Working efficiently Forum

[WhiteCollarBlueShirt]

Actually, it works in any situations in which there is not literally less time to complete a project or projects than is "normal" to complete the project.

And by the way, it's more unethical AND dumb to attempt to reduce your hours below what you know to be the "usual" time to complete the project by devising these "efficiency strategies," because you're robbing your firm of the money it could have made and expected to make. Your job is to do the work properly and report how long it took, not to finish it as quickly as possible. It's the partner's job to decide how many of those hours to bill the client for, and if you need to be more efficient, they'll definitely let you know, but it's not your job to make that decision unilaterally.

This is the spiel you'll hear from partners, but everyone knows it's not true in practice. How long have you worked in biglaw?

Uh, "in practice" half the associates are straight-up making up hours and another 40% are billing entirely unnecessary shit. And "in practice" firms are spending much more energy to tell associates to "bill ALL their time" than telling them to bill less.

In practice, I couldn't care less about my hours. On any given day, I just want to go home, spend time with my wife and get to sleep.

We're talking about hours, we're not talking about the matters, we're not talking about tips for efficiency, we're talking about hours right now. I have enough hours, I don't need your hours. My job is too secure. On any given day, I just want to get it done and go home. And you know what, it's hard to be efficient, it's hard to go in there and grind it out, but, on any given day, I don't care about realization, I don't care about hours, I don't care about anything other than doing my part to clear my plate for a night, for a day, for a weekend, for a week.

It's funny to me too, I mean it's strange, we're talking about hours man. The actual practice, when it matters, I got nothing for you there, I am just practicing to the best of my ability and willingness each and everyday. And it's hard, but we're talking about hours...

[Anonymous User]

Here is a really good tip that people haven't raised: Use the right words to describe your billable tasks. Most of the time associates get criticized, it's as simple as using the wrong verbs. I am not a very efficient person but follow the following do's and dont's

DONT:

Describe an internal conversation with a partner or colleague, ever.
Say "left message with X"
Use the words discuss, confer, call or e-mail.

DO:

Use the following terms liberally: analyze, prepare, draft, prepare correspondence, multiple teleconferences with, review.

You would be shocked how much billing depends on using the right terms.

Also do not bill in increments of .5 or 1.0, I always round down or up from these. Clients always assume .5 or 1.0 is a full fraudulent rounding.

[El Pollito]

^ the narrative advice is very CR.

[rpupkin]

^ the narrative advice is very CR.

I'm not sure what "internal conversation" refers to. And I think bills look suspicious when there are no 1.0 or .5 entries. But otherwise I agree with the advice

[Johann]

agree re narratives but not on whole numbers. 20% of your entries should randomly end in one of those whole numbers, so not using them would be weird. better yet, just record the actual time you worked on the matter.

edit - disagree on not using "conference" or "email." email correspondence with ____ is fine and so is conference with ___.

[rpupkin]

agree re narratives but not on whole numbers. 20% of your entries should randomly end in one of those whole numbers, so not using them would be weird. better yet, just record the actual time you worked on the matter.

edit - disagree on not using "conference" or "email." email correspondence with ____ is fine and so is conference with ___.

Agreed. I misread the anon—I thought he/she was suggesting the use of those words. Yes, of course "email X re Y" or "confer with X re Y" is generally fine. My firm would lose 25% of its revenue were it otherwise.

As always, though, this stuff is partner- and client-specific. I have a current client who won't pay for meetings or phone calls, so you've got to record that time as something else. I have another client who will flip out if you use the verb "analyze" for anything (which I see is on the anon's "use liberally" list). So much of this stuff just depends.

[Johann]

agree re narratives but not on whole numbers. 20% of your entries should randomly end in one of those whole numbers, so not using them would be weird. better yet, just record the actual time you worked on the matter.

edit - disagree on not using "conference" or "email." email correspondence with ____ is fine and so is conference with ___.

