I tell the truth in these columns – at least, to the degree I find convenient or advisable. There is such a thing as a surfeit of veracity. My clients are lawyers, so god help me if I record something a little too candid with regard to their doings. Just talking about myself raises issues.
I haven’t worked at Sullivan & Cromwell since 1999. A statute of limitations must cover misdeeds perpetrated in that dim, dusky epoch. But I’m not betting the farm on it.
I will, therefore, tread with caution as I recount events that occurred in the life of a close friend who practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell during that time, someone whose tenure at this august institution coincided precisely with my own. A dear, personal friend.
It is possible this person occasionally misrepresented his billable hours.
I know. You’re sickened. Awash with a visceral revulsion.
Could I be saying what you think I’m saying!? Not that. It’s unthinkable.
I shall not shy away from the painful truth. I’ll say it: my close personal friend cheated on his hours. At least I think he did. I only think, because he was so sloppy in keeping track of his hours it wasn’t clear what they actually were.
For example, never, so far as I recall, during my entire legal career – all 2 or 3 years of it – did my close personal friend ever bill a “point 25”. I don’t think he knew what a “point 25” was. He just billed an hour, or maybe on a rare occasion, a half hour. Generally speaking, he was assigned to one, maybe two active deals at a time, so he billed the entire day, from the moment he walked in the door to the moment he left, to the client and matter number for whatever deal on which he was working – or occasionally not-working. Then he added an hour or two to “round it up.” He perpetrated these outrages at least a week following the events themselves, and was mostly operating from hazy recollections.
The horror!
My close personal friend can’t go all Adolph Eichmann on this one, either. He wasn’t “just following orders.” He did, however, have a strong suspicion he wasn’t alone – that there were other malfeasors of his stripe roaming the halls. Call it a hunch – but it’s one I can confirm from the experiences of another close, personal friend – a psychotherapist – who has spent years listening to lawyers spill their guts concerning such nefarious doings (Note: I would never imply that one of my own clients would commit or contemplate such a deed.)
Permit me to take the gloves off. Here’s the bottom line on cheating on your billables: Get used to it. If you don’t cheat on your hours, you will never make partner at a big law firm. This is a hard and fast rule.
Law firms don’t broadcast it to the masses, but the truth is they like it when you pad your hours, and it doesn’t require an advanced degree in economics to figure out why. Biglaw is about billable hours. If you take longer to do something, they earn more money.
Look at it this way – when a biglaw partner prepares a bill, he can always shave down your hours. But he can’t really crank them up, can he? That would be cheating. It would be far more…convenient…if you (nudge nudge wink wink) generated a plump pile of billable hours to start with, right?
You may have noticed firms habitually encourage clients to pursue lengthy, drawn-out, costly litigations instead of settling for the obvious compromise they’re going to end up accepting eventually anyway. Same idea. It’s a form of “churning” – you pump up the time something takes…and make more money. That’s why law firms simply adore going to trial. There’s a delicious little temporal slice – a few weeks, no more – when you can basically bill the client for anything and they’ll pay it. That’s because they have to. It would be…awkward…to say no.
Do you still harbor doubts that firms love billables – any billables? Don’t be naïve. One of my close-personal-friend-the-psychotherapist’s clients recounted a meeting in a conference room where a partner congratulated the associate with the highest billables for the previous month – an absurd 350 hours. The other associates on the case exchanged looks. They all knew the guy – they were in the room with him most of the month, doing precisely what he was doing, as he was doing it. They saw him arrive. The saw him depart. They watched him work. They’d all worked the same number of hours – and it wasn’t no 350. His extra 30 or 40 were what we might politely refer to as “a flight of phantasy” or “poetic license.” He got away with it, too. It took balls, and the other associates respected those balls. In their own weird, pusillanimous, scaredy-cat way, they admired him.
The hours these glorified peons toiled already smacked of absurdity as well as insalubrity. No one can put in twelve hours of quality anything every single day for a month. So what, if this guy tacked on a couple more fictitious hours each evening? What’s the harm of heaping a little extra absurdity upon existing absurdity? If they possessed the cojones, they would have done it too – they acknowledged as much by letting him get away with it.
In the end, it paid off. He was blushing, she recalled, but nonetheless, he rose to take a little bow. Then they moved on and that was that.
