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Re: Billable Hour Life [Barks&Purrs] [ In reply to ]
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Also CD so I know it well.
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Re: Billable Hour Life [ In reply to ]
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I just have 1 question.

Do take your phone, or paperwork to the bathroom so you can bill that time as well?

Just Triing
Triathlete since 9:56:39 AM EST Aug 20, 2006.
Be kind English is my 2nd language. My primary language is Dave it's a unique evolution of English.
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Re: Billable Hour Life [The Guardian] [ In reply to ]
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The Guardian wrote:
For the people for whom it works - it can be a great job, for everyone else private practice can be a real grind. Know thyself if my best advice. If it isn't working for you, get out fast before you realise you just gave up five or ten years of your life.


This thread is Exhibit A as to why I left the practice of law.
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Re: Billable Hour Life [Porfirio] [ In reply to ]
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I just left a government job (really wasn't into the slow pace) and jumped back into the private sector (actually, the firm I left for the gov't job).

This time, I'm getting a % of my billing. It's a double edged sword... I stand to make quite a bit more than I did and I have quite a bit of control over my hours; however, without a book of business currently, I am a bit scared that I'll end up making less than I did in the public sector.

But billable hours are unfortunately my reality again.

@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri
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Re: Billable Hour Life [Porfirio] [ In reply to ]
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Porfirio wrote:
Happy new year! I have left the plush of my gov't job & am entering private practice which comes w/the billable hour requirement. Wonder if there are other attorney here who have gone through this, or first year associates, and how this affected training. Trying to strategize so that training/my life doesn't go down the sad lawyer's drain. The money's great but that can't be the end all.

Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

Someone already said it, but any workouts you can do should come in the early AM. Grand plans of post-work day exercise typically fall flat, especially when you are grinding away under a billable hours requirement.

I spent 10 years at a mid-size firm burning both ends at 2200 - 2400 hours a year. Once I made partner, the stress went from getting my work done to finding new work. Never again.

Left for a Fortune 500 in-house gig during the pandemic and will never go back. It was like a huge boulder was lifted off my shoulders - no tracking time, no worrying about where work is coming from, no reviewing time sheets, and no collecting.

Private practice works for some, and if you are good at bringing in business the sky is the limit on earnings. Good luck.

Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
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Re: Billable Hour Life [jepvb] [ In reply to ]
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I also forgot to add, the entire secret to private practice is to have a large book of repeat business. When you are self sufficient in terms of having work to do, the firm treats you like a king or queen. If you spend your career relying on others to get work, you will always be beholden to someone else's schedule.

As well, at some point you will age out and no one will want to give you work within the firm unless you are a specialist. So figure out how much you want to make, then learn your firm's allocation policies, and then start working today towards building a client list of your own (some of which can be inherited from older partners at your firm as they retire).
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Re: Billable Hour Life [cholla] [ In reply to ]
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cholla wrote:
This thread is Exhibit A as to why I left the practice of law.

Change a few words, and it's also why I quit the art/design business as well

I won't even talk about freelancing

"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin
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Re: Billable Hour Life [The Guardian] [ In reply to ]
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The Guardian wrote:
I also forgot to add, the entire secret to private practice is to have a large book of repeat business. When you are self sufficient in terms of having work to do, the firm treats you like a king or queen. If you spend your career relying on others to get work, you will always be beholden to someone else's schedule.

As well, at some point you will age out and no one will want to give you work within the firm unless you are a specialist. So figure out how much you want to make, then learn your firm's allocation policies, and then start working today towards building a client list of your own (some of which can be inherited from older partners at your firm as they retire).

Insanely relevant to me for me at this point in my career. I was barred in 2018 and just came back to the same small real estate/business firm I left before I went on a short public sector stint at the AG's office.

Any suggestions on how to find clients? I'm a young (33 yo), fairly likeable (I think) guy. I haven't developed a nuanced practice area yet, but I've relied on work from the other 5 partners at the firm. Today is my third day back and I absolutely want to hit the ground running, hopefully targeting small to mid-sized lenders and commercial landowners/property managers. Thoughts?

