Always be padding? Forum

[Anonymous User]

"if you spend more than X hours you can't bill it."

Belongs in worst partners thread. Imagine doing this work for free, sounds like an abusive partner trying to keep their collections rate up.

My rich V100 never says this and if they did I would 100% lateral the next day

Either that or just stop working on the matter at those hours.

When I was at a V5 this would happen often on matters coming from one client --- unfortunately one of the largest clients of the firm so I think it happened to more people than one might expect considering it was just one client. The kicker is that the same client would demand daily summaries and checklists for almost every call (but always different checklists, and checklists of sub checklists, and clearly no one at the client communicated with one another). Honestly I think I must have billed at least 1.5 hours every day for a year (no joke, so that adds up to lots of $$$$) on these completely unnecessary requests, only to also be routinely put on group emails that were like "Dear everyone working on this matter, plz bill more efficiently. Also plz rationalize this time entry. But also most importantly plz make sure you proof read checklist 3B again and run redlines against checklist 2A to make sure the phrasing is the same in the "Status" column. Thx"

Here's a question based on something I've seen happen kind of frequently (always just with one major client, mind you), in terms of ethics:

*Client tells partner "Look, don't put 10 associates on the emails, it costs too much"
*Realistically all 10 associates need to be on the emails
*Partner tells midlevel associate: "Midlevel, only CC me and one other partner. After the email is sent, please forward to all the other associates. If client responds, please forward responses to all other associates. If other associates have comments or thoughts, please collect them and send back to client without naming or making clear those associates are reading the emails."


Separately, partner would pressure associates with soft messaging (but never outright forbid them from) billing their time reading these emails, or at least indicate that the billing entry shouldn't refer to the emails because the client specifically said not to include these associates on the emails.

Further context: a few times the broader group was copied by the midlevel who wasn't thinking, and each time the client called the partner and got all mad.

Thoughts? This is a true statement of events, not a hypothetical.

I've had a very similar situation with calls. As probably others also have encountered, it's weekly call time with the client and everybody huddles into the partner's office to attend and take notes. Are they required there? Maybe; probably not.

In a few instances, clients have indicated they only want a couple from our firm. My partner once told me explicitly to not bill my time as time on the call, but on something else. So I billed it to some other workstreams I was on. This was during my first year. Since then I knew billing wasn't as strict as some people think it is and I've reaped the benefits ever since.

This is one thing I miss from going into the office. It's hard to "be on the call while not billing you're on the call" on Zoom/Teams. I also miss it for my personal development. Weekly calls can be super useful for a junior, as you can see the overall deal moving forward. None of that if you can't attend the weekly calls. Current deal I'm on, junior associates are not allowed on the call. Most of the time, I got no idea what is going on.

[Anonymous User]

In a few instances, clients have indicated they only want a couple from our firm. My partner once told me explicitly to not bill my time as time on the call, but on something else. So I billed it to some other workstreams I was on. This was during my first year. Since then I knew billing wasn't as strict as some people think it is and I've reaped the benefits ever since.

This sounds an awful lot like fraud.