The Pitfalls of Big Law

Comments

1. Tim says

   January 30, 2005 at 12:59 pm

   I worked at a small law firm that had a 150 hr/mo (1800/year) requirement. I worked from about 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays, with the occasional weekend days, for usually 150-165 hours per month. I had one two-week trial that gave me a 220 hour month. I worked every day for three weeks straight, leaving between 9 and 10:30 p.m. on weekdays.
   And yes, even in the small firm environment, that can really eat at you, especially if you aren’t doing something that you intrinsically value or if there are other, ah, drawbacks present in the work environment.
   My firm had the requirement because it had cash flow issues. Not every client pays, or pays on time, and we had very high overhead considering we only had four attorneys and three staff members. So the boss wanted to make sure he had enough time billed out that he would more likely than not collect enough in the subsequent month.
   There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the billable hour and whether it is a good model. The general view seems to be that it does not well reflect the value received by the client, and demand is increasing for some other method of pricing. But even if the pricing model changes — and it probably won’t for most work in most firms — firms will still be keeping an eye on the bottom line and will still put pressure on associates to perform chargeable work, and lots of it.
2. Minor Wisdom says

   January 30, 2005 at 9:32 pm

   Subversive arithmetic

   Some folks at Yale Law School have done some arithmetic to figure out what it takes to hit 1800 and 2200 billable hours.(via the Prejudicial Effect, by way of Preaching to the Perverted)