Always be padding? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m friends with a small firm lawyer who walks in the office at 9:00 and leaves at 6:00, and bills 9 hours a day. When we were talking about it, he said “Of course I bill 9 hours. Why would I be at the office if I wasn’t billing?” It made me feel better about needing to recreate a timer for my biglaw bill when I forgot to stop it.

[objctnyrhnr]

I’m friends with a small firm lawyer who walks in the office at 9:00 and leaves at 6:00, and bills 9 hours a day. When we were talking about it, he said “Of course I bill 9 hours. Why would I be at the office if I wasn’t billing?” It made me feel better about needing to recreate a timer for my biglaw bill when I forgot to stop it.

All day every day with no stops to eat or call his wife of whatever? That definitely seems to border on unethical.

[Dcc617]

It is funny to see how worked up people get about others maybe possibly over billing these giant evil law firms and companies. Plus the idea that you can ethically defend child slavery (for example) but god forbid you don’t stop the timer when you go to the bathroom.

[Anonymous User]

I think it’s important to keep in mind that “padding” means something different to each associate. I had a junior once who was reminded that it’s okay to bill the time he spent reading client emails. Another had to be told it’s not okay to bill time he spent waiting for the paralegal to print a draft of the agreement.

Do you all bill time reading emails? I’m sometimes on email chains where I’m not expected to do anything. I don’t bill that time. I only bill time when I’m expected to do something. Am I being dumb?

Agree that it depends on the matter, though I generally try to have at least 2 people (3 on larger matters/ around the beginning of the year) read every e-mail in case someone leaves the firm. It shortens transition time since we won’t have to catch someone up from scratch, and the client appreciates the long term savings.

[Anonymous User]

I’m friends with a small firm lawyer who walks in the office at 9:00 and leaves at 6:00, and bills 9 hours a day. When we were talking about it, he said “Of course I bill 9 hours. Why would I be at the office if I wasn’t billing?” It made me feel better about needing to recreate a timer for my biglaw bill when I forgot to stop it.

All day every day with no stops to eat or call his wife of whatever? That definitely seems to border on unethical.

We had a guy like that a year or so back and we let him go. I get billing 8 hrs for every 9 at the office (efficient guy), but unless it was a deposition, 9/9 sounds sketchy.

[Anonymous User]

Tons of partners still use time sheets and they literally just draw a line from 2:30pm (or maybe its 2pm if I squint) to 7pm. No one use to carve out microbreaks for timing until, well, we were given timers.

[lolwutpar]

It is funny to see how worked up people get about others maybe possibly over billing these giant evil law firms and companies. Plus the idea that you can ethically defend child slavery (for example) but god forbid you don’t stop the timer when you go to the bathroom.

Best take in the thread

ETA: if you're a transactional attorney your job is to help the rich get richer. If you're a litigator, you're saving the rich from becoming less rich. If you're a specialist, you do both. You threw your ethics out the window when you joined a law firm with clients like these.

[Anonymous User]

I’ve gotta thank everyone on this thread. Tracked and entered my time today per some feedback on here and it was so relieving. For context, I was trained by folks who said clients don’t like to see .1 or .2 on bills (even if it was truly billable work) so I tended to skip billing a lot of calls and emails etc. (these are a lot of random one offs where I can’t round up into another task). So it was way refreshing today to just bill that shit and net like 75% of the time I spent in front of computer rather than 60%. Thanks all.

[motojir]

It is funny to see how worked up people get about others maybe possibly over billing these giant evil law firms and companies. Plus the idea that you can ethically defend child slavery (for example) but god forbid you don’t stop the timer when you go to the bathroom.

Best take in the thread

ETA: if you're a transactional attorney your job is to help the rich get richer. If you're a litigator, you're saving the rich from becoming less rich. If you're a specialist, you do both. You threw your ethics out the window when you joined a law firm with clients like these.

