Firm Lowered My Hours Billed Forum

[Anonymous User]

I was going through my hours billed last month and noticed that I was missing a few hours (5-10). I thought it was strange. I had finalized my time and stuff. And my overall numbers were where I remember them being.i thought maybe I was being crazy and just let it go for a minute.

I then checked my monthly billable report for March and I noticed that 5-10 hours vanished.

Has this happened to anyone? No one confronted me about this. This is different than partners writing off time, which is recorded.

I honestly think a partner I work for “erased” some of my billable hours so they didn’t have to do it as a write-off (which I know partners have to sometimes justify, especially now).

I just think it’s unethical to do this. Also, my bonus is based on hours billed and now I’m 10 hours behind where I should actually be through no fault my own.

[Anonymous User]

I was going through my hours billed last month and noticed that I was missing a few hours (5-10). I thought it was strange. I had finalized my time and stuff. And my overall numbers were where I remember them being.i thought maybe I was being crazy and just let it go for a minute.

I then checked my monthly billable report for March and I noticed that 5-10 hours vanished.

Has this happened to anyone? No one confronted me about this. This is different than partners writing off time, which is recorded.

I honestly think a partner I work for “erased” some of my billable hours so they didn’t have to do it as a write-off (which I know partners have to sometimes justify, especially now).

I just think it’s unethical to do this. Also, my bonus is based on hours billed and now I’m 10 hours behind where I should actually be through no fault my own.

I don't have much insight into the behind the scenes mechanics or considerations that go into this happening, but it does happen. The instance in which I've encountered it is retroactive changes to billing codes, where a sub-classification of some type of work on a matter was reclassified, deleted, or the date at which the code was valid in the system moved after the fact and all the associated hours in the system were affected. A senior lost enough hours that it actually impacted his bonus eligibility and he made an official thing of it.

[Anonymous User]

OP here.

I checked my hours and a partner changed those hours to biz dev. Not sure why they weren’t just written off when the research was specifically for a question the client asked. I’m obviously not going to bring this up unless it affects me at the end of the year, but I’m going to be carefully monitoring my billable hours from now on.

[Anonymous User]

This happened to me as a 2nd year and I was freaking out until I talked to my staffing manager. At my firm each junior can bill 25 hours of public company work to a certain matter number, I guess a partner realized I hadn’t used any and just moved it to that. Still got credit for it. Double check your firm policies.

[Anonymous User]

This happened to me as a 2nd year and I was freaking out until I talked to my staffing manager. At my firm each junior can bill 25 hours of public company work to a certain matter number, I guess a partner realized I hadn’t used any and just moved it to that. Still got credit for it. Double check your firm policies.

OP here. We don’t have that kind of policy. We have certain matter numbers that still count towards billable hours. The matter # my hours were moved to does not count as billable. I was never told when I was doing the work that this was biz dev/non-billable, so it’s really annoying. And, it’s not like we didn’t advise the client on this question (I was there when we discussed this issue with the client).

Does anyone know what partner policies generally are about time write-offs? I’m wondering if the partner adjusted my time instead of doing a write off so that impacts me and not them.

[Anonymous User]

At my prior firm (lower Amlaw100) a billing partner would definitely prefer that an associate not bill time that will ultimately be written off by the billing partner because it hurts the profitability metrics of the client matter. I.e. attorney time is recorded to the matter but is ultimately not billed and collected. Hugely wasteful of firm resources and makes partner look bad for having a cheap, not so profitable client / matter.

Now OTOH if the associate does the work and just records the time as generic biz development or training or some shit then it just looks like its something the associate is doing on their own time to generally build a client relationship. It looks like the associate is going above and beyond - but hey the associate better still hit their billable hours! This looks better for the billing partner than the billing partner wasting an associate's time to do billable work for a specific client matter that s/he knows the client will ultimately bitch about paying for. It's a win-win for billing partner: they keep the client happy and they hide the fact that they are using associate time in an unprofitable manner.

