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I am looking for employment in midwestern medium-sized markets where first-year salary is normally between $110-120k and billables are normally 1850-1950 hours. What happens if you don't hit your billable hours. Are you not going to make that salary listed on NALP or will they just defer your future compensation, giving you some slack in your first year?

Mid-sized law firms on the east coast generally don't begin to count your billables until January. So if you start in September, September - December allows you to get acclimated to the process, system, the work, etc. Even after your first full year of work, most law firms would normally cut you some slack as it pertains to billables. Your salary is your salary, the only thing withheld normally for not hitting billables are bonuses. But I am sure that learning curves, and expectations vary from firm to firm. A pattern of not hitting minimum billable hours will probably result in being fired before they would withhold part of your salary.

Bigbub75 wrote:Mid-sized law firms on the east coast generally don't begin to count your billables until January. So if you start in September, September - December allows you to get acclimated to the process, system, the work, etc. Even after your first full year of work, most law firms would normally cut you some slack as it pertains to billables. Your salary is your salary, the only thing withheld normally for not hitting billables are bonuses. But I am sure that learning curves, and expectations vary from firm to firm. A pattern of not hitting minimum billable hours will probably result in being fired before they would withhold part of your salary.

Thanks for the info, I was genuinely curious.

At the V50 I'm going to, your lockstep increase is dependent on hitting the 2000 hours. If you don't, your salary gets increased nominally the next year. However, if you reach the minimum billables the next year, your salary gets trued up so that you're on pace with your class.

I'm sure firms that have "black box" compensation systems also penalize you for not hitting your hours.