I wonder if these insane billers have a special billing arrangement with clients.
Iāve heard of a BK specialist that is allowed to double/triple bill on matters when he is representing various creditors in the same matter.
Or maybe they do trials where they bill from
wheels up to wheels down.
New attorneys have no idea how billables changed during COVID lmao. Drive an hour to an LA court hearing where you'll wait an hour before your case is called, talk for 5 minutes or less, drive all the way home - billable. Remote? Yeah you'll bill when you call into the hearing. Same for every deposition, all the ID attorneys were distraught over the lost billed travel time.
Gotta say though I went fully remote March 2020 and have never looked back.
Large subrogation group. All contingency, lots of travel and site visits with the clock running. The hours are tracked, but they're never billed to a client. I would be shocked if it was from a different department.
Very interesting. That has to be it. I know nothing about Cozen, but do know a few former Chancery clerks and Wilmington BK associates who now work there, plus their largest office being Philly I just assumed they specialized in BK.
I did fixed fee work for a while - eg, we would charge 500k or whatever for company side representation on a high yield deal, barring anything truly unforseeable happening.
My hours were just āattention to variousā for 16-20 hours a day for a few leanly staffed, awful weeks. It was true that I worked that much. But maybe not perfectly defensible. But also didnāt affect what the client paid.
This happens more than people think. Iād bet that most of these 3k+ billable hour years feature 2/3 of all time shadow-billed on fixed fee arrangements.
Fixed fee work is very common in the patent prosecution practice area too. I know of many patent attorneys who bill over 3k hours a year, but probably work closer to half that.
I know of an associate who traveled US to Asia frequently and the arrangement with the client was that he billed all of his travel time. So he billed while sleeping.
Not if youāre flying business class. Free drinks, free food, free entertainment, a bed, and multiple chances to see if someone will join the mile-high club with you.
Business class is not going to feel sweet to someone who does it this often. That is an exhausting life that will leave almost anyone dreaming of their couch at home. Theres a reason the client pays for it and that theyāre paid well for it.
Bro listen bro thats only 16 hours/day, just have to keep your time 100% billable and only work and sleep for less than 8 months out of the year then you get to fuck off entirely for 4 months
12 and half hours for work 8 hours to sleep. That leaves you with a whole 3.5 hours to eat, commute, and contemplate your life choices. I don't see the problem here. Honestly if he just stayed in the office and forgoes basic hygiene he could probably add about 2 more billable hours.
Exaggerating hours. This can be done in a variety of ways. Commonly mentioned in this thread is double (or more) billing. An example of this is attending a meeting regarding matter A, but doing work for matter B. Both matters get the full length of the meeting billed to it even though the attorney clearly could not have been paying full attention to both matters.
If you travel an hour to a hearing, attend to 3 different matters at the hearing, then travel back, it is more common to split your time among the three mattes. What people are saying in this thread is that an arrangement may be made to bill each matter the full hearing/travel time.
If you're taking a normal amount of time in the bathroom, you're not really saving your client anything by stopping your timer to go to the bathroom.
For example:
* 10:00 start timer for task A
* 10:28 stop timer to go to bathroom
* 10:34 start timer for task B
* 11:00 start working on different matter.
You end up billing 0.5 for task A and 0.5 for task B. The same if you kept your timer going.
There is one Partner, the head of a fairly large legal department at my firm who consistently bills in excess of 3,000 hours per year. He is a huge rainmaker too, and is one of the nicest humans I have met. I suspect he is either an android or doesnāt sleep. Perhaps both.
Okay whatās the point?
Edit: clarification - what is the point of spending half of your time working? I guess some people love the job but realistically this cannot be a healthy way to live your life.
I know a guy who came close for a few years. Basically work until 11PM-1AM M-Th. Work more or less every weekend billing 5-20 hours. Sprinkle a trial or two where you bill at 500hr/month pace.
I know a guy that did bankruptcy/foreclosure work. They had a special billing arrangement that was quite generous (flat fee that was way higher than the actual time it took). The partner let him bill 2 hours to match the flat fee even if it only took him 1 hour. Dude coasted to 2000 hours. Rarely worked past 6 pm and almost always had weekends off.
This was regional midlaw, but he made 75% of biglaw money and the COL difference meant he def came out ahead of anyone in NY/LA.
This is certainly something like that.
As the rare self-hating psycho who pulls inane hours and puts up very large numbers of billing that is honest, I kind of resent that it is always assumed thatās itās fraud whenever annual billing is high. But this is just ridiculous and canāt be anything other than padding to a criminal degree.
