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I’m looking for advice on how to work efficiently. I find that I have trouble keeping track of relevant points I located in cases, so that I can remember having read something relevant, but I don’t remember/can’t find the case. Any methods for tracking info in numerous different cases?

In general, anyone who works in litigation, I’d be glad for technical advice on organizing your thoughts or arguments, organizing research, keeping track of important documents, etc. Basically, nuts and bolts types of guidance. (I don’t struggle with the actual analysis, it’s more figuring out better ways to track my work, so that I don’t have to do the same task/research more than once.)

I mean this is basic as fuck but I create memos and copy and paste relevant sections of law into the doc. Lexis/Westlaw handily includes the citation.

If you have open access to software, Evernote and Scrivener are both great for this sort of stuff.

I use folders for each matter in Westlaw/Lexis and highlights/comments. I find it takes too much time to actually take notes on everything, but seeing the highlight is usually enough for me to remember why I thought it might be relevant.

I cut and paste the relevant language from each case (with citation) and dump into a word doc (but I can't use folders in Westlaw where I work). Then I can shuffle the chunks around by jurisdiction, good for me/bad for me, that kind of thing (including issue headings if it's a more multi-issue kind of project). Sometimes I do that on the fly, sometimes I go back and rearrange them as I accumulate a lot of stuff.

Scrivener is a really great piece of software if you can use it - I had it in law school (you can dump PDFs of cases into your file, have a bunch of different labeled notes - it's very cool).

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

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

Making a table in a word document works wonders. Make columns that are relevant. Like Case Name, then notes. Then copy and paste.

Avian wrote:I use folders for each matter in Westlaw/Lexis and highlights/comments. I find it takes too much time to actually take notes on everything, but seeing the highlight is usually enough for me to remember why I thought it might be relevant.

this with subfolders for issues within a given matter. e.g. "community bank" -> "collateral estoppel". then you can run a search in the top folder for whatever you vaguely remember seeing and if there are hits in the subfolder you think they should be in, go there

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

Have you even started biglaw yet.

If you blow the bill up (for clients who care about bills) on dumb shit partners get angry.

And purposely being slow is unethical as fuck. You might as well finish fast and fake the rest of the hours. That's what you are doing.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

This is terrible advice. Efficiency matters.

I was sort of unintentionally cutting my hours. I'd work eight but I'd look at the clock and say well I was inefficient so I'll bill 7.3. Partner came by and said to stop. Can be a tough line to straddle.

tyroneslothrop1 wrote:I was sort of unintentionally cutting my hours. I'd work eight but I'd look at the clock and say well I was inefficient so I'll bill 7.3. Partner came by and said to stop. Can be a tough line to straddle.

I work during school in a small-firm and do this (hours billed out as law clerk).. Its like a weird mental block i have to get over. Going into SA, and hopefully full time, I am planning on putting in the exact hours i spend on a given task, even if it takes longer than it should (which is often the case).

This seems elementary and I'm probably over thinking it. But I just feel like it looks bad for me to bill x hours when it actually takes x+2 hours. It shows that I'm slow and incompetent -- which I probably am.

Of course, I never over bill - so ethics police, back off.

Desert Fox wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

Have you even started biglaw yet.

If you blow the bill up (for clients who care about bills) on dumb shit partners get angry.

And purposely being slow is unethical as fuck. You might as well finish fast and fake the rest of the hours. That's what you are doing.

I never said you were blowing the bill up. You're not deliberately working like a snail and I'm not suggesting working any slower than precedent would find acceptable. I'm just saying there's really no need to come up with "creative solutions" to work faster above and beyond what common sense justifiably says to do. If you're not told there's an issue, then it really is the partner's job, not yours, to determine what's an "acceptable" time frame in which to complete an assignment.

El Pollito wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

This is terrible advice. Efficiency matters.

yeah partners also talk in staffing meetings about who is efficient because they like to staff efficient people. if you aren't efficient, you're gone after 2 years.