Why do law firms want you to crank up billable hours, even if you’re confabulating?
Because, in the end, no one at the firm gives a hot damn how long it took you to do something. They want to charge the client as much as possible and make a lot of money.
How about the client?
Surprise! He doesn’t give a rodent’s posterior how many hours anyone at the law firm took to do anything. He just wants to win.
My close personal friend vividly recalls his participation in a private conclave in a corner office at S&C, watching one partner pow-wow with another over a bill to a client.
“There’s no way I can charge these guys more than $400k for this deal. Tell people to pull back on the hours, cut it down.”
Then he took a pen, crossed off the hours, and made up the necessary numbers to get to $400k, which was what the client was willing to pay.
A client wants something done – a deal closed, a case won. He doesn’t care how many hours you bill. He cares whether you did it, whether it worked – and how much you’re charging. If he thinks it’s worth it – he’ll pay. Otherwise, he won’t.
At this juncture in legal history, clients are mostly balking at paying for junior associates. They consider them clueless, expensive and someone else’s problem. A senior partner told me a client flipped out because a junior accompanied him to a deposition.
“Train him on your own dime,” were the client’s exact words.
He had a point. Why should law firms train juniors at their client’s expense? It’s not their fault law schools don’t teach anything useful. The firms aren’t to blame either. In any case, they’re avoiding the problem by hiring seniors and mid-levels willing to sacrifice seniority for a junior’s paycheck.
Okay – so why do you have to cheat on your hours to make partner?
If you’re making partner it’s because you’re good at three things. One, law. Two, schmoozing. Three, surviving the hell of a big law firm.
The first thing – being good at law – means you work quickly and get stuff done without making a production out of it. That means you have low billables, which would keep you from becoming partner. You could do more work than anyone else – and work all the time, but that would interfere with your second key skill…
Two – being a major schmoozer – means you need to be out doing non-billable stuff like marketing your ass off and taking people out to lunch and going to conferences…which means you have low billables, which would keep you from becoming partner.
Three – surviving the hell of a big law firm – means you have to sleep and maintain at least a semblance of a life so you don’t burn out and lose your mind. That means you have low billable hours etc., etc.
So you fudge. You lie. You make it up.
An associate client at a big mid-town firm had an uncomfortable phone call with a partner from his firm. The partner my client works for directly had billed an insane number of hours to the other partner’s deal, and the other partner was afraid to bill the client for them. He called the associate.
“Is it possible these numbers are correct? Could Joe have billed that many hours?”
My client did what he had to – he played dumb. “I don’t know – he might have been working off-site,” he offered brightly.
There was an awkward silence while it sank in. Joe wasn’t backing down. It took nerve to triple his actual hours and bill them to another partner’s client – but what was the other partner going to do about it? Call him a liar? He had limited alternatives. He could try to ram it down the client’s throat, or he could wuss out and lower the bill. Those were the two choices.
Meanwhile, Joe the lying, cheating, pants-on-fire liar is a big-shot partner with stratospheric billables. This makes for satisfying partner meetings and fat distribution checks.
That’s how it works.
Remember – lie all you want on your billables, but don’t brag about it. Not because you’ll get caught. That’s not the risk. It’s more like you don’t want everyone else to start thinking it’s okay for them to lie on their billables. Then your billables aren’t going to look as good. Get it? Lucky for you, most lawyers are uptight nerds too terrified to remove that label from their mattress (the one it’s illegal to remove.) And yes, some of them break a sweat calculating each and every “point 25” expended to make a photocopy.
Let’s keep your creative time-accounting our little secret.
It’s interesting to note that, during my entire time at S&C, I was hounded by criticism for every move I made, but no one, not one person, ever chewed my close personal friend out for the fact that his time sheets belonged on the fiction – not the non-fiction – best-seller list.
If you’re going to make it at a law firm, you’re going to have to stay out of their way, and make them money.
Go ahead – tell that little white lie. Believe me, no one will blink. If they do, it’ll be more of a wink, followed by a knowing smile.
========
This piece is part of a series of columns presented by The People’s Therapist in cooperation with AboveTheLaw.com. My thanks to ATL for their help with the creation of this series.