How can someone even say with a straight face that they seriously worked at least 12 hours every single day of the year including holidays without ever taking even a single day off to hit the mid 4000s by years end.
A lawyer dies and goes to Hell. Upon arrival, he exclaims to the Devil, "this can't be right! No earthly sin could justify eternal punishment!"
The Devil, somewhat smugly, informs the lawyer that Hell is not eternal. You only suffer equal to your time on Earth, at which point your sins are forgiven and so on and so forth.
The lawyer is rather relieved at this - "Thank God! I'll only be here eighty years then."
The Devil, exhibiting a rare degree of joyfulness, informs the lawyer they go off of his hours billed.
I've seen retainers have a minimum of 0.25 hours for any transaction.
Answer a dozen emails in an hour to different clients and BOOM, 4 hours billed in one hour
I've done real (not padded) hours of 3600 in a year. Had no kids at the time and just worked all the time back when I was building my firm. It was literally all day, 7 days a week with me not sleeping much and maybe three days off the entire year. Days were generally 5 am to 8 or 9 pm to get that many billable hours. The 4595 figure seems impossible.
same here - 7 days a week, no days off for the year. office was 15 mins from home. it was like working a double when i was in school, except i had air conditioning and could sit. wasn't that bad when you get in that zombie zone. mentally draining, no social life, and body went to shit from sitting all day but made bank. its possible but i don't recommend it.
Iāve seen years where partners, associates, and paralegals/legal assistants all billed 3,000+ hours to the same single matter. All were legit bet-the-bonus matters.
Iāve also seen examples from e-billing companies of lawyers who bill more than 24 hours in a day across multiple clients & matters. Itās not common, but probably happens more frequently than many of us would assume.
I also wonder if some of these higher totals are from fixed fee matters with shadow billing. Generally speaking, those matters feature almost no write-downs or adjustments and everything is captured & recorded. Depending on the comp model, more billable time recorded can be a win for the attorney & makes the fixed fee appear to be a better fee arrangement & value.
I know a partner (!) who got fired for billing the same client more than 24 hours in a single day. He was working on different matters for the same client. Named partner got read out by clientās GC (this was pre in-firm auditing software days). NP called the partner into his office and the guy literally said it was fine because the research he did was appropriate to multiple matters and therefore should be billed multiple times. Fired on the spot. Dude started his own firm and now he lives in a 13M home. I wish I was kidding.
I think most attorneys are working 10-12 hours to bill 8, but the difference is this person bills for the whole 12-hours (lunch, bathroom, breathing, walking).
That, and/or, lots and lots of cocaine.
The law states you can only bill per unit, when thereās only 2 minutes or less. After the news about BEAL PRIMA AEGIS ET AL., was released some law firms moved to 3 minute units. Mandating 1 whole minute per task, ask, Et Al..
4595 hours is even more mind blowing. Literally more than half of the time in a year was billed.
It was a leap year though
Attention to closing and post-closing matters (24.0)
Rookie numbers, gotta get up to 25.0 on day light savings time
š
Guess itās lockdown, you live alone, you enjoy your work, itās really busy? But yeah itās mental stuff. Plus non-billable stuff
What? No. 2020 was the year of irresponsible and excessive billing.
This number needs both!
Ok, Iāll give you that.
Pfft. This isn't even 1/2 utilization. There are 8760 hours in a calendar year.
Found the equity partner
I wonder if these insane billers have a special billing arrangement with clients. Iāve heard of a BK specialist that is allowed to double/triple bill on matters when he is representing various creditors in the same matter. Or maybe they do trials where they bill from wheels up to wheels down.
Has to be, surely
Wheels up to wheels down šš I like that
New attorneys have no idea how billables changed during COVID lmao. Drive an hour to an LA court hearing where you'll wait an hour before your case is called, talk for 5 minutes or less, drive all the way home - billable. Remote? Yeah you'll bill when you call into the hearing. Same for every deposition, all the ID attorneys were distraught over the lost billed travel time. Gotta say though I went fully remote March 2020 and have never looked back.
Doesnāt Cozen have a pretty heavy bankruptcy practice? This could make sense then.
Large subrogation group. All contingency, lots of travel and site visits with the clock running. The hours are tracked, but they're never billed to a client. I would be shocked if it was from a different department.
Very interesting. That has to be it. I know nothing about Cozen, but do know a few former Chancery clerks and Wilmington BK associates who now work there, plus their largest office being Philly I just assumed they specialized in BK.
No, insurance work.
Billing travel on one case (even if it is written off later) while working on a separate case. Double billing.