@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri
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Re: Billable Hour Life [cloy] [ In reply to ]
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cloy wrote:
The Guardian wrote:
I also forgot to add, the entire secret to private practice is to have a large book of repeat business. When you are self sufficient in terms of having work to do, the firm treats you like a king or queen. If you spend your career relying on others to get work, you will always be beholden to someone else's schedule.

As well, at some point you will age out and no one will want to give you work within the firm unless you are a specialist. So figure out how much you want to make, then learn your firm's allocation policies, and then start working today towards building a client list of your own (some of which can be inherited from older partners at your firm as they retire).


Insanely relevant to me for me at this point in my career. I was barred in 2018 and just came back to the same small real estate/business firm I left before I went on a short public sector stint at the AG's office.

Any suggestions on how to find clients? I'm a young (33 yo), fairly likeable (I think) guy. I haven't developed a nuanced practice area yet, but I've relied on work from the other 5 partners at the firm. Today is my third day back and I absolutely want to hit the ground running, hopefully targeting small to mid-sized lenders and commercial landowners/property managers. Thoughts?

Outside of a vanishingly small number of lawyers the idea of "finding business" is, at least in my area (corporate finance) a myth. The only three ways I've ever gotten client relationships that are "mine" are (1) inheriting them, (2) having friends reach out when their institutions are dissatisfied with their current counsel, (3) having colleagues go in-house at a seniority level where they can send deal-flow back to me and (4) *very* occasionally doing a good job on a deal with a current client and catching the eye of another party.

Write articles, take speaking engagements, "build your profile", play golf if you must, but none of them directly generate work, IMO.

That is my experience though. If you're in a small market and trying to break into a tight community of folks in a discrete business you may have a different experience.



"Are you sure we're going fast enough?" - Emil Zatopek
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Re: Billable Hour Life [Barks&Purrs] [ In reply to ]
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How in the world do you keep track of this in such minute detail? It would seem that half your time is spent tracking the other half.

*****
"In case of flood climb to safety"
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Re: Billable Hour Life [just jack] [ In reply to ]
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I use a timer on my computer. If I'm working, the timer is running. If I need to go to the bathroom, go grab lunch, etc., I hit pause. The difficult part is figuring out a way to describe what I did that's worth of payment of the client. I can't usually just write "legal research," rather, I have to write "researched and analyzed Colorado case law on a broker's fiduciary duty in preparation for drafting motion to dismiss claims 3 and 4."

Some old school attorneys like to wait until the end of the month and remember what they "billed" throughout the prior month. That's insane to me.

@floathammerholdon | @partners_in_tri
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Re: Billable Hour Life [just jack] [ In reply to ]
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I do what Cloy does. I use an app on my phone called iTimeKeep. The timer takes care of the time. Because we bill in 6 minute increments, anything under 6 minutes is a .1. Everything between 6 and 12 minutes is a .2. And so on. The margins I was talking about earlier is the time when you need only 8 minutes to complete a task. You get 4 minutes in the bank!

If a new associate bills a .1 instead of a .2 in this situation where they needed 8 minutes to do something, they think they are only giving away 2 minutes to the client. In fact, they are giving away 6 minutes to the client because the client has agreed to the 6 minute time increments. The firm’s financial plan is based upon the 6 minute increment. The litigation budgets for the cases are established using the 6 minute increment.

If a new associate shaves off the 2 minutes and bills a .1 instead of a .2 x 6 times in a day, the associate gives away 36 minutes. Giving away 36 minutes every day doesn’t sound like a big deal. But if an associate does that every day, it adds up to 180 minutes per week. Or 9,000 minutes by the end of the year— which is 150 hours of work. If an associate is billed out at $150/hour, the associate has given away $22,500 by the end of the year. And it’s not the associate’s money they are giving away— that’s the firm’s money.

Meanwhile, the associate has a 1,800 or 2000 billable hour requirement to meet at the end of the year. If the associate has given away 150 hours, they have 18 days of work extra to do. Or not meet the billable requirement. It is stressful.

If an associate is committed to billing what they are supposed to bill— without eroding their time by giving away minutes here and there, the time portion of billing is easy.