Stopped back in here to see the worst take in this thread, among a number of really bad ones. Filing documents to disclose everything and make sure a SPAC investor doesn't get ripped off isn't the same thing as helping some plant get away with putting toxic chemicals in playgrounds. Transactional attorneys aren't reptile litigators.

Also, billing for the minute you went to the bathroom isn't padding, if for example you're thinking about the matter during that minute. Neither is billing extra time that the client is 100% ok with, like when people bill 24 hours in a day because they were either on call or working for 24 hours straight, where the client understands that some of that time was spent simply being on call, and fully consents. But the two examples OP gave (below) are padding and a federal crime.

Au revoir again.

You get to say you spent three hours on something when you spend an hour on it, then you can watch TV with your spouse or whatever.

I'm upset at the moment because I worked for hours on a markup, sent it to the senior to review, and the senior sent it 15 minutes later, unedited, to the partner, and now I see that the senior is billing hours to that markup too. They didn't do almost anything at all.

[Dcc617]

Private equity and big banks are evil like 100% of the time (passively if not always actively, but often actively). Like y'all, you don't have to defend them with your whole being when you're not on the clock. They suck. Fuck them

[motojir]

Private equity and big banks are evil like 100% of the time (passively if not always actively, but often actively). Like y'all, you don't have to defend them with your whole being when you're not on the clock. They suck. Fuck them

Oh no, they invested in a company. So evil. No, when society calls biglaw evil they're talking about lizard litigators, not transactional attorneys. Have you ever seen a blockbuster movie about the evil transactional attorney marking up SEC filings? They don't exist. The caliber of discussion on TLS is really stupid. I'm surprised some of you can breathe without choking on your tongue.

[Elston Gunn]

Calling it a federal crime is overwrought—even if it’s technically “wire fraud” I would guess that you could not find a single federal prosecution for false billing by a lawyer—but yes just making up hours out of whole cloth is unethical. If that’s the only thing you’re objecting to then you don’t seem to disagree with the overall thrust of the thread at all.

[Dcc617]

Private equity and big banks are evil like 100% of the time (passively if not always actively, but often actively). Like y'all, you don't have to defend them with your whole being when you're not on the clock. They suck. Fuck them

Oh no, they invested in a company. So evil. No, when society calls biglaw evil they're talking about lizard litigators, not transactional attorneys. Have you ever seen a blockbuster movie about the evil transactional attorney marking up SEC filings? They don't exist. The caliber of discussion on TLS is really stupid. I'm surprised some of you can breathe without choking on your tongue.

You sound like someone whose whole identity is tied up in being a little henchperson. So enjoy that life.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Private equity and big banks are evil like 100% of the time (passively if not always actively, but often actively). Like y'all, you don't have to defend them with your whole being when you're not on the clock. They suck. Fuck them

Oh no, they invested in a company. So evil. No, when society calls biglaw evil they're talking about lizard litigators, not transactional attorneys. Have you ever seen a blockbuster movie about the evil transactional attorney marking up SEC filings? They don't exist. The caliber of discussion on TLS is really stupid. I'm surprised some of you can breathe without choking on your tongue.

Yeah man when my Uncle Joe Sixpack was ranting about some private equity fund coming into his company, loading it up with debt, firing entire towns and walking away with eight-figure management fees and going on about what scum-sucking bottom-feeders they were, he did make sure to say "But not the V10 lawyers who put the LBO docs together, their bills are entirely justified."

[nixy]

I mean we all know that movies absolutely get the legal profession exactly right.

[nixy]

(Also love how people say they’re going to bow out of a conversation but just can’t stay away.)

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

And also, whoever got their "padding your hours is federal wire fraud" thing is clearly citing The Firm, which is all about an unscrupulous transaction attorney. I just feel like you can't pick and choose ethical standards from within *the same movie*.

[stupididiot]

What do you guys do about extended client meetings? Like if its a 2:00-6:00 meeting for example, but we spend the first 15 minutes talking about football, then take a coffee break and a few bathroom breaks. Will I go to jail if I bill the whole 4 hours? Wont the client remember how many bathroom breaks we took and make it easy to prosecute me if I bill the whole thing?