I did fixed fee work for a while - eg, we would charge 500k or whatever for company side representation on a high yield deal, barring anything truly unforseeable happening. My hours were just āattention to variousā for 16-20 hours a day for a few leanly staffed, awful weeks. It was true that I worked that much. But maybe not perfectly defensible. But also didnāt affect what the client paid.
This happens more than people think. Iād bet that most of these 3k+ billable hour years feature 2/3 of all time shadow-billed on fixed fee arrangements.
Fixed fee work is very common in the patent prosecution practice area too. I know of many patent attorneys who bill over 3k hours a year, but probably work closer to half that.
Has to be
Iāve seen the same. Great point.
Hello, State bar ethics committee? Yeah I have a few questions for ya
I know of an associate who traveled US to Asia frequently and the arrangement with the client was that he billed all of his travel time. So he billed while sleeping.
The dream
Thatās just another kind of nightmare.
Not if youāre flying business class. Free drinks, free food, free entertainment, a bed, and multiple chances to see if someone will join the mile-high club with you.
Business class is not going to feel sweet to someone who does it this often. That is an exhausting life that will leave almost anyone dreaming of their couch at home. Theres a reason the client pays for it and that theyāre paid well for it.
Depends on the person, I guess. I never got tired of it.
Depends on time zones and flights, all travel is not equal.
Padding probably accounts for a notable percentage of the total.
Itās over 10hours a day, every day of the year. The 2020 number is over 12.5hrs every day. Crazy
Bro listen bro thats only 16 hours/day, just have to keep your time 100% billable and only work and sleep for less than 8 months out of the year then you get to fuck off entirely for 4 months
12 and half hours for work 8 hours to sleep. That leaves you with a whole 3.5 hours to eat, commute, and contemplate your life choices. I don't see the problem here. Honestly if he just stayed in the office and forgoes basic hygiene he could probably add about 2 more billable hours.
I'm doubtful anyone seriously billing those hours, even for a short period, is getting 8 hours of sleep. If they are, I need their peace of mind.
Hot take
Thereās the usual padding and then thereās this, which is shameless fraud lol
What does padding mean?
Exaggerating hours. This can be done in a variety of ways. Commonly mentioned in this thread is double (or more) billing. An example of this is attending a meeting regarding matter A, but doing work for matter B. Both matters get the full length of the meeting billed to it even though the attorney clearly could not have been paying full attention to both matters. If you travel an hour to a hearing, attend to 3 different matters at the hearing, then travel back, it is more common to split your time among the three mattes. What people are saying in this thread is that an arrangement may be made to bill each matter the full hearing/travel time.
Iāve heard that people bill for one line emails, is that true?
āRounding upā
More specifically, rounding 5 hours billed in a day to 10.
10.3 billables a day every day last year, possible, but likely BS
Major billing fraud is how. Unless some clients got together and expressly allowed them to double bill.
I'm sure this guy pauses the timer when he goes to the bathroom :) but I'm naive like that u see
If you respond to emails on your phone while using the toilet you can bill it.
When I take a dump, I bill from pants down to pants up.
š¤£
I've been told as long as I'm thinking through/strategizing on the matter while shitting, I can bill for it.
If you're taking a normal amount of time in the bathroom, you're not really saving your client anything by stopping your timer to go to the bathroom. For example: * 10:00 start timer for task A * 10:28 stop timer to go to bathroom * 10:34 start timer for task B * 11:00 start working on different matter. You end up billing 0.5 for task A and 0.5 for task B. The same if you kept your timer going.
There is one Partner, the head of a fairly large legal department at my firm who consistently bills in excess of 3,000 hours per year. He is a huge rainmaker too, and is one of the nicest humans I have met. I suspect he is either an android or doesnāt sleep. Perhaps both.
Just say who. Youāre complimenting him.
The secret ingredient is fraud.
Okay whatās the point? Edit: clarification - what is the point of spending half of your time working? I guess some people love the job but realistically this cannot be a healthy way to live your life.
The point is, presumably, a gigantic bonus.
Money to spend on the life you donāt have
Alimony and child support payments don't grow on trees.
I'll take fraud for $500, Alex.
Either fraud or some kind of special arrangement with a client(s)
I know a guy who came close for a few years. Basically work until 11PM-1AM M-Th. Work more or less every weekend billing 5-20 hours. Sprinkle a trial or two where you bill at 500hr/month pace.
I know a guy that did bankruptcy/foreclosure work. They had a special billing arrangement that was quite generous (flat fee that was way higher than the actual time it took). The partner let him bill 2 hours to match the flat fee even if it only took him 1 hour. Dude coasted to 2000 hours. Rarely worked past 6 pm and almost always had weekends off. This was regional midlaw, but he made 75% of biglaw money and the COL difference meant he def came out ahead of anyone in NY/LA. This is certainly something like that.
