New associate fuck up thread (and tips for slacking) Forum

[Desert Fox]

[052220152]

Anon, you need to reprogram your human interaction interface protocols.

[anyriotgirl]

I'm the Snapple debacle, and also may have had a secretary debacle. We have one secretary holding down our little fort, which includes about 8 of us in total and several big partners. She is fairly young and still has her youthful good looks, but she looks miserable for long stretches of day, like she just survived The Battle of Iwo Jima. Oblivious to this, I introduced myself to her by name and stated that I was new. This seemed like the appropriate thing to do, but she glared at me the way that the diner waitress glared at Benicio Del Toro in Fear & Loathing. She wasn't having any of it. Instead of replying with her name, she said, "Okay." Now it's been kind of a weird and awkward struggle on a daily basis. My daily good morning never has an echo, which makes me feel like I'm the creepiest associate since Desert Fox. Is there some kind of weird power protocol I violated, and how would one fix this?

For starters, one would avoid going to a TTT law firm that assigns eight attorneys (including several partners) to one secretary.

My V42 makes me share with like 13 people.

Wow. No wonder you do your own secretarial shit.

It definitely has a chilling effect. But I don't care about that and make her do shit for me without considering whether I'm using up 1/13th of her day. However, I'm not sure what exactly I could give her. I make her do expenses, coordinate with other staff, mail shit. There just not a lot to give her.

How many people do you share your paralegal with?

[hdunlop]

maybe she's weirded out that you come in reeking of whiskey.

[Desert Fox]

[20160810]

Probs because you're billing his client for bullshit.

If you don't bill your .1s as an associate you are shooting yourself in the foot for no good reason. Let the partner decide if it's too trivial to go out on the bill, but you should be billing that stuff. Even if it gets cut it still counts towards your quota, and those .1s add up fast. That could easily be 100 hours at the end of the year, which could be the difference between a good bonus and a great bonus.

[Kronk]

Probs because you're billing his client for bullshit.

If you don't bill your .1s as an associate you are shooting yourself in the foot for no good reason. Let the partner decide if it's too trivial to go out on the bill, but you should be billing that stuff. Even if it gets cut it still counts towards your quota, and those .1s add up fast. That could easily be 100 hours at the end of the year, which could be the difference between a good bonus and a great bonus.

I agree to some extent. Not if it's going to make your partner either upset or think you're a dipshit loser, though. Or if they're gonna get annoyed nitpicking through their bills looking for all the .1s you put on notyourcase for spending 2 minutes writing an email.

[Anonymous User]

Probs because you're billing his client for bullshit.

If you don't bill your .1s as an associate you are shooting yourself in the foot for no good reason. Let the partner decide if it's too trivial to go out on the bill, but you should be billing that stuff. Even if it gets cut it still counts towards your quota, and those .1s add up fast. That could easily be 100 hours at the end of the year, which could be the difference between a good bonus and a great bonus.

I agree to some extent. Not if it's going to make your partner either upset or think you're a dipshit loser, though. Or if they're gonna get annoyed nitpicking through their bills looking for all the .1s you put on notyourcase for spending 2 minutes writing an email.

Obviously the partner is the one calling the shots, so if (s)he says don't do it, don't do it, but my experience is that most of them prefer you to just log your time as you work it. The other thing to keep in mind if you work with individual clients is that sometimes they can get panicky and call 10-20 times a day, and logging a .1 or .2 for each phone call is a good way to put a stop to that, because once they see that those phone calls are $20 a pop they will usually only call if it's important.

[El Pollito]

Idk why TLS can't accept "it depends" as an answer.

[baal hadad]

Probs because you're billing his client for bullshit.

If you don't bill your .1s as an associate you are shooting yourself in the foot for no good reason. Let the partner decide if it's too trivial to go out on the bill, but you should be billing that stuff. Even if it gets cut it still counts towards your quota, and those .1s add up fast. That could easily be 100 hours at the end of the year, which could be the difference between a good bonus and a great bonus.

I agree to some extent. Not if it's going to make your partner either upset or think you're a dipshit loser, though. Or if they're gonna get annoyed nitpicking through their bills looking for all the .1s you put on notyourcase for spending 2 minutes writing an email.

It's pretty hard for me to imagine doing only .1 worth of work on a case that I don't work regularly. Where would I get that from?

Edit: with qualification that I'm not gonna bill for directing someone to a doc I have previously used or something like that

[rpupkin]

Idk why TLS can't accept "it depends" as an answer.

No kidding. At my firm, if you do what some in this thread are suggesting--bill .1 for every little email you send--for the wrong partner, you'll kill your career.

Some partners want you to bill every little thing (and then the partner will write it off if necessary). Other partners want associates to use judgment and to think about how something will look to the client.

Ask mid-level and senior associates about what the partner prefers. There's no one-size-fits-all rule here.

