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Starting as a first-year this September in a medium-sized firm and curious about billables.

I know Yale has an article, and many other posters have said, that to hit 8 billables a day you need to be in the office for 10. Is this true? I feel like I could just sit and bill for 5 hours nonstop and then take a brief break and eat and knock out the rest. Is this possible? Or is it nearly inevitable that I will be in the office all day to hit 8?

A lot will depend on what you are working on that day. For example, if you have a bunch of documents to review, or a large brief to write, you can probably sit down for hours on end with the clock running to crank them out. The difficulty comes when you have a bunch of small tasks that you are rotating through, because inevitably you will lose some time switching between so many different things. It also depends on how much you value socializing, taking a longer lunch etc. Some people are machines / just really highly value going home and are able to eat in their office quickly and stay focused all day and go home earlier. Other people either can't or do not want to be that zoned in.

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Anonymous User wrote:Starting as a first-year this September in a medium-sized firm and curious about billables.

I know Yale has an article, and many other posters have said, that to hit 8 billables a day you need to be in the office for 10. Is this true? I feel like I could just sit and bill for 5 hours nonstop and then take a brief break and eat and knock out the rest. Is this possible? Or is it nearly inevitable that I will be in the office all day to hit 8?

You control your own clock (and therein lies the brokenness of the billable hour). Nobody forces you to stop the clock when you are going to the bathroom or switching between tasks. Being overly scrupulous with the clock only hurts you and hurts the firm. Firms have little incentive to go after heavy-handed billers unless they are egregious or straight-up fabricating time entries.

My advice to first years: triple, quadruple check all your work, and write extremely detailed and well-thought out time entries.

As someone at a big firm, your billable efficiency often isn't by choice. You might be waiting for comments on something - you don't bill the time you're sitting around waiting. Maybe you finished drafting some memo or agreement, and there's nothing for you to do for a little while.

It's not just a matter of "I'm at the office 10 hours today, so I should be able to bill 10 hours if I really want to."

Anonymous User wrote: My advice to first years: triple, quadruple check all your work, and write extremely detailed and well-thought out time entries.

I get the sense that this is different in litigation, but in corporate, the opposite is generally the best practice. None of my clients are going to come back and ask for more detail on an entry like "Attention to merger agreement". But if you use something like "Call with D. Henry regarding SEC covenant reporting obligations", and it turns out to be unintentionally wrong for whatever reason, that time could get thrown out and you could get in trouble. Alternatively, being super specific on corporate deals can lead to people complaining that you're being inefficient. They don't care if it takes $150K in total legal fees to close the deal, but if you spend 8 hours negotiating an ancillary document that, in their view, doesn't matter, they may get angry.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Starting as a first-year this September in a medium-sized firm and curious about billables.

I know Yale has an article, and many other posters have said, that to hit 8 billables a day you need to be in the office for 10. Is this true? I feel like I could just sit and bill for 5 hours nonstop and then take a brief break and eat and knock out the rest. Is this possible? Or is it nearly inevitable that I will be in the office all day to hit 8?

You control your own clock (and therein lies the brokenness of the billable hour). Nobody forces you to stop the clock when you are going to the bathroom or switching between tasks. Being overly scrupulous with the clock only hurts you and hurts the firm. Firms have little incentive to go after heavy-handed billers unless they are egregious or straight-up fabricating time entries.

My advice to first years: triple, quadruple check all your work, and write extremely detailed and well-thought out time entries.

I’m sorry, but are you billing when you are in the bathroom? That is fraudulent and crazy. Have at least a modicum of honesty

A rule of thumb I was always taught is that if a break is smaller than the unit of time in which you bill, you should not stop the clock.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Starting as a first-year this September in a medium-sized firm and curious about billables.

I know Yale has an article, and many other posters have said, that to hit 8 billables a day you need to be in the office for 10. Is this true? I feel like I could just sit and bill for 5 hours nonstop and then take a brief break and eat and knock out the rest. Is this possible? Or is it nearly inevitable that I will be in the office all day to hit 8?

You control your own clock (and therein lies the brokenness of the billable hour). Nobody forces you to stop the clock when you are going to the bathroom or switching between tasks. Being overly scrupulous with the clock only hurts you and hurts the firm. Firms have little incentive to go after heavy-handed billers unless they are egregious or straight-up fabricating time entries.

My advice to first years: triple, quadruple check all your work, and write extremely detailed and well-thought out time entries.

I’m sorry, but are you billing when you are in the bathroom? That is fraudulent and crazy. Have at least a modicum of honesty

Idk if trolling and also idk why anon, but I think most people probably keep it running if they are just going to pee. Usually you are still thinking about the work anyway and it doesn't make sense to stop the clock for a few minutes.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Starting as a first-year this September in a medium-sized firm and curious about billables.

