Litigation Hours Forum

[Anonymous User]

I’m a 1st year litigation associate at a V20 firm. I am trying to stick around as long as I can. In January I billed 173 hours, with about 15 of those hours on a pro bono matter. This month, I am going to be stuck exclusively on a massive doc review and the pro bono matter (which likely won’t take up too much time this month). The doc review has a weekly review quota, which is easily met in like 20 hours, though we are encouraged to review as many as we can.

I have been trying to bill 8 hours a day, and a few extra hours on weekends, resulting in an average of 45 per week. A mid level I spoke with said this is more than fine, and my partner mentor said that 2,000 per year is the goal. But I have spoken to other first years who are billing significantly more than me.

What do you think? What’s a solid goal? What did you bill as a lit first year? Do you have to bill more than the unofficial goal in order to stick around?

[Anonymous User]

I'm also a first-year lit associate, and I was told that as long as I'm roughly on pace, I shouldn't worry about daily or even weekly hours. In the last 3 weeks, I've had 4-5 hour days and 13-14 hour days, and no one has seemed at all concerned about my "slow" days. My firm has a 1,900 hour bonus requirement (including unlimited pro bono) and I was told that as long as you end up around that number, they won't push you out.

Instead of looking at daily or even weekly hours, I think it makes more sense to make sure you're on pace at the end of the month (even if you have a few slow days).

[Anonymous User]

This is firm, office, and even partner dependent. Talk to trusted midlevels about this and believe them if they tell you you’re fine. No first year will get fired for averaging 170 a month, which is over 2,000 anyway (and you very likely can do less than that and be fine).

It is a weird feeling to be less busy than your peers. But that’s also totally normal. There may be a few people who like to run themselves ragged that will always seem busier than you - whatever. And associates will rarely advertise when they are not very busy - but many like to make it known when they are busy. This can lead to people getting the wrong impression. Also it’s common for people to inflate their hours when they’re shooting the shit about how much they’ve worked. No one wants to sound lazy so their 178 in January turns into “like 200 or something” when you’re chatting.

Relax about this and just keep doing your work and being a good, responsive team player. If your hours are dipping to 150 or less for multiple months, that’s when you should approach a mentor. Otherwise it’s not worth worrying about.

[Anonymous User]

For what it's worth, I made partner and billed between 2000-2200 every single year I was an associate (plus pro bono and non-billable work). I think having a billable number that starts with a "2" is a good goal, but I think the TLS myth that you need to bill 2500+ year in year out to make partner, or to keep your job, is wildly overstated.

[Elston Gunn]

Billing 2,000 as a first year is about a million miles from a spot where you should be worried. As long as you’re not turning down work when others are stretched, absolutely no reason to worry about your peers being busier either.

As time goes on, it would be a good idea to seek out work that will actually help you develop as a lawyer—you don’t want to be literally billing 40 hrs/wk to doc review for very long—but the hours are not at all a concern for now.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the advice everyone.