[FSK]

During my SA, I followed the instructions of the partner I worked most closely with and billed a short bit of time to a matter he didn't originate. The other partner chastised me at a cocktail event a month later.

[Desert Fox]

[20160810]

The original hypo was not being able to bill for getting asked about something for a case you didn't work on. So I think yea, a lot of partners will be pissed you added a "timekeeper" (sounds like a lame cult) to a bill for .1 hours. Hell the billing software I use lets partners whitelist timekeeprs so you can't even use the billing code unless you've been approved.

Billing .1's in general is probably the right call unless you are allowed to block billing. I view that as the trade off clients make. If they won't let you blockbill, they are asking for .1's for every dumb little task you do. That's literally what they are asking for. So give it.

You rapetile

[baal hadad]

Billing .1's in general is probably the right call unless you are allowed to block billing. I view that as the trade off clients make. If they won't let you blockbill, they are asking for .1's for every dumb little task you do. That's literally what they are asking for. So give it.

This is what I do for my .1 emails. Put it into the block. Partner I do most work for prefers it too

[Kronk]

I work at a small firm where most of the clients are individuals or smaller businesses that probably review their bills, so here it's probably more important to the partners that the clients don't see like 8 different attorneys' initials on their bill with little .1 charges and etc.

But I still imagine a lot of partners wouldn't love it in the corporate world, idk.

[Old Gregg]

depends on firm and practice. in big time M&A practice, block billing is easy and little dinky .1s make no sense. in a startup/vc practice where you can easily work with 12+ clients per day, the .1s are necessary. as with everything, use ur god damn judgment.

[Anonymous User]

I personally never bill at more than 80% efficiency unless it is a day where I'm having back to back to back fire drills. There's simply no way I can work straight through an entire 8 hour (never mind 10 or 12 hour) workday without taking short breaks every hour or 30 minutes, especially when the work is typical junior associate shit. The folks who can bill at near-100% efficiency are impressive.

[rpupkin]

The folks who can bill at near-100% efficiency are impressive.

Or liars.

[baal hadad]

The folks who can bill at near-100% efficiency are impressive.

Or liars.

I actually like fire drill type situations because it's the closest I can get to 100% efficiency

[barkschool]

I'm the Snapple debacle, and also may have had a secretary debacle. We have one secretary holding down our little fort, which includes about 8 of us in total and several big partners. She is fairly young and still has her youthful good looks, but her facial expressions imply she just survived The Battle of Iwo Jima, even on a Monday. Oblivious and cheerful, I introduced myself to her by name, and stated that I was new, smiling widely. This seemed like the appropriate thing to do, but she glared at me the way that the diner waitress glared at Benicio Del Toro in Fear & Loathing. She wasn't having any of it. Instead of replying with her name, she said, "Okay." Now it's been kind of a weird and awkward struggle on a daily basis. My daily good morning never has an echo, which makes me feel like I'm the creepiest associate since Desert Fox. Is there some kind of weird power protocol I violated, and how would one fix this?

Easy, she's testing the pack waters. She use to be the alpha in college; she was president of her sorority, social chair for three years before that.

You've got to break her. Or she'll ride you around like a new cowboy on his first 8 seconds.

Bury her, and assert yourself with your "good mornings," and "hellos."

Crush her with your kind, workplace-acceptable affection.

Let her know who's a respectful collegiate colleague.

Or maybe that's just her face.

[Desert Fox]

[Anonymous User]

It's by no means a small shop. She may not even be my secretary. I'm between 2 different young whipper snappers, and one is generally nicer to me. When we had downtime, I learned how to print and fax so never put too much thought into who my go to was. I figured I'd just be pleasant to everyone, because we're all in this together, and I may need someone's help when I'm brain dead at 2 AM and need help figuring out how to use grubhub. I like the concept of challenging her though, but I don't want to be creepy or demeaning. Maybe I'll just challenge her to a duel. She has letter openers, and I feel like people would purchase tickets to watch, the proceeds of which could be redistributed to a charity of some kind. What is the PC way of challenging someone to a duel these days?

[rpupkin]

It's big law. She may not even be my secretary. I'm between 2 different ones, and one is generally nicer. When we had downtime, I learned how to print and fax so never put too much thought into it. I figured I'd just be pleasant to everyone, because we're all in this together, and I may need someone's help when I'm brain dead at 2 AM and need help figuring out how to use grubhub. I like the concept of challenging her though, but I don't want to be creepy or demeaning. Maybe I'll just challenge her to a duel of some kind. She has letter openers, and I feel like people would purchase tickets to watch, the proceeds of which could be redistributed to a charity of some kind.

Are you DaRascal?

[Anonymous User]

Negative. I will admit that I exaggerate a lot of the details to make my monotonous existence more comical.