If you enjoy these columns, please check out The People’s Therapist’s new book, Way Worse Than Being a Dentist: The Lawyer’s Quest for Meaning
I can also heartily recommend my first book, “Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy”.
(Both books are also available on bn.com and the Apple iBookstore.)
The People's Therapist 
I don’t know Will. I find your columns interesting, but mainly it’s because of the wild generalizations, rather than the insight.
While I generally share your belief that big hours are a “must” for anyone hoping to obtain law firm partnership, I don’t believe that (big fictional hours X moderate product) > (moderate actual hours X excellent product), and I’ve seen time padding ruin several legal careers. Why? Because partners understand that the best associates are efficient, so that if a partner sees that an associate has taken an inordinately long time to complete a task, that partner concludes either that the associate lacks ability or that the associate is unethical. Either way, the associate is left with a black mark against their name. Further, partners in most firms have to justify any meaningful write-off of associate time. So there are few things more annoying to a partner than having to explain to the executive committee why they let the WIP on their file get to $600K when they knew the matter could only support a bill of $400K (taking your example).
I know that there are juniors who pad their timesheets. And I know that some firms don’t do enough to discourage it. But there are plenty of juniors and firms that do the right thing. Your “advice” (in this column) is presumably tongue-in-cheek, but let’s hope people realize that.
I agree with guest. It is unfairly cynical to suggest that hours padding is not only accepted but tacitly encouraged. I have also seen many legal careers ruined by hours padding. It’s not so much that associates are explicitly called on it because there very often is some question about whether it was padding or inefficiency, but either way those associates become known as those who have an issue.
I’m disappointed by the tenor of Will’s advice. It is almost as though he is encouraging those confronted with the dilemma of whether to pad their hours the green light, saying that everyone else does it anyways. It’s just not true that everyone does, and while most associates may be tempted at some point, I would have preferred to see some advice on how to maintain high ethics when the temptation is there. Wouldn’t that be more consistent with Will’s usual advocacy of being true to one’s own person?
I find your suggestion that all biglaw partners want associates to pad their billable hours to be insulting. I think it’s quite the opposite for most firms, for the reasons very adeptly spelled out in the guest comment regarding write-offs and having to be accountable to clients. Any associate who works on one of my matters who is caught padding their hours will quickly not only be fired, but reported to the state bar. But hey, I enjoy a really good over-generalization as much as the next person, so great job.
It is a thin line, though. I work for one partner who is extremely sensitive to write offs and realization, and another who routinely doubles-triples his hours and clients complain. Apparently when equity partners bill 4 hours for a simple, one page letter advising clients of project status it is OK? Or only OK when they do it for their own clients? (his reputation has been harmed, we know that – but he’s still here billing and getting paid 4x more than we do so what lesson can I take away?)
No one gets reported to the state bar, though. That’s unsporting.
We want associates to pad their bilable hours? Of course not! (indignant look on face). But I do deserve to enjoy my share of partner profits, don’t I? After all, “I” earned it … ethically in case you were wondering. (looks the other way (from associate’s timesheet), maintaining indignant expression). – Biglaw Partner
[…] Continue reading at The People’s Therapist…. […]
I don’t think the solution is to lie. If you don’t make partner, at least you have your integrity (and that promotes mental health).
Interesting column, since I just wrote an article for Student Appeal yesterday on the topic.
Personally, I think this exaggerates the extent of blatant padding of hours, which is risky enough as to be rare. But, if you look at the incentives of partners and associates, you realize the more subtle forms of padding via inefficiency are commonplace, and perfectly rational.
I’ll send you the link when it’s out!
Alison
http://thegirlsguidetolawschool.com
Congrats. You’ve discovered agency failure. 2L year is going to be great.
As promised: http://thestudentappeal.com/op-ed/understanding-billable-hours
And 2L year was five years ago.
So, I think what we’ve learned here is that Will also padded his hours and is seeking moral validation for what he knows was immoral, unethical, and illegal conduct. You won’t get it here. I don’t know of anyone who pads hours, and if I ever find out that someone is padding hours, I’m reporting it–immediately.
Indeed, now I’m wondering whether Will left Sullivan because he couldn’t handle the stress of the job (which is no badge of shame) or if he couldn’t handle the stress of committing fraud to cover up for the fact that he wasn’t doing the job.