[objctnyrhnr]

It is funny to see how worked up people get about others maybe possibly over billing these giant evil law firms and companies. Plus the idea that you can ethically defend child slavery (for example) but god forbid you don’t stop the timer when you go to the bathroom.

Best take in the thread

ETA: if you're a transactional attorney your job is to help the rich get richer. If you're a litigator, you're saving the rich from becoming less rich. If you're a specialist, you do both. You threw your ethics out the window when you joined a law firm with clients like these.

Imagine being this salty. Must be exhausting.

[Anonymous User]

What do you guys do about extended client meetings? Like if its a 2:00-6:00 meeting for example, but we spend the first 15 minutes talking about football, then take a coffee break and a few bathroom breaks. Will I go to jail if I bill the whole 4 hours? Wont the client remember how many bathroom breaks we took and make it easy to prosecute me if I bill the whole thing?

Clients will often schedule these sorts of meetings early in the life of a matter to see how much the firm will overbill them. They generally set up cameras in the room with a team watching and taking notes, and then they compare those notes against each attorney's bills. If an associate comes in too high, they'll fire the firm and tell the partner in charge which associate is responsible. I've seen 3 colleagues get the talk for this reason.

[SGTslaughter]

Honestly though, it's kind of pathetic to work in biglaw and call your clients evil. Do you think it makes you morally superior when you wag your finger about how reprehensible private equity firms are while you collect well into the six figures doing their scut work for them? Do you think you're a man of the people when you leave the meter running when you take a piss break?

[LittleRedCorvette]

What do you guys do about extended client meetings? Like if its a 2:00-6:00 meeting for example, but we spend the first 15 minutes talking about football, then take a coffee break and a few bathroom breaks. Will I go to jail if I bill the whole 4 hours? Wont the client remember how many bathroom breaks we took and make it easy to prosecute me if I bill the whole thing?

Clients will often schedule these sorts of meetings early in the life of a matter to see how much the firm will overbill them. They generally set up cameras in the room with a team watching and taking notes, and then they compare those notes against each attorney's bills. If an associate comes in too high, they'll fire the firm and tell the partner in charge which associate is responsible. I've seen 3 colleagues get the talk for this reason.

Lol

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Honestly though, it's kind of pathetic to work in biglaw and call your clients evil. Do you think it makes you morally superior when you wag your finger about how reprehensible private equity firms are while you collect well into the six figures doing their scut work for them? Do you think you're a man of the people when you leave the meter running when you take a piss break?

It's not as pathetic as genuinely believing your clients are *not* evil.

I am indeed a man of the people when I take my Seamless home at 7:59 in the pre-billed car service despite my firm's very strict time requirements on both of them. The people is me, and the people will be eating lukewarm chicken tikka masala tonight.

[Sackboy]

Honestly though, it's kind of pathetic to work in biglaw and call your clients evil. Do you think it makes you morally superior when you wag your finger about how reprehensible private equity firms are while you collect well into the six figures doing their scut work for them? Do you think you're a man of the people when you leave the meter running when you take a piss break?

Nobody here thinks they're a man of the people. Everyone is just trying to get through biglaw as tolerably as possible. Obviously, people would prefer to work for clients they love, but there are a finite number of six figure legal jobs that let you do that and you aren't disqualified from bitching about your awful clients by volunteering to have them.

[Anonymous User]

Honestly though, it's kind of pathetic to work in biglaw and call your clients evil. Do you think it makes you morally superior when you wag your finger about how reprehensible private equity firms are while you collect well into the six figures doing their scut work for them? Do you think you're a man of the people when you leave the meter running when you take a piss break?

It’s actually incredibly pathetic to think that because you accepted a job, you have to think your clients are good people (or perhaps not think about their morals at all). That’s bootlicking to a new level. The clients pay for my time when I am doing work for them - they don’t pay for my opinions of them. And those opinions are very low and are driving me out of this business soon.