When I was a jr associate I had partners who would ask me to record time that would be clearly billable to non-billable time like training/ biz development. But at least they were open about it and didn't do it without telling me. It still pissed me off because it didn't count towards my billable hours requirement so I tried to avoid working for those types of partners.

I would not trust a partner that did this behind my back. But that's just me.

[Anonymous User]

How did you check to see what hours were changed? I’m having this same issue and curious to know who changed my hours…

OP here.

I checked my hours and a partner changed those hours to biz dev. Not sure why they weren’t just written off when the research was specifically for a question the client asked. I’m obviously not going to bring this up unless it affects me at the end of the year, but I’m going to be carefully monitoring my billable hours from now on.

[Anonymous User]

How did you check to see what hours were changed? I’m having this same issue and curious to know who changed my hours…

OP here.

I checked my hours and a partner changed those hours to biz dev. Not sure why they weren’t just written off when the research was specifically for a question the client asked. I’m obviously not going to bring this up unless it affects me at the end of the year, but I’m going to be carefully monitoring my billable hours from now on.

I don't remember if I posted here anon before but this happened to me. The partner asked me to do client work but then changed it to business dev but put it to one of the "non-billable" numbers rather than one of the "counts as billable" billing numbers. At first I freaked out, because I tend to thread the needle with hitting my hours requirement. I basically called straight to the billing/accounting (whoever does the hours) people and told them to put it to the correct number.

Actually, and I'm not exactly proud of this, I yelled at the billing people for messing with my hours without informing me. Channeled my inner yelling partner as a junior associate haha

Technically I was supposed to get partner authorization in writing to use that billing number, but I wasn't going to fuck around and miss bonus because this partner wanted to protect his realization rate. Got bonus and no one ever said anything

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the quick reply! I’ll have to contact billing. I’m just curious as to which project/partner it was. I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, but wtf. I didn’t work those hours for fun. I should be credited the hours it took to do whatever it was.

How did you check to see what hours were changed? I’m having this same issue and curious to know who changed my hours…

OP here.

I checked my hours and a partner changed those hours to biz dev. Not sure why they weren’t just written off when the research was specifically for a question the client asked. I’m obviously not going to bring this up unless it affects me at the end of the year, but I’m going to be carefully monitoring my billable hours from now on.

I don't remember if I posted here anon before but this happened to me. The partner asked me to do client work but then changed it to business dev but put it to one of the "non-billable" numbers rather than one of the "counts as billable" billing numbers. At first I freaked out, because I tend to thread the needle with hitting my hours requirement. I basically called straight to the billing/accounting (whoever does the hours) people and told them to put it to the correct number.

Actually, and I'm not exactly proud of this, I yelled at the billing people for messing with my hours without informing me. Channeled my inner yelling partner as a junior associate haha

Technically I was supposed to get partner authorization in writing to use that billing number, but I wasn't going to fuck around and miss bonus because this partner wanted to protect his realization rate. Got bonus and no one ever said anything

[Anonymous User]

This happened to me and a partner moved about 20 hours to biz dev on a matter he stupidly agreed to a fixed fee for that wound up being a giant pain. As others have pointed out, partners do this to keep their metrics up at the expense of associate metrics. I’m sure there’s a firm policy against it, but I wasn’t going to make a stink about since I was going to hit hours anyways and the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze.

There’s not a whole lot you can do about it unless it’s really egregious, and even then you’re probably going to ruffle feathers, but I basically avoid that partner at all costs now.

[Anonymous User]

As others mentioned above, partners who flip your billable time to an unbillable code shouldn't be trusted as this is really shady/borderline unethical (whether or not its behind your back). Especially for firms with a hour requirement, this directly impacts an associate's metrics/take home pay.

This situation is probably not uncommon as many associates may not realize a few hours are missing unless they are watching closely.

