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I was curious if it is acceptable to bill time reading emails. There are sometimes when I'm not being asked to do anything on a particular transaction, but there are a lot of emails going back and forth, so I read them anyways to stay up to date on what's going on. Should I be billing this time spent reading these emails?

If it is an email from a client or about a case you're working on for a client, then bill to that client. Otherwise, bill to your firm's internal billing number.

I usually bill for this (litigation though, so that may be different), but I imagine this is the type of time entry that ends up getting slashed.

I don't generally bill for emails unless I'm working on something concerning the email. I really wish I could get away with it, though. I'm CC'ed on a bunch of shit I don't need to be, and it takes time to read every day.

You bill it because you can't do your job properly without it and it is doing work for the client, but the time is built into other tasks that sound better on a billing report.

Anonymous User wrote:You bill it because you can't do your job properly without it and it is doing work for the client, but the time is built into other tasks that sound better on a billing report.

This is correct. I think it also matters whether you are allowed to block bill and whether that matter is billed in .1's or .25's.