Either way, if he’s still a member of the bar, someone should report this to the committee on ethics (or whatever it’s called in NY). This isn’t just an empirical statement that a lot of people cheat (which, by the way, is based on anecdotal evidence from a self-selected group–lawyers who see the same shrink, presumably because they’re guilty about their illegal activities). It is, instead, a statement that you are SUPPOSED to cheat your clients, and that if you don’t, you’re a fool. That makes me seriously question his fitness for the practice law.
our “peoplestherapist” appears to treat the matter lightly. I’m glad he no longer represents the legal profession, but it casts serious doubt as to his fitness to practice psychology as well. To the extent that a person is disingenuous, the person remains divided and will be unable to fully thrive. Honesty, based on the same root as honor, will always advance a person further. and Honor makes a happy and content person.
My honor and fitness as a therapist have been called into question – all as a result of deeds purportedly committed by a fictional “dear personal friend”. Harrumph. How about we not admit hearsay, and wait until conviction before we condemn, Mr. Morally Superior Lawyer?
My dear therapist,
I don’t complain about your dear personal friend’s deeds. I complain that you treat the matter so lightly, as though it were of little or no significance psychologically to tell a “little lie”. (Please correct me if I misinterpret your attitude.) A lie cannot be little. It can often take courage to be honest. But that courage is what matures a man and gives him a well-rounded psyche.
And do not get me wrong: I am not condemning you. In the words of one modern film “I love you, man”. I like your style and your wit. I am condemning a belief. You may choose to associate with or disassociate yourself from this belief as you see fit. I really don’t mean it personally. I just have a differing opinion. All peace love and happy?
Agree with Peter. It’s not the deeds of the fctional friend. It’s that you wrote a column that essentially says you’re a sucker and a fool if you DON’T pad your hours. And not 12 years ago — TODAY.
Let’s just remind ourselves what “billable hours” truly are – a fiction that has been utilized to turn law firms into sweatshops. The entire notion that your intellectual output as an attorney can be converted into fungible “hours” is absurd. So is the notion that those hours are universally accurately recorded.
“Let’s just remind ourselves what “billable hours” truly are – a fiction that has been utilized to turn law firms into sweatshops.”
So that justifies fraud? I don’t follow.
There’s no fraud involved. The client doesn’t care what hours he’s being billed. He cares about what he’s paying, what got done, and whether it worked. The “fraud” itself is a fiction.
The author would respectfully request, in the interests of a balanced dialogue, that those law firm partners who DO fake their hours please identify themselves, and hold up their end of the discussion.
I also wish to remind my readers I am aquiver with moral outrage at the very thought of any disingenuousness with regard to billable hours. In fact, I am at least twice as aquiver with moral outrage as the next most aquiver-with-moral-outrage-ed reader of this blog.
Most of the associates at my AmLaw 100 firm pad. Nobody ever says anything. I think the people commenting who think this is unusual probably work in mid-sized firms where people would actually notice and care, and clients are actually sensitive about bills. We’ve had practice group meetings where the practice group head urged us to “work the files” and “take as much time as you need to get it right.” Of course, he could never tell us to pad, but he sure made it clear that higher hours, not actual output, are appreciated.
When I was an associate at two different V20 firms I was repeatedly highly praised for my extreme efficiency and speed on the one hand, and on the other, told that I was not billing enough for my work – not that I needed to work more, but that I was not writing down all of my time. (The distinction was made very clear to me.)
Over time (and unlike Will, I stuck it out for over 6 years), I came to realize that padding was widespread and not just accepted but encouraged in exactly the fashion that Will describes – they thought we should be billing as much as we could get away with. I also saw matters get dragged out to the point that it was in my view against client interests.
I never caved to this pressure and it hurt my bonuses badly but at least when I left, I had a shred of integrity intact, which is not something I would ever assume of a BigLaw attorney now.
Thanks for your honesty. It takes courage to own up to what’s really going on out there.
If they possessed the cojones, they would have done it too – they acknowledged as much by letting him get away with it.
I don’t know if I agree with that. The other associates may have just declined the opportunity to be a tattle-tale. Doesn’t prove they would have done the same thing.
