Top Law Schools

Just checking in because I hear lots of people talking about how you should be working a million and a half hours and I'm like...eh...that's not my experience.

I'll start. My firm's bonus threshold is 2k (hard cutoff, no partial bonus, which sucks). Corp associates often hit it, but often do not. I get the sense that if you're billing at least in the 1600-1700 range though, no one's going to be calling to fire you. Corp work just has a lot more downtime built into it than lit, so if you're not annualizing at what the lit guys are annualizing at, so be it.

V50ish firm in DC.

I saw that the ranges for our corp associates were the same (even where the hard cutoff was 2000).

Corp Associates on pace, and for the past few years billing less than 1700.

But I haven't been able to ask individuals about their hours from years before.

First year here, on pace for about 1700 hours. At my six month review, they told me I should be stepping it up, but honestly there just isn't enough work to go around. My firm has a minimum of 1800 hours but I've been told it's not that strictly enforced.

I don't buy the corp/lit distinction. Transactional support groups (environmental, ECEB, tax, antitrust, etc.) do tend to have lower hours I think though.

I've had a ton of 0 billable hour 10 hour days, and a bunch of 12-16 >95% efficiency days. My gut is that billing a 200 hour litigation month comes out to way less work hours than for corp, because the workflow is more consistent. For a week last month, I was literally staring at the ceiling from 10-6 and then had a ton of work come in from 6-12. When I tried showing about noon I got dirty looks so just settled for the 14/15 hours for 6 billable hour days so while 30 hours for a week looks bad, I was in the office 70 hours, which is FML.

Anonymous User wrote:I've had a ton of 0 billable hour 10 hour days, and a bunch of 12-16 >95% efficiency days. My gut is that billing a 200 hour litigation month comes out to way less work hours than for corp, because the workflow is more consistent. For a week last month, I was literally staring at the ceiling from 10-6 and then had a ton of work come in from 6-12. When I tried showing about noon I got dirty looks so just settled for the 14/15 hours for 6 billable hour days so while 30 hours for a week looks bad, I was in the office 70 hours, which is FML.

Lol, I left the office at 5 today and got an assignment at 545.

Anonymous User wrote: Corp associates often hit it

Aw yeah they do

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've had a ton of 0 billable hour 10 hour days, and a bunch of 12-16 >95% efficiency days. My gut is that billing a 200 hour litigation month comes out to way less work hours than for corp, because the workflow is more consistent. For a week last month, I was literally staring at the ceiling from 10-6 and then had a ton of work come in from 6-12. When I tried showing about noon I got dirty looks so just settled for the 14/15 hours for 6 billable hour days so while 30 hours for a week looks bad, I was in the office 70 hours, which is FML.

Lol, I left the office at 5 today and got an assignment at 545.

I honestly think that the clients are generally too busy to respond to the partner before 2 PM, and so and so forth until it reaches you. It could also be leaving at 5 was a sign you needed more work, which would show they're making an effort to get you your hours, which is great.

HonestAdvice wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've had a ton of 0 billable hour 10 hour days, and a bunch of 12-16 >95% efficiency days. My gut is that billing a 200 hour litigation month comes out to way less work hours than for corp, because the workflow is more consistent. For a week last month, I was literally staring at the ceiling from 10-6 and then had a ton of work come in from 6-12. When I tried showing about noon I got dirty looks so just settled for the 14/15 hours for 6 billable hour days so while 30 hours for a week looks bad, I was in the office 70 hours, which is FML.

Lol, I left the office at 5 today and got an assignment at 545.

I honestly think that the clients are generally too busy to respond to the partner before 2 PM, and so and so forth until it reaches you. It could also be leaving at 5 was a sign you needed more work, which would show they're making an effort to get you your hours, which is great.

Yeah, I appreciate the effort, just hate the situation. The unevenness of the workflow is far and away the worst part about being a corps guy.

Anonymous User wrote:

HonestAdvice wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I've had a ton of 0 billable hour 10 hour days, and a bunch of 12-16 >95% efficiency days. My gut is that billing a 200 hour litigation month comes out to way less work hours than for corp, because the workflow is more consistent. For a week last month, I was literally staring at the ceiling from 10-6 and then had a ton of work come in from 6-12. When I tried showing about noon I got dirty looks so just settled for the 14/15 hours for 6 billable hour days so while 30 hours for a week looks bad, I was in the office 70 hours, which is FML.

Lol, I left the office at 5 today and got an assignment at 545.

I honestly think that the clients are generally too busy to respond to the partner before 2 PM, and so and so forth until it reaches you. It could also be leaving at 5 was a sign you needed more work, which would show they're making an effort to get you your hours, which is great.

Yeah, I appreciate the effort, just hate the situation. The unevenness of the workflow is far and away the worst part about being a corps guy.

There's also the fact that from a social standpoint, "I can't make it because I got stuck at work" has been a euphonism for "I don't like you - go away" for hundreds of years so people don't believe you, which creates conflict.