I know Yale has an article, and many other posters have said, that to hit 8 billables a day you need to be in the office for 10. Is this true? I feel like I could just sit and bill for 5 hours nonstop and then take a brief break and eat and knock out the rest. Is this possible? Or is it nearly inevitable that I will be in the office all day to hit 8?

You control your own clock (and therein lies the brokenness of the billable hour). Nobody forces you to stop the clock when you are going to the bathroom or switching between tasks. Being overly scrupulous with the clock only hurts you and hurts the firm. Firms have little incentive to go after heavy-handed billers unless they are egregious or straight-up fabricating time entries.

My advice to first years: triple, quadruple check all your work, and write extremely detailed and well-thought out time entries.

I’m sorry, but are you billing when you are in the bathroom? That is fraudulent and crazy. Have at least a modicum of honesty

Seems understandable, no? A trip to the kitchen for a drink of water or to the bathroom quick is expected by clients, isn't it? I mean work inherently involves small deviations like this

Anonymous User wrote:A rule of thumb I was always taught is that if a break is smaller than the unit of time in which you bill, you should not stop the clock.

that doesn't make any sense. so I could bill a full hour, but in that hour take a 14 min crap and a 14 min water cooler conversation? That leads to inflating hours by almost 100%.

an easy rule is if you are working bill it, if you are not, don't. I am senior enough to run bills/invoices after matters close so I see everyone's time entries, and the amount of padding that goes on is unbelievable. partners/seniors notice it. unfortunately they only care when the client complains.

ruski wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:A rule of thumb I was always taught is that if a break is smaller than the unit of time in which you bill, you should not stop the clock.

that doesn't make any sense. so I could bill a full hour, but in that hour take a 14 min crap and a 14 min water cooler conversation? That leads to inflating hours by almost 100%.

an easy rule is if you are working bill it, if you are not, don't. I am senior enough to run bills/invoices after matters close so I see everyone's time entries, and the amount of padding that goes on is unbelievable. partners/seniors notice it. unfortunately they only care when the client complains.

(A) Most people don't bill in increments of .25...standard is .10 or .17, and (B) nobody is saying that you alternate 1 increment of work with 1 increment (minus 1 minute) of break like that. At that point you might as well cut straight to the point and pad your time directly because that's what you're doing. But yeah if you're on 0.10 increments and you take a 5 minute break I don't think it's crazy to not turn your clock off. There's a big leap from that to "inflating hours by almost 100%".

Anonymous User wrote:

ruski wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:A rule of thumb I was always taught is that if a break is smaller than the unit of time in which you bill, you should not stop the clock.

that doesn't make any sense. so I could bill a full hour, but in that hour take a 14 min crap and a 14 min water cooler conversation? That leads to inflating hours by almost 100%.

an easy rule is if you are working bill it, if you are not, don't. I am senior enough to run bills/invoices after matters close so I see everyone's time entries, and the amount of padding that goes on is unbelievable. partners/seniors notice it. unfortunately they only care when the client complains.

(A) Most people don't bill in increments of .25...standard is .10 or .17, and (B) nobody is saying that you alternate 1 increment of work with 1 increment (minus 1 minute) of break like that. At that point you might as well cut straight to the point and pad your time directly because that's what you're doing. But yeah if you're on 0.10 increments and you take a 5 minute break I don't think it's crazy to not turn your clock off. There's a big leap from that to "inflating hours by almost 100%".

This ^.

Do you guys actually have a stopwatch running in the background or something, or are you just speaking figuratively? Haven't started full time yet but when I summered we were basically taught to just keep track of it, but not specifically time it or anything. Maybe they just didn't care because we were summers.


ETA: I don't mean to imply they had us ballpark it or anything, we were supposed to specifically know when we started and stopped so as to get an exact number to bill. We just weren't told to use an actual stopwatch app or something.

NoBladesNoBows wrote:Do you guys actually have a stopwatch running in the background or something, or are you just speaking figuratively? Haven't started full time yet but when I summered we were basically taught to just keep track of it, but not specifically time it or anything. Maybe they just didn't care because we were summers.


ETA: I don't mean to imply they had us ballpark it or anything, we were supposed to specifically know when we started and stopped so as to get an exact number to bill. We just weren't told to use an actual stopwatch app or something.

If you're at a big/mid sized firm, they'll almost certainly have billing software with a built-in timer. If you're at a boutique/small firm, you can use free stopwatches online (google it). I'd strongly recommend using one - you'd be surprised how easy it is to underbill without one.