Firm Lowered My Hours Billed Forum

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

Really interested in this as it’s been a particular pain point for me and I find myself leaving hours on the table each month b/c of the pressure to get the job done and stay within partner and client expectations (AmLaw100 firm that has “lean” deal/client teams). My practice group is small too so I only go along with this bs because I don’t want to burn my workflow.

Do you really notice a difference between your two firms? Have you found that it’s easier (or just slightly less stressful) to hit your hours? What kind of clients did you work with at your last firm and what kind do you work with at the new firm?

I do a mix of M&A (middle market) and venture capital deals so I wonder if this cheapness is just inherent in my practices.

I was at Cooley and getting a ton of pressure to "be more efficient" (even though I was plenty efficient) because the clients were startups and early stage tech companies that couldn't afford to pay our bills. I got sick of billing less hours than I actually worked and then having partners cut my time on top of that so I left to where I can just block bill for something and nobody bats an eye.

This is my life. Crazy efficient and still getting the casual “the client is cost conscious” heads up which just makes the work 6x more stressful because you’re just watching the clock.

How is the block billing life? I assume you are not still doing VC work. Mind if I ask if you went to a peer tech firm like a WSGR Goodwin Fenwick or to a traditional corporate firm? Did you have to retool or were you doing some M&A beforehand?

Hitting your hours easier and with less stress? Sorry for the many questions but I’m seriously considering a move and this is one of the primary reasons (this and my pay since I’m at midlaw firm).

Weird that this is happening at Cooley. I’m now at a competitor of Cooley and our partners tell us to 1) block bill and not breakout the time and 2) bill everything so we get credit for the hours worked even if the client isn’t billed for that work.

Not sure if OP meant the same but for me (and in my ECVC group), when I refer to block billing I mean working in a group or practice where you’re not billing to 10+ matters a day where the transition time costs you and where partners or clients whine about you billing tasks less than .4 because clients are startups and why would they want to send a bill with just a few .1s in the month. So when people on threads say they always add .1 for thinking about something or whatever, it’s easier when you’re billing 4+ hours to one matter like in M&A but that won’t fly in ECVC. Clients are cheap regardless of the hundreds of millions of dollars raised from investors. Partners are penalized for write offs above 10% at my firm and they make that known… so there is pressure to round down your time or undercut yourself. If you’re in a smaller group you can’t burn bridges by ignoring this and just billing it.

As for the real definition of block billing, I do that at my firm for my ECVC and M&A matters and never break it out by task.