As a biglaw associate, I'm frankly shocked at this thread. We are not paid to be efficient. Unless you're boss complains about how high your hours are, you are being sufficiently efficient. Partners will make it known if you are working too slow.

Please also remember that if you cut your time, you are literally stealing from your firm on behalf of the client, and you are literally taking away the partner's opportunity to judge what time is appropriate for a matter.

I do not worry about how efficient I am probably because I just report my hours honestly and constantly get complimented on my efficiency. Do the tasks you are supposed to do and bill honestly. It is above your pay grade to place your own judgments on the rest of it.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

In addition to what other people said about this just being dumb and unethical, it only works if you're only on one project at a time.

Anonymous User wrote:As a biglaw associate, I'm frankly shocked at this thread. We are not paid to be efficient. Unless you're boss complains about how high your hours are, you are being sufficiently efficient. Partners will make it known if you are working too slow.

Please also remember that if you cut your time, you are literally stealing from your firm on behalf of the client, and you are literally taking away the partner's opportunity to judge what time is appropriate for a matter.

I do not worry about how efficient I am probably because I just report my hours honestly and constantly get complimented on my efficiency. Do the tasks you are supposed to do and bill honestly. It is above your pay grade to place your own judgments on the rest of it.

"Don't cut your time, because I'm efficient."

El Pollito wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:As a biglaw associate, I'm frankly shocked at this thread. We are not paid to be efficient. Unless you're boss complains about how high your hours are, you are being sufficiently efficient. Partners will make it known if you are working too slow.

Please also remember that if you cut your time, you are literally stealing from your firm on behalf of the client, and you are literally taking away the partner's opportunity to judge what time is appropriate for a matter.

I do not worry about how efficient I am probably because I just report my hours honestly and constantly get complimented on my efficiency. Do the tasks you are supposed to do and bill honestly. It is above your pay grade to place your own judgments on the rest of it.

"Don't cut your time, because I'm efficient."

Sorry, was unclear. The point is I don't even try to be efficient and am complimented on being efficient. There are enough people that are straight up lying about their hours that there is no way honest billing without intentionally going slow will ever be seen as inefficient.

Anonymous User wrote:

El Pollito wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:As a biglaw associate, I'm frankly shocked at this thread. We are not paid to be efficient. Unless you're boss complains about how high your hours are, you are being sufficiently efficient. Partners will make it known if you are working too slow.

Please also remember that if you cut your time, you are literally stealing from your firm on behalf of the client, and you are literally taking away the partner's opportunity to judge what time is appropriate for a matter.

I do not worry about how efficient I am probably because I just report my hours honestly and constantly get complimented on my efficiency. Do the tasks you are supposed to do and bill honestly. It is above your pay grade to place your own judgments on the rest of it.

"Don't cut your time, because I'm efficient."

Sorry, was unclear. The point is I don't even try to be efficient and am complimented on being efficient. There are enough people that are straight up lying about their hours that there is no way honest billing without intentionally going slow will ever be seen as inefficient.

That's just wrong. I've seen it happen countless times. It's going to depend entirely on the firm, the culture, and who you are working for. Some partners don't care about cutting hours and will tell you. Others really do.

lacrossebrother wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

In addition to what other people said about this just being dumb and unethical, it only works if you're only on one project at a time.

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.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

lacrossebrother wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote: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.

In addition to what other people said about this just being dumb and unethical, it only works if you're only on one project at a time.

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?

Wouldn't you also want to be efficient for those times when you're facing a fire drill and have too much work to do in too short a time? I would much rather work efficiently and go home an hour earlier than not be efficient and have to stay later.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:Wouldn't you also want to be efficient for those times when you're facing a fire drill and have too much work to do in too short a time? I would much rather work efficiently and go home an hour earlier than not be efficient and have to stay later.

Yes but efficiency is variable. Most people are capable of being efficient under the gun, but suck at efficiency if left to their own devices.