Top Law Schools

I am having a painfully hard time concentrating today.

I realize it varies, but, generally, how many hours do you bill per page of memo? Do you just base it on the deadline? What if you don't get a deadline? Do you ask (if it isn't told to you) how long/detailed your work product should be?

I'm having a sudden panic that some partner will look at my billables and be like "WTF, you billed 15 hours for this?"

flcath wrote:I am having a painfully hard time concentrating today.

I realize it varies, but, generally, how many hours do you bill per page of memo? Do you just base it on the deadline? What if you don't get a deadline? Do you ask (if it isn't told to you) how long/detailed your work product should be?

I'm having a sudden panic that some partner will look at my billables and be like "WTF, you billed 15 hours for this?"

SA or Associate?

As an SA, you can always fall back on the old song and dance of "I'm not very familiar with this area of law, so I wanted to spend some time doing some background reading to make sure I understood all the moving parts."

TTH wrote:

flcath wrote:I am having a painfully hard time concentrating today.

I realize it varies, but, generally, how many hours do you bill per page of memo? Do you just base it on the deadline? What if you don't get a deadline? Do you ask (if it isn't told to you) how long/detailed your work product should be?

I'm having a sudden panic that some partner will look at my billables and be like "WTF, you billed 15 hours for this?"

SA or Associate?

As an SA, you can always fall back on the old song and dance of "I'm not very familiar with this area of law, so I wanted to spend some time doing some background reading to make sure I understood all the moving parts."

SA. Thank you for the encouragement.

I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

flcath wrote:Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

No

flcath wrote:

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

this depends so much on the partner, dude. i've done this, and just got an email saying "status?" and i said when it'd be done and it was nbd. other people i wouldn't dare do this with.

fatduck wrote:

flcath wrote:

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

this depends so much on the partner, dude. i've done this, and just got an email saying "status?" and i said when it'd be done and it was nbd. other people i wouldn't dare do this with.

lol at you betas not finishing SA assignments on time, just lol

Anonymous User wrote:

fatduck wrote:

flcath wrote:

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

this depends so much on the partner, dude. i've done this, and just got an email saying "status?" and i said when it'd be done and it was nbd. other people i wouldn't dare do this with.

lol at you betas not finishing SA assignments on time, just lol

why so anonymous? are the only ALPHA AS FUCK bro at your firm?

.

Sapientia wrote:

fatduck wrote:

flcath wrote:

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

this depends so much on the partner, dude. i've done this, and just got an email saying "status?" and i said when it'd be done and it was nbd. other people i wouldn't dare do this with.

lol at you betas not finishing SA assignments on time, just lol

Lolwut. Aren't you a rising 2l at Illinois? You didn't have an SA

Totally varies. Some discrete questions can take as little as an hour (and the work product will usually be a 1-2 paragraph email with 2-4 cases cited), while more complex assignments obviously take more time (the longest - a 30-page memo with another SA on a complex and open-ended antitrust question - took around 55-60 hours on my end). If I had to guess, I'd estimate that I generate about a page of work product per 1.5-2 hours of work, although I've been told that I'm unusually efficient for a summer.

Billed 100 hours on an assignment that was ended up being a 20 page memo.

I am pretty sure most SAs could have done it in half the time.

Sapientia wrote:

fatduck wrote:

flcath wrote:

RodneyBoonfield wrote:I don't think it really matters if there is no deadline. As you know they have the final say on how much of your time actually gets billed to the client. I'd err on the side of being overly thorough.

Yeah, obviously not turning in shitty work product is my #1 goal. And I'm pretty sure I'm accomplishing that one, so of course I'm obligated to worry about something else.

Have you ever blown through a deadline, and just turned something in a day late (when you knew there was no hard deadline for the partner, like a court date) without asking first? Consequences?

this depends so much on the partner, dude. i've done this, and just got an email saying "status?" and i said when it'd be done and it was nbd. other people i wouldn't dare do this with.

lol at you betas not finishing SA assignments on time, just lol

Alphas don't finish them at all.

As an SA or even as a junior associate, your primary concern should just be doing the best job that you can, regardless of how many hours you may spend to achieve, ahem, perfection.

Absent extraordinary circumstances, never cut your own hours.

I wouldn't worry too much yet about hours. I once worked in the consulting division of a law firm once, and I was worried by the numbers I billed there (they seemed large). A partner there told me not to worry about it, because projects usually take longer than you think. Law firms do have ways of measuring productivity, but I would imagine that SA's shouldn't be too concerned about it. I would be more concerned about doing enough projects over the summer rather than the hours you put into one project. I think a partner would appreciate a top-notch work product rather than a quick but sloppy project.