What is the ratio between total hours and billable hours? Forum

[bruinfan10]

Well then I'd just write the memo on the plane anyway, but bill it for a later time where I'm not doing anything (say, a saturday). --> Promotes inefficiency, but eh... works for me!

^so much this. how is this not TCR

Well, it's fraudulent.

I see this in almost all the billing threads. Some folks talk about how they fudge or would fudge their hours, and then other folks yell about how they're breaking the rules. How closely do clients/firms/state bars police this IRL?

[dixiecupdrinking]

Well then I'd just write the memo on the plane anyway, but bill it for a later time where I'm not doing anything (say, a saturday). --> Promotes inefficiency, but eh... works for me!

^so much this. how is this not TCR

Well, it's fraudulent.

I see this in almost all the billing threads. Some folks talk about how they fudge or would fudge their hours, and then other folks yell about how they're breaking the rules. How closely do clients/firms/state bars police this IRL?

Probably not closely enough to catch it in almost all cases. But you're talking about whether you'll get caught, not whether it's against the rules. And in the event they did catch you, it would be a hell of a reason to get disbarred, wouldn't it -- robbing a client for a couple thousand dollars so your billable numbers will look a little better to your bosses? There are things like metadata that a sufficiently motivated person could use to figure it out.

[bruinfan10]

Well then I'd just write the memo on the plane anyway, but bill it for a later time where I'm not doing anything (say, a saturday). --> Promotes inefficiency, but eh... works for me!

^so much this. how is this not TCR

Well, it's fraudulent.

I see this in almost all the billing threads. Some folks talk about how they fudge or would fudge their hours, and then other folks yell about how they're breaking the rules. How closely do clients/firms/state bars police this IRL?

Probably not closely enough to catch it in almost all cases. But you're talking about whether you'll get caught, not whether it's against the rules. And in the event they did catch you, it would be a hell of a reason to get disbarred, wouldn't it -- robbing a client for a couple thousand dollars so your billable numbers will look a little better to your bosses? There are things like metadata that a sufficiently motivated person could use to figure it out.

i'm not taking any kind of position on it, i just hear this come up a lot, and a quick google search for "billing fraud disbarment" turned up very few hits, mostly lawyers who managed to fleece clients out of like $3mill in cash or something, not so much padding their hours in biglaw.

so then i thought, well maybe the billing partners catch this and discipline lawyers internally, but that's literally never come up in the million biglaw firing threads. anyway, just asked out of curiosity, thank god i don't have to bill my time atm.

[dixiecupdrinking]

Sure, it's a fair question. I'm just saying -- if your (the general "you") analysis of whether to violate an ethical responsibility hinges on the likelihood of getting caught, you should probably take a step back and reconsider. And certainly this would be a firable offense if a client found out.

[trumpotrumpo]

if you do billable activities while traveling (IE writing a brief on the airplane) you can actually double bill. so the ratio could go above 100%

This is actually NOT allowed at my firm (and in my opinion is completely unethical). [Wasn't sure if this was a joke or not.]

Psh. Get off your high horse, tough guy. You're not gonna bleed Home Depot or BoA dry doing this shit.

[Magic Hat]

I've actually found that the more senior I get the less efficient I get.

As a senior mid level, I spend more time on revising bills, business development meetings with or for prospective clients, taking care of higher level administrative stuff (dealing with internal AR, drafting retainers, guiding the semi professional staff, dealing with billing issues), handholding clients, etc.

Granted that stuff is "billable" but it's really not because it doesn't add to the bottom line.

[Anonymous User]

I've actually found that the more senior I get the less efficient I get.

As a senior mid level, I spend more time on revising bills, business development meetings with or for prospective clients, taking care of higher level administrative stuff (dealing with internal AR, drafting retainers, guiding the semi professional staff, dealing with billing issues), handholding clients, etc.

Granted that stuff is "billable" but it's really not because it doesn't add to the bottom line.

Posted in the other thread on this topic, but its not a matter of how efficient you are trying to be. I have several days this month where I billed over 12 hours at over 90% efficiency (spending whole days in client meetings then taking care of the tasks resulting from said meetings), but also days where I get 2 hours of billable work in before I get called on for client development, new client interviews, writing client alerts and articles, things that I can't bill even though they may be "creditable." End result? Around 80% efficiency.

[Magic Hat]

I've actually found that the more senior I get the less efficient I get.

As a senior mid level, I spend more time on revising bills, business development meetings with or for prospective clients, taking care of higher level administrative stuff (dealing with internal AR, drafting retainers, guiding the semi professional staff, dealing with billing issues), handholding clients, etc.

Granted that stuff is "billable" but it's really not because it doesn't add to the bottom line.

Posted in the other thread on this topic, but its not a matter of how efficient you are trying to be. I have several days this month where I billed over 12 hours at over 90% efficiency (spending whole days in client meetings then taking care of the tasks resulting from said meetings), but also days where I get 2 hours of billable work in before I get called on for client development, new client interviews, writing client alerts and articles, things that I can't bill even though they may be "creditable." End result? Around 80% efficiency.

I suppose but it was in response to a previous poster who said that he assumed efficiency would increase with seniority.

As a junior, excluding the mandatory daily one hour team lunch, I was between 80-90 percent. Now 70 percent on actual real billable stuff is a good day.