Agreed. I misread the anon—I thought he/she was suggesting the use of those words. Yes, of course "email X re Y" or "confer with X re Y" is generally fine. My firm would lose 25% of its revenue were it otherwise.

As always, though, this stuff is partner- and client-specific. I have a current client who won't pay for meetings or phone calls, so you've got to record that time as something else. I have another client who will flip out if you use the verb "analyze" for anything (which I see is on anon's "use liberally" list). So much of this stuff just depends.

try billing "analyze" again in a number that isnt round. bet it works.

[El Pollito]

^ the narrative advice is very CR.

I'm not sure what "internal conversation" refers to. And I think bills look suspicious when there are no 1.0 or .5 entries. But otherwise I agree with the advice

Sorry, I just meant that focusing on "good" narratives helps your time not get cut. Specific practices are going to be firm / group / partner / client specific. However, focusing on billing increments for the sake of focusing on billing increments, and not in response to a budget, is like getting paranoid about 4 Ds in a row on a standardized test.

[kcdc1]

A partner I know circulated a memo with recommended action verbs for billing summaries. For what it's worth, I'm pretty confident "email" wasn't on it, but I'm sure there were recommendations that would capture the act of sending an email.

[midlevel2016]

Why would someone who bills by the hour want to work efficiently?

Because you either end up not billing for the # of hours you worked or you bill for it and then get the number reduced, or chewed out for billing with little to show.

Let the partners worry about that. You might be surprised at how far they'll let your hours go when your incentives and their incentives are actually aligned for once. If you don't push the envelope a little, you'll never know how many hours you could be potentially leaving on the table.

Mmmm not so much. Repeat business is really what earns the partners a lot of money....guess what may happen after a partner sends a client a bloated bill driven up by tons of associate hours? The client takes its business elsewhere. That is worse for the partner and the firm than having an efficient associate bill fewer hours and a satisfied client who remains committed to the firm.

Also, partners care about realization and clients increasingly care about keeping costs down. An efficient associate will satisfy both of those needs while someone who bills a huge number of hours is going to force the partner to either have to make the client swallow a larger bill than the client would like or take a hit on his realization.

Also some junior associates (or law students) are under the mistaken impression that the favorite junior associate is the one who bills the most...That's not true (if they may are one and the same it is not because of the number of hours billed). The favorite junior is the one who is the most capable, reliable, responsive and careful, the one who can run with things, who always finds a way to get things done on a tight deadline and who takes intiative. S/he usually has a lot of hours because people want to work with him/her but not necessarily the most hours since s/he is usually efficient. At least that's what I've observed

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Yeah, my whole point was that you are not in a position to know what a "bloated" bill is. Partners are way more likely to know how many hours to bill without pissing a client off than you are, and seeing as how they can cut your hours but can't add any you've effectively cut with your "efficiency" crusade, you're much safer doing what the partner expects you to do.

None of which is to suggest billing a lot is more important than being responsive, willing and above all competent.

[WhiteCollarBlueShirt]

Yeah, my whole point was that you are not in a position to know what a "bloated" bill is. Partners are way more likely to know how many hours to bill without pissing a client off than you are, and seeing as how they can cut your hours but can't add any you've effectively cut with your "efficiency" crusade, you're much safer doing what the partner expects you to do.

None of which is to suggest billing a lot is more important than being responsive, willing and above all competent.

Dude, but they and their secretaries hate reviewing bills. You'll find associates (junior/senior alike) commonly take the first pass and second passes at many firms. And that monthly roundup is some god awful firm development hours.

Write good narratives, bill all your time, but do NOT run up the timer or fraudulently input hours. If you want to succeed at a law firm, efficiency and realization rates matter... Take this all with a grain of salt though, the better you are, the more you work.

And most of all, any and all advice is firm/client dependent. Also, keep in mind, many partners have little-to-no idea of what is going on with their clients on a month-to-month basis.