[Anonymous User]

When I started, a couple senior associates and junior partners warned me about two partners in particular who would ask associates not to bill time or to bill to an administrative number and told me to always bill my time as I thought appropriate and to tell them. They explicitly told me, "you don't work for free and if s/he doesn't want to bill the client that's his/her problem, not yours." My firm counted business development hours, so if I encountered this issue I'd bill it to business development and be sure to include the client name and partner who told me not to bill in my descriptions. If those hours didn't count, it'd be a whole different issue. I also don't think partners could change our hours on the time keeping software, which is what our bonus-eligible hours were based off. They could have accounting move/write-down time on the billing side, but that never affected how it was reflected on my side or my bonus eligible hours.

[Anonymous User]

At the two firms I have been at, partners could move billable time to "training" but training hours still counted towards your billable total up to a certain amount. And there is a record of that write-off. And at my first firm, there was red tape involved in moving hours for anyone above a first year (but first years didn't have a billable hours expectation, so it was a win-win to just use a first year on something that might take time but the client wouldn't pay for)

If you took too long to do something, he can write it off and tell you to take less time in the future, but generally speaking, moving time from billable to non-billable if it isn't billable equivalent is super shady.

I have one partner who I don't work directly with but who pressures me to not bill for things. I do the bare minimum (forwarding filings and opening them to see what they are and skimming them, but not reading them) and bill the 0.1 that that requires. Then when I actually have to do something, I try to do it as quickly as ethically possible, but bill my time accurately. And in the future I certainly will try to avoid other matters from this partner.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

Really interested in this as it’s been a particular pain point for me and I find myself leaving hours on the table each month b/c of the pressure to get the job done and stay within partner and client expectations (AmLaw100 firm that has “lean” deal/client teams). My practice group is small too so I only go along with this bs because I don’t want to burn my workflow.

Do you really notice a difference between your two firms? Have you found that it’s easier (or just slightly less stressful) to hit your hours? What kind of clients did you work with at your last firm and what kind do you work with at the new firm?

I do a mix of M&A (middle market) and venture capital deals so I wonder if this cheapness is just inherent in my practices.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

[Anonymous User]

Yeah the cheapest client I've work on was also the biggest. Armies of inhouse folks scrutinizing every invoice.

[jotarokujo]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

it's not a weird comment because i think anon wants to be where they don't have to care about this

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

it's not a weird comment because i think anon wants to be where they don't have to care about this

It's one thing to not care about it. It's another thing to act like it doesn't exist at v10.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

There’s a fundamental difference between slashing hours on an outward facing proforma as opposed to moving hours internally.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

it's not a weird comment because i think anon wants to be where they don't have to care about this

It's one thing to not care about it. It's another thing to act like it doesn't exist at v10.

I've been at a v10 and a v15 (the former known for throwing money around and the latter known for being cheap).

In my experience, the client billing budgets are much bigger at the v10. On the big deals/cases I'm basically told to spend as much time as practicable doing whatever I'm doing because we're not even close to the budget. Gotta milk that budget I guess.

The v15 cut budgets and messed with billing and I regularly got told (on some matters) "not to bill my time" or that the client is cost conscious. Could just be my limited sample but I see what that person is talking about.

Slashing bills sure, but no one is telling "work but don't bill it". Ironically at the v10 with no hours requirement, I'm blase about the accuracy of my hours while at the v15 I was super careful and probably undercut my own billing.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

Really interested in this as it’s been a particular pain point for me and I find myself leaving hours on the table each month b/c of the pressure to get the job done and stay within partner and client expectations (AmLaw100 firm that has “lean” deal/client teams). My practice group is small too so I only go along with this bs because I don’t want to burn my workflow.

Do you really notice a difference between your two firms? Have you found that it’s easier (or just slightly less stressful) to hit your hours? What kind of clients did you work with at your last firm and what kind do you work with at the new firm?

I do a mix of M&A (middle market) and venture capital deals so I wonder if this cheapness is just inherent in my practices.

