Billable Hours By Firm Forum

[Anonymous User]

I was hoping we could compile a list of firms and their average billable hours.

Most of the TLS firm profiles include info on average billable hours, but these are way out of date. I tried looking through the NALP Directory for a handful of firms and couldn't find any info on averages. It's also not helpful to learn that a firm doesn't have official hours requirements.

It would be most helpful if you could post your firm name, transactional/litigation, seniority (junior, mid, senior is fine), city, and average your billable hours.

I understand some fudging will be necessary for anonymity's sake.

Second-hand info could be helpful as well, but you should make sure to label it as such, with maybe a vague source (e.g. "A mid-level said . . . ").

[Anonymous User]

Adding in ratio of hours spent in office to billable hours would be very helpful!

[Desert Fox]

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[Anonymous User]

Average hours is bullshit. Firms use all sorts of stats bs to measure is.

Granted. That's exactly why it would be very interesting to see associates gives their hours without the firm filtering the info.

[Anonymous User]

It is effectively identical between firms, on a practice group-to-practice group comparison basis. Generally if you're working in a backwater like T&E you will work less, but you're not going to see meaningful differences from one M&A practice to another, or one leveraged finance practice to another. To the extent there is a difference, you generally want to be at the busier practice in order to ensure job security.

[Anonymous User]

Knowing what someone billed in a particular year won't tell you anything. Within firms, billable hours vary among practice groups, and can fluctuate wildly from year to year. In 2013, the associates on my team all billed between 2100 to 2400 hours. In 2014 most were under 2000. The figure also doesn't include nonbillable work. In some groups it's not uncommon for associates to spend dozens (or even hundreds) of hours working on articles and speeches and such. Other associates may spend zero hours on those types of projects.

[Desert Fox]

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[Anonymous User]

It is effectively identical between firms, on a practice group-to-practice group comparison basis. Generally if you're working in a backwater like T&E you will work less, but you're not going to see meaningful differences from one M&A practice to another, or one leveraged finance practice to another. To the extent there is a difference, you generally want to be at the busier practice in order to ensure job security.

This isn't true at all, but anecdotes won't give any useful info.

It's not even true within the same firm. I'm at some of the top lit shops (Munger, Irell, etc.) and it's really partner specific. Within the same group some partners staff their cases and dole out assignments so their associates are forced to clock 3000+, other partners manage their associates so that they hit 2200.

[Anonymous User]

But that's the whole point. Micro differences within a firm swamp any firm-to-firm difference, and to the extent there is a difference you want to go to the firm that's the busiest, not the firm that doesn't have enough hours to give everyone 2200+.

[rpupkin]

anecdotes won't give any useful info.

Credited. Had a law school friend who desperately cared about her quality of life (free time, sleep, etc.). She went to a V20 firm where multiple attorneys assured her that "we consider 2000 hours a lot here." She posted on message boards, where folks said that the firm had a good lifestyle reputation compared to its peers.

Her first-year billables? 2450. Second year? 2600.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

I don't think even if you had a complete data set of firm billables it would be all that helpful in choosing between big law firms, because it can vary significantly based upon how well you do at the firm (better work product=more work (typically)), the group that you're in and who you work with, and other factors. I know that at my firm last summer there were some people doing multiple all nighters, and others mainly doing doc review coming in 9:30-5:30 every day, and otherwise working from home.

[Anonymous User]

But that's the whole point. Micro differences within a firm swamp any firm-to-firm difference, and to the extent there is a difference you want to go to the firm that's the busiest, not the firm that doesn't have enough hours to give everyone 2200+.

That's only half true though. Granted you might be at a nondescript firm and end up with a partner from hell and working 3000, but on average, you know you'll work more at WLRK or Quinn than most other firms. I think there are true sweatshops that can be differentiated. What is generally pointless is when people try to differentiate between otherwise standard biglaw firms or think that any V100 is a 'lifestyle' firm that is substantially different from the rest. I think the safe assumption is 2200 everywhere unless you have reason to know it will be higher, and never think you'll get it lower.

[Anonymous User]

Illustrating how ridiculous this exercise is, I have reasonable familiarity with WLRK and I don't think its associates work harder than associates in similar practices at any other big NY corporate firm. I.e., it's not that WLRK works its associates hard, its that high-end public company M&A practices work their associates hard, no matter what firm they're at. If you think you're going to somehow catch a break doing M&A at another NY firm, you're in for a surprise.

There is no such thing as a "sweatshop", and no such thing as "quality of life firm". Gross generalization, but from the perspective of the prospective lawyer, a better generalization than trying to chase unicorns.

Curiously, hours worked follows the the same principle as the length of time it takes to run weather models. Computers have become orders of magnitude faster over the last 30 years, so you'd figure that weather models would run much faster now than they did 30 years ago, right? Wrong. They take just as long - the constraining factor on how fast a weather model runs is how long people are willing to wait for the output (which is more or less constant over time), and every time the computer gets faster they just cram more into the model until it takes as long to run as people are willing to tolerate.

Similarly, the constraining factor on how much associates work is (1) how much work is available - and in that regard, more is always better - and (2) how much work the associates are willing to tolerate, which is more or less constant over time and from firm to firm. You work harder in, say, M&A compared to regulatory work, but that's because the potential rewards in M&A are greater and folks are willing to bust their ass to work in those groups. If you find a practice group (or firm) with lower hours, that's generally because the long term career options from that group (or firm) aren't as lucrative or because the group (or firm) is slow.

[LA Spring]

My trajectory of 1800 hours has gone into the dumpster because of all the “prep, non-billable, etc. work” I have been recently assigned. The firm claims they will take this into consideration during bonus time, whatever consideration means.

[Desert Fox]

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[Anonymous User]

Anyone have anything to say about litigation at, say, a V5 compared to some of the lit boutiques?

[Desert Fox]

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[bulinus]

Curiously, hours worked follows the the same principle as the length of time it takes to run weather models. Computers have become orders of magnitude faster over the last 30 years, so you'd figure that weather models would run much faster now than they did 30 years ago, right? Wrong. They take just as long - the constraining factor on how fast a weather model runs is how long people are willing to wait for the output (which is more or less constant over time), and every time the computer gets faster they just cram more into the model until it takes as long to run as people are willing to tolerate.

(Malcolm Gladwell)