As a general matter, I’m not sure bill-padding is always that big an issue. It is when things are kind of soft and you have a couple of matters that are kinda, sorta taking up 2/3 of your day. But during those days/weeks/months when you have a deal or case that’s really taking up all your waking moments, is it that crazy to just sit back at the end of the day and say, “I started billing by 10:00am, I left at 11:00pm, I’ll take off 1.5 hours for lunch and bathroom, that means I billed 9.5 hours”? You multiply that by 5 working days and you have 47.5 billable hours. Assuming no weekends at all (impossible) and assuming 4 weeks of vacation, those 47.5 hours/week add up to 2280 billable hours on the year. That is perfectly respectable, if not superstar-caliber. Then if you add an average of 5 hours per weekend, you can add 240 hours, for 2520 total. And that is really not that bad, veracity-wise and impress-the-partner-wise.
As a former biglaw partner, I saw first-hand the billable hour pressures that developed over my 20 years’ there on associates. While I have no personal knowledge of anyone actually billing hours not worked, it is altogether too easy, as someone pointed out, to work inefficiently. It reached the point that I actually had an associate deliberately conduct research I told him had already been done and not to repeat because he needed the hours that month. He would rather take the risk of my displeasure, which meant little in the long run, so long as he met his billables. And, then I caught the heat when I had to write down the bill. After that, I stopped using associates and, within a few years, gave up on the large law firm model for my own firm. I decided that if I was doing all the work, I should keep all the money.
Lets not forget that “clients want to be billed big so they know they’re getting the form’s attention.” Padding hours is a very common thing. All of the indignant posters have probably done it at one point or another. They probably have billed a client for lunch, forgot when they started working and just ballparked their hours, or something like that. The people whose careers have been ruined probably got greedy. Only some firms keep their partners and associates on a stopwatch and those are usually firms looking for breaks in their insurance rates. He may be generalizing, which inherently means that there are those to which his comments do not apply, but be quick with work and exacting with the hours is not such a common thing in big firms and allows for lots of padding be it intentional or unintentional.
I noticed it often at a top 25 firm. Some attorneys would use their email threads to clue them in as to how much they worked over a whole month.
Some lawyers — partners and associates — pad hours. I did all of the billing for my clients and was constantly amused to see what three different people would charge for the same meeting. Clients who don’t scrutinize the diary entries are idiots.
One of my biggest frustrations when I was still in Biglaw was seeing slacker attorneys who padded their hours get rewarded with not only prime deal assignments but bonuses, ballparker attorneys who would enter a “guesstimate” of their hours for the full month all at once and (miraculously) always exceed their monthly target, and horribly inefficient attorneys who repeated others’ work (sometimes completely, in the interest of “checking” it) or who were simply incapable of executing a task in a reasonable period of time rack up churned hours by the boatload. Bear in mind that you had to hit a certain number of hours to qualify for a bonus, and from what I could tell, the amount of bonus was largely tied to the amount of hours you exceeded the requirement. The padders were straight-up liars; the ballparkers were “accidental” liars; and the churners were basically crummy, inefficient lawyers. All of them were incredibly frustrating to work with (see above re: associates doing the exact same work but billing wildly divergent numbers of hours), were in some instances embarrassing to be in client meetings with (particularly the churners who were fundamentally incapable of answering a question on the fly, without doing 10 hours of Lexis research first)… and I’m confident all of them got nice big bonuses as a result of their actions.
It makes me sad to know that they are still practicing law, and in many cases, are still in Biglaw pulling in huge salaries and bonuses. But thanks to that experience, now that I am in-house, I am much more skeptical of our outside firms’ fees and bills. Thanks to my outside firm experience, I have a reasonable idea of how long it should take to complete certain tasks, so am on the lookout for numbers that are out of spec. And for the record, I would also be very skeptical of using my old firm unless I absolutely had to, and even then would certainly not want any of my former padder or churner colleagues on any of my matters.
Thirty years in “Big Law” taught me that billing by the hour is a natural incentive for inefficiency, if not deliberate dishonesty. Those who deny that and claim that their biilable hours are an accurate reflection of their effort are either liars or delusional.
I didn’t pad my time, but I have no doubt that others did. For example, I didn’t always hit my billables, but, somehow, the guy who was in the office a lot less than me did — there was no way that math added up. One friend also told me of a conversation with a partner in which the partner “strongly suggested” to him that he start padding his time.