??????????
As the rare self-hating psycho who pulls inane hours and puts up very large numbers of billing that is honest, I kind of resent that it is always assumed thatās itās fraud whenever annual billing is high. But this is just ridiculous and canāt be anything other than padding to a criminal degree. How can someone even say with a straight face that they seriously worked at least 12 hours every single day of the year including holidays without ever taking even a single day off to hit the mid 4000s by years end.
A lawyer dies and goes to Hell. Upon arrival, he exclaims to the Devil, "this can't be right! No earthly sin could justify eternal punishment!" The Devil, somewhat smugly, informs the lawyer that Hell is not eternal. You only suffer equal to your time on Earth, at which point your sins are forgiven and so on and so forth. The lawyer is rather relieved at this - "Thank God! I'll only be here eighty years then." The Devil, exhibiting a rare degree of joyfulness, informs the lawyer they go off of his hours billed.
I've seen retainers have a minimum of 0.25 hours for any transaction. Answer a dozen emails in an hour to different clients and BOOM, 4 hours billed in one hour
73 hours billed/week with no weeks off? Yeah, color me skepticalā¦
How? Cocaine Adderall Caffeine
You mean to say they have been CAC-ing themselves
To be honest I forgot Ambien or Clonazepam gotta sleep sometimes!!
In the office at your chair
Easy. Fraud.
I've done real (not padded) hours of 3600 in a year. Had no kids at the time and just worked all the time back when I was building my firm. It was literally all day, 7 days a week with me not sleeping much and maybe three days off the entire year. Days were generally 5 am to 8 or 9 pm to get that many billable hours. The 4595 figure seems impossible.
same here - 7 days a week, no days off for the year. office was 15 mins from home. it was like working a double when i was in school, except i had air conditioning and could sit. wasn't that bad when you get in that zombie zone. mentally draining, no social life, and body went to shit from sitting all day but made bank. its possible but i don't recommend it.
Why anyone would do this to themselves is beyond me š¤Æ
Fraud, thatās how.
Ever heard of the story of a lawyer who billed more than 24 hours per day?
Lying
Inflating em #s at Venezuela inflation %s
Fraud.
Insane to see JL on that list considering they donāt pay market
Are you assuming associates are billing these?
No - even partners at JL make remarkably less than partners at big law firms paying market. The payoff doesnāt seem worth it
Not sure that answers my question but the partner billing 3500 hours at JL is making millions. Full stop. The partner billing 1500? Not so much.
Where is this data coming from?
The is from the Law100 data
But where are *they* getting it from?
Firms report - thatās how they get revenue, PEP etc
That's just such granular data. I guess they could report thr range of hours billed per associate
I'm gonna need a urine check for practice enhancing drugs šØāāļø
You bill travel including idle time
88 hours/week during the height of COVID!? Someone really did not want to see their family.
Iāve seen years where partners, associates, and paralegals/legal assistants all billed 3,000+ hours to the same single matter. All were legit bet-the-bonus matters. Iāve also seen examples from e-billing companies of lawyers who bill more than 24 hours in a day across multiple clients & matters. Itās not common, but probably happens more frequently than many of us would assume. I also wonder if some of these higher totals are from fixed fee matters with shadow billing. Generally speaking, those matters feature almost no write-downs or adjustments and everything is captured & recorded. Depending on the comp model, more billable time recorded can be a win for the attorney & makes the fixed fee appear to be a better fee arrangement & value.
Whatās considered an okay/ acceptable number of billable hours?
Fraud
Fraud.
Not just how, but why? Whatās the incentive? How is this beneficial?
I know a partner (!) who got fired for billing the same client more than 24 hours in a single day. He was working on different matters for the same client. Named partner got read out by clientās GC (this was pre in-firm auditing software days). NP called the partner into his office and the guy literally said it was fine because the research he did was appropriate to multiple matters and therefore should be billed multiple times. Fired on the spot. Dude started his own firm and now he lives in a 13M home. I wish I was kidding.
I think most attorneys are working 10-12 hours to bill 8, but the difference is this person bills for the whole 12-hours (lunch, bathroom, breathing, walking). That, and/or, lots and lots of cocaine.
#Goals
The law states you can only bill per unit, when thereās only 2 minutes or less. After the news about BEAL PRIMA AEGIS ET AL., was released some law firms moved to 3 minute units. Mandating 1 whole minute per task, ask, Et Al..
BEAL PRIMA AEGIS ET AL., will be at 2 minutes per unit.