I don’t bill for emails I quickly read (or even reply to) on my phone while I’m out or just woke up or whatever - in exchange for this, I never feel bad about all my entries rounding up to the .1 even though sometimes I’ve only worked a minute or two. For emails that I get while working on my computer, I usually fold that time into some other task I’m doing for the matter. I don’t get that many long emails that relate to matters I’m not working on on a daily basis (leaving me with nothing to fold the time into), but on the rare occasions that I do, I sometimes bill it to “review working group comms. re [topic].” From reviewing bills in doc reviews or whatever, this type of entry seems like more of a partner thing, although I do see associates doing it sometimes.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:51 pmDo you all bill time reading emails? I’m sometimes on email chains where I’m not expected to do anything. I don’t bill that time. I only bill time when I’m expected to do something. Am I being dumb?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:16 pmI think it’s important to keep in mind that “padding” means something different to each associate. I had a junior once who was reminded that it’s okay to bill the time he spent reading client emails. Another had to be told it’s not okay to bill time he spent waiting for the paralegal to print a draft of the agreement.
Always be padding? Forum
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Re: Always be padding?
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Re: Always be padding?
I will always bill if the client is chaining me to my computer waiting for a response at middle of the night, weekend, or a holiday.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
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Re: Always be padding?
Seriously are there people just allowing themselves to be chained to their desks at 4a without billing for it? I'm pretty shocked by the level of underbilling in here...honestly seems like some people are only billing when they're actually making keystrokes in documents. Have some self respect, guys.notinbiglaw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:35 pmI will always bill if the client is chaining me to my computer waiting for a response at middle of the night, weekend, or a holiday.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
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Re: Always be padding?
For people who are honest about what they’re billing for (“Waiting for client to send revisions to draft”), I’m all for it. What bothers me is that most people I know who bill for stuff like this try to obscure it by lumping it in with something less likely to raise eyebrows. I don’t think that’s about having self-respect, I think it’s just dishonest.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:51 pmSeriously are there people just allowing themselves to be chained to their desks at 4a without billing for it? I'm pretty shocked by the level of underbilling in here...honestly seems like some people are only billing when they're actually making keystrokes in documents. Have some self respect, guys.notinbiglaw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:35 pmI will always bill if the client is chaining me to my computer waiting for a response at middle of the night, weekend, or a holiday.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
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Re: Always be padding?
Same here. I've seen a lot of different posters talk about their hours on this forum, noting that they're working from 8 am to 8 or 9 pm every day and billing just over 2000 hrs a year. Either they are not busy or underbilling to an insane degree. No wonder so many people burn out and quit.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:51 pmSeriously are there people just allowing themselves to be chained to their desks at 4a without billing for it? I'm pretty shocked by the level of underbilling in here...honestly seems like some people are only billing when they're actually making keystrokes in documents. Have some self respect, guys.notinbiglaw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:35 pmI will always bill if the client is chaining me to my computer waiting for a response at middle of the night, weekend, or a holiday.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
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Re: Always be padding?
If I'm printing a prospectus I pretty much just bill "printing prospectus" or whatever; I've never been asked to go into more detail than that and I think putting details like "waiting for proofs" would be unnecessary. I also think it's unreasonable to expect people to essentially narrate every aspect of their day in their narratives.
Honestly can't believe you or anyone else thinks it's reasonable to just sit at your desk and wait for your client to send you something in the middle of the night and NOT bill it, and I have to wonder how often people who are arguing against this actually experience it. Like I said this may vary by practice, but in groups where this is common (like mine), I'm pretty sure most people just bill that time. I know when I was junior people senior to me explicitly told me to bill that time.
Honestly can't believe you or anyone else thinks it's reasonable to just sit at your desk and wait for your client to send you something in the middle of the night and NOT bill it, and I have to wonder how often people who are arguing against this actually experience it. Like I said this may vary by practice, but in groups where this is common (like mine), I'm pretty sure most people just bill that time. I know when I was junior people senior to me explicitly told me to bill that time.
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Re: Always be padding?
For what it's worth, I've reviewed various time sheets for cases (in a practice group where the judge has to sign off on fees and so we make sure all entries are pretty detailed---guess which one lol), and the most egregious billers are partners. Not because they inflate their hours per se, but because their entries are:
3/31 Attend to matter - 10.9 hours
4/1 Attend to matter; conferences - 12.0 hours
3/31 Attend to matter - 10.9 hours
4/1 Attend to matter; conferences - 12.0 hours
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Re: Always be padding?
LOL just LOL at the people turning off their clock for a piss break and waiting for a bullshit opposing counsel doc at 2 AM. You know there's a 99% chance your partners think you're underbilling and not overbilling right? They almost all prefer writing off time to having to underbill something because you never put it in the first place, but thanks for saving your multi-billion dollar client something in their 10th decimal place because you read two articles from the last decade about some guy who got a slap on the wrist for making up 500 hours on a matter he never touched. What an embarrassing cocktail of being too stupid to understand your firm's standards while at the same time incredibly self-righteous to save pennies for clients whose aggregate legal bills are basically rounding errors. In other words, absolutely peak TLS.
Anon for whichever of you dorks is waiting to report people to the bar because billing a two-minute email response as a 0.1 doesn't round up.
Anon for whichever of you dorks is waiting to report people to the bar because billing a two-minute email response as a 0.1 doesn't round up.
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Re: Always be padding?
This is what I do on deals. I just write down 1-2 things I did during the day and then say attend to deal.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:08 pmFor what it's worth, I've reviewed various time sheets for cases (in a practice group where the judge has to sign off on fees and so we make sure all entries are pretty detailed---guess which one lol), and the most egregious billers are partners. Not because they inflate their hours per se, but because their entries are:
3/31 Attend to matter - 10.9 hours
4/1 Attend to matter; conferences - 12.0 hours
People in this thread are out of their minds calling some of these billing practices unethical. If you pull an all nighter for closing or at a printer, you should bill every second of that time. The client is demanding you stay up all night to close their deal or turn the printer proof. Why shouldn't they pay for those hours (same thing for saying a doc needs to go out that night causing you to stay up to wait for a partner's comments). You are devoting your time to their deal based on their request. I don't know why anyone here thinks its unethical to bill for that.
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Re: Always be padding?
Some of these are long back and forth chains between partners, partners and clients, partners and specialists, etc. I’m on the deal and the email involves my practice area, but I’m not actively updating that section of the document sometimes. I usually don’t bill this because I haven’t been asked to do anything substantive (sometimes it’s hours minutes of reading the emails and edits to the documents). Based on some responses on here, I’m doing this wrong.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:25 pmI don’t bill for emails I quickly read (or even reply to) on my phone while I’m out or just woke up or whatever - in exchange for this, I never feel bad about all my entries rounding up to the .1 even though sometimes I’ve only worked a minute or two. For emails that I get while working on my computer, I usually fold that time into some other task I’m doing for the matter. I don’t get that many long emails that relate to matters I’m not working on on a daily basis (leaving me with nothing to fold the time into), but on the rare occasions that I do, I sometimes bill it to “review working group comms. re [topic].” From reviewing bills in doc reviews or whatever, this type of entry seems like more of a partner thing, although I do see associates doing it sometimes.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:51 pmDo you all bill time reading emails? I’m sometimes on email chains where I