It just depends on the partner. Our partners ran the gamut between the gentleman who would berate you for being the worst attorney in the firm if you couldn’t find the answer to the research question in fifteen minutes and the guy who would constantly make you draft things that were never used. I refused to work with either again.
I think it goes to one of the recurring themes of your columns, which is that you can’t forget who you are. I don’t believe in time padding, and I wouldn’t do it. Therefore, I eventually got to leave the Bubble with my self-respect intact. That my ethics resulted in a few less dollars in the pockets of certain partners at the end of the year made it all the more win-win.
I suggest this problem is more prevalent at firms with significant hours requirements and hours-dependent special bonuses. I have never been encouraged to pad my hours and have no financial incentive to do so. I record the minute I start and stop each activity I do, and I stop counting time when someone walks into my office to discuss something unrelated. I hope and believe I would do the same thing if I worked at a firm that required 1900+ hours for a bonus, or 2200 hours for a special bonus, but we humans are a fragile lot.
Something to think about for all the in-house counsel wondering whether Firm A, with rate X and a stellar reputation for quality, is a better pick than Firm B, with rate 2X / 3 but requiring 2000 hours of billing and an eat-what-you-kill partner draw system and a good but less stellar reputation.
I worked in private law for a while, and it wasn’t even big law, but there was definitely billing misconduct. Once, I wrote a memo for a toxic tort client about some recent case developments that applied to them. Call them Client A. 8 hours of time.
Later on, while looking through Client B’s case file, i found a billing statement from my senior partner, indicating that HE had written a memo on the exact same thing I had written one on, and billed it to Client B. (How often does a senior partner write a memo???!! Funny! And yes, I double checked our document management system and found nothing from him, only mine, memo was not in the file, etc.). I then looked through toxic tort client C, D, E, F, etc.’s files and found the senior partner had billed “his” memo to them, too. Since they were all toxic tort clients, the memo was relevant to all of them.
I never brought this up to management, because they knew this guy was crazy and difficult and failed to discipline him repeatedly. They wanted his rainmaking, and I knew that if I brought it up, he would no longer use me, and I’d be out. One of many reasons I left.
I was also encouraged by another partner at a different firm to “bill my day”, in strong tones. Basically, because I was hyper scrupulous. We worked in 6 minute increments, and I would deduct every chat, bathroom break, etc. They didn’t like that. They strongly wanted people who, if there from 8 to 7, would bill everything but the lunch hour. Since this is impossible, there was definitely some padding. It effectively negates the 6 minute increment billing, if it is not actual misconduct. It is closer to a .25 billing system where people round up.
Also, double billing is common in traveling. So, you need to spend 4 hours traveling for client A. You have to go, so client A should pay for your travel. Meanwhile, however, you read depositions from client B’s case while on the plane and in the car while someone else drives. So, you manage to bill 8 hours in only 4 hours time!! Brilliant. Very common in tort cases with extensive depositions.
Now I work in government and I am overall, much happier, as the ethics are better. But I am also poor 😦
I love your blog!
The irony in all of this is that S&C, the apparent source of most of Will’s biglaw angst, moved away from billing clients on an hourly rate basis and toward “value” billing (at least for their mainstay – corporate transactional work) years ago, and therefore doesn’t set annual billing targets for attorneys or pay bonus compensation by reference to hours billed. Bonuses are lockstep across the firm. I worked at S&C for several years and never once worried about my hours recorded, as I knew that they made no difference to the value proposition for the client or my personal comp. And frankly I couldn’t have cared less what time my “close personal friends” were recording, for the same reasons. Instead I just focused on doing good quality work.
“Let’s just remind ourselves what “billable hours” truly are – a fiction that has been utilized to turn law firms into sweatshops. The entire notion that your intellectual output as an attorney can be converted into fungible “hours” is absurd.”
Nice justification, Will. Let’s just remind ourselves that padding hours is in fact fraud and theft. Over the course of a career, it can translate to stealing millions of dollars from clients. All value is to some extent ‘artificial.’ Fabricating hours meas you are not providing the value agreed upon. From my own experience in big law, I have no doubt there are billing shenagigans at most top firms and overbilling is tacitly encouraged (when the firm can get away with it for a particular client). That doesn’t make it right. As a judicial clerk, I enjoyed the attorneys’ fees that came before me.
thepeoplestherapist
“There’s no fraud involved. The client doesn’t care what hours he’s being billed. He cares about what he’s paying, what got done, and whether it worked. The “fraud” itself is a fiction.”