I was at Cooley and getting a ton of pressure to "be more efficient" (even though I was plenty efficient) because the clients were startups and early stage tech companies that couldn't afford to pay our bills. I got sick of billing less hours than I actually worked and then having partners cut my time on top of that so I left to where I can just block bill for something and nobody bats an eye.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

This is a weird comment. My former SO worked at one of the more profitable v10 and his hours were regularly cut. He didn't care because the firm had no hours minimum. Not sure why you think the v10 aren't slashing bills for clients regularly. That's why they charge $1000 for a second year (so they can still collect like $700-800).

There’s a fundamental difference between slashing hours on an outward facing proforma as opposed to moving hours internally.

OP of this post. The partner was moving hours because he didn’t want to take the hit for the write off. The firm penalized partners for large write offs.

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

Really interested in this as it’s been a particular pain point for me and I find myself leaving hours on the table each month b/c of the pressure to get the job done and stay within partner and client expectations (AmLaw100 firm that has “lean” deal/client teams). My practice group is small too so I only go along with this bs because I don’t want to burn my workflow.

Do you really notice a difference between your two firms? Have you found that it’s easier (or just slightly less stressful) to hit your hours? What kind of clients did you work with at your last firm and what kind do you work with at the new firm?

I do a mix of M&A (middle market) and venture capital deals so I wonder if this cheapness is just inherent in my practices.

I was at Cooley and getting a ton of pressure to "be more efficient" (even though I was plenty efficient) because the clients were startups and early stage tech companies that couldn't afford to pay our bills. I got sick of billing less hours than I actually worked and then having partners cut my time on top of that so I left to where I can just block bill for something and nobody bats an eye.

This is my life. Crazy efficient and still getting the casual “the client is cost conscious” heads up which just makes the work 6x more stressful because you’re just watching the clock.

How is the block billing life? I assume you are not still doing VC work. Mind if I ask if you went to a peer tech firm like a WSGR Goodwin Fenwick or to a traditional corporate firm? Did you have to retool or were you doing some M&A beforehand?

Hitting your hours easier and with less stress? Sorry for the many questions but I’m seriously considering a move and this is one of the primary reasons (this and my pay since I’m at midlaw firm).

[Anonymous User]

This cheapness on the part of both clients and partners is why I moved to a v10 firm (from a well regarded v50). Big clients on big matters don't nickel and dime like this and pressure partners into engaging in this kind of behavior.

Really interested in this as it’s been a particular pain point for me and I find myself leaving hours on the table each month b/c of the pressure to get the job done and stay within partner and client expectations (AmLaw100 firm that has “lean” deal/client teams). My practice group is small too so I only go along with this bs because I don’t want to burn my workflow.

Do you really notice a difference between your two firms? Have you found that it’s easier (or just slightly less stressful) to hit your hours? What kind of clients did you work with at your last firm and what kind do you work with at the new firm?

I do a mix of M&A (middle market) and venture capital deals so I wonder if this cheapness is just inherent in my practices.

I was at Cooley and getting a ton of pressure to "be more efficient" (even though I was plenty efficient) because the clients were startups and early stage tech companies that couldn't afford to pay our bills. I got sick of billing less hours than I actually worked and then having partners cut my time on top of that so I left to where I can just block bill for something and nobody bats an eye.

This is my life. Crazy efficient and still getting the casual “the client is cost conscious” heads up which just makes the work 6x more stressful because you’re just watching the clock.

How is the block billing life? I assume you are not still doing VC work. Mind if I ask if you went to a peer tech firm like a WSGR Goodwin Fenwick or to a traditional corporate firm? Did you have to retool or were you doing some M&A beforehand?

Hitting your hours easier and with less stress? Sorry for the many questions but I’m seriously considering a move and this is one of the primary reasons (this and my pay since I’m at midlaw firm).

Weird that this is happening at Cooley. I’m now at a competitor of Cooley and our partners tell us to 1) block bill and not breakout the time and 2) bill everything so we get credit for the hours worked even if the client isn’t billed for that work.