tyrants….they were that way for a reason!!!!  The law demands it!!!  You can’t just rely on some brand new “weak sister” associate who is going to wet his pants and take off work for a year!!  If someone is abusive to you then quit.  Nothing forced this associate to stay at this job.

By C. Pierce on 2010 03 26, 1:25 pm CDT

C. Pierce #11:

Yikes.  I really hope you’re not billing the way you describe. Double-billing for the same time is not permitted under the ethical rules.  If you’re sitting in court for an hour during which you handle three matters, you divide the one hour among the three cases for billing.  And, unless you’ve got a flat-fee arrangement, you only bill the actual time it takes you to draft the complaint.

By Jodi C on 2010 03 30, 2:16 pm CDT

Hey, yeah.  “Not permitted.”  All you guys hear that??  (Well, I’m sure it never happens, anyway).

By B. McLeod on 2010 03 30, 7:00 pm CDT

Jodi C: Rule #2, as it was taught to me (and others I am sure), is that there are only 24 hours in a day.  Rule #1, of course, is get your money up front.

By Just another Lawyer on 2010 04 02, 8:22 am CDT