This is also a ridiculous rationalization. It assumes clients can so easily assess the real value of services rendered when the entire outside legal team has engaged in ‘creative’ billing and just decide to pay that amount. In real life, that’s not so easy to do. The situation is compounded by practice groups that are not based on repeat relationships and client happiness like restructuring. Billing in chapter 11s can be particularly egregious and firms get away with it because clients are held somewhat hostage and at the mercy of firms to get them out of bankruptcy. In litigation it’s mitigated because if clients feel they are bilked in one matter, they can go elsewhere for other cases. If done right, a client is not going to need help from the firm to come out of bankruptcy a second time.
In addition to not practicing very long, it seems to me that you cannot have very many inhouse counsel as patients.
Also, some people in Biglaw actually work insane hours and do not pad. Those people tend to be exhausted and miserable. Others just pull hours out of the air because they don’t want to (or mentally and physically can’t) put in the actual time. Those people may not be miserable and exhausted and may rise high in the firm’s hierarchy. But they are still unethical. Sorry. That’s the truth of the matter.
There is also the rare person that doesn’t work or fake insane hours but puts out excellent work product and has great personal relationships within the firm and with clients. That person can also go very far. It’s very difficult to be that person.
“Others just pull hours out of the air because they don’t want to (or mentally and physically can’t) put in the actual time. Those people may not be miserable and exhausted and may rise high in the firm’s hierarchy. But they are still unethical. Sorry. That’s the truth of the matter.”
Not “unethical”.
Evil.
We just need to get a posse together, round them up, and hang them from the leafless tree.
For too long have we permitted them to exist.
It is time to unmake them.
I love the author for illuminating the joke that we call the legal profession. Lawyers are over-paid, not that smart, and experts only at bullshitting themselves and one another. This is not sour grapes. It’s the truth. Merit means nothing in this profession. Just kiss ass, lie, and be as fake as possible. Screwing the managing partner can’t hurt either. As a fellow Harvard grad, I honestly don’t know why anyone cares what school you went to. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re a crook, and can throw back alcohol like there’s no tomorrow. The legal profession deserves the shitty reputation it has. I urge all of my peers to avoid the legal profession like the plague. If you want to work hard and make good money, go into medicine! If you’re lazy and only know how to bullshit your way through life, become a lawyer!
I’ve never met a lawyer that wasn’t a liar. I used to think I knew some, but then I discovered… nope, they were liars, too.
Other than when I am a) playing with my daughter, b) surfing the Internet, c) drunk, or d) sleeping, I am thinking about my clients and their problems. (And sometimes I am even dreaming about work and wake up with a better idea of how to handle a problem.)
Even taking into account that the statement above is something of a hyperbole, the fact is that I spend an awful lot of time both in and out of the office stewing about my clients’ issues. No, I don’t put in a billing entry that says “figured out how to solve your problem while taking a shower.” But my point is that the billable hour is a really stupid way to value sophisticated legal work. I think most of us would recognize that it is virtually impossible to accurately determine to a 6-minute increment when “work time” starts and ends every day. That is why billable hours are a fiction that all of us are “in on.”
For instance, some clients are charged higher rates for the same hour of my work. It’s not like my work is somehow better for them. We bill clients based on what the work is worth to them and what they are willing to pay. I suspect that most of our clients are aware of that.
[…] lawyer-turned-therapist, with lawyer clients, gives a rare glimpse into the dirty secret of how sausages are made in the law factory. This was painful to read. Share […]
I actually found this article fairly reflective of my experiences where a huge matter comes in and tasks haphazardly get thrown around and the billing machine starts churning in earnest. Most smart rainmakers will give a workhorse partner/of counsel a target number (think about what that says about billables) and s/he will herd the cats in the general direction of that number, but, at the end of the day, the relationship/billing partner will still have to write off a shit-ton of hours. The decisions about which time-keepers to screw over with realization-killing write-offs is largely political and only partially based on reality.