The “free” time that the attorney has banked in my example above typically gets used for non-billable things, like talking to your secretary. Or going to the bathroom. Chit chat in the hallway. These are necessary and expected activities at a law firm. It is so sad to see new associates who don’t have time to chit chat for 5 minutes in the hallway because they are stressed about billing. The chit chat in the hallway is really valuable— I work from home and miss it a lot. The chit chat builds camaraderie. And it’s a great opportunity for an associate to ask a quick question and learn. To this day, I have questions about how I should do my work. It’s a drag that I can’t step outside my office and ask a 15 second question.

How to divide tasks is also governed by rules. In insurance defense, the rules are established in the agreements between the insurance companies and my firm. Certain activities are considered billable. Other activities are non-billable. The timing program I use has drop down menus that correspond to tasks. The tasks are divided into different phases of litigation— pleadings phase, discovery phase, expert discovery, trial, appeal. Those are subdivided into other tasks, like communicating, attending, reviewing and analyzing, writing. There are a lot of options that I never use.

It might sound horrible, but it’s really not. Billing is a super succinct description of what I’m doing. It’s like writing a title for one of these threads. And I sometimes look at yesterday’s billing entries to know where I need to start my work today. So billing can be useful.
Last edited by: Barks&Purrs: Jan 26, 23 7:31
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Re: Billable Hour Life [Bretom] [ In reply to ]
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Bretom wrote:
cloy wrote:
The Guardian wrote:
I also forgot to add, the entire secret to private practice is to have a large book of repeat business. When you are self sufficient in terms of having work to do, the firm treats you like a king or queen. If you spend your career relying on others to get work, you will always be beholden to someone else's schedule.

As well, at some point you will age out and no one will want to give you work within the firm unless you are a specialist. So figure out how much you want to make, then learn your firm's allocation policies, and then start working today towards building a client list of your own (some of which can be inherited from older partners at your firm as they retire).


Insanely relevant to me for me at this point in my career. I was barred in 2018 and just came back to the same small real estate/business firm I left before I went on a short public sector stint at the AG's office.

Any suggestions on how to find clients? I'm a young (33 yo), fairly likeable (I think) guy. I haven't developed a nuanced practice area yet, but I've relied on work from the other 5 partners at the firm. Today is my third day back and I absolutely want to hit the ground running, hopefully targeting small to mid-sized lenders and commercial landowners/property managers. Thoughts?


Outside of a vanishingly small number of lawyers the idea of "finding business" is, at least in my area (corporate finance) a myth. The only three ways I've ever gotten client relationships that are "mine" are (1) inheriting them, (2) having friends reach out when their institutions are dissatisfied with their current counsel, (3) having colleagues go in-house at a seniority level where they can send deal-flow back to me and (4) *very* occasionally doing a good job on a deal with a current client and catching the eye of another party.

Write articles, take speaking engagements, "build your profile", play golf if you must, but none of them directly generate work, IMO.

That is my experience though. If you're in a small market and trying to break into a tight community of folks in a discrete business you may have a different experience.

This is accurate. I would add a 5th way that clients are often picked up, and it is closely related to #3. When I was at a firm doing tons of commercial leasing work for a few institutional landlords, often times a deal-maker from a client would leave and go to a similar job at another real estate firm, but doing the same job - managing a portfolio of commercial real estate. If they liked me, he or she would want to keep working with me. Voila - new client (assuming they had the level of authority at their new job to pick outside counsel).

Freedom just around the corner for you. But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
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Re: Billable Hour Life [cloy] [ In reply to ]
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I think how to get clients depends on your practice area. For large corporate commercial work, inheriting clients within the firm, or being part of the .1% set with lots of friendly connections is the usual way to do it.

For work like smaller real estate, family, etc. I think word of mouth is huge - but that means expanding the circle of people who know you and what you do. I also think panels and blogs and social media are more useful that they may seem. When people google a topic area if your name comes up people start to believe you are worth hiring.

Seinfeld talked about Paul Reiser's early days - Reiser was really funny but would show up for his set, kill and then leave. All the other comics would hang out all night together. Only once Reiser started spending a ton of time in the comedy club environment that did stuff start to happen for him. It wasn't how funny he was, it was the connections that lead to things.

My point is, you have be out and about - drinks, games, lunches, happy birthday emails, anniversary flowers, you name it - just keep you name circulating. To me it's exhausting. But for the people who are good at it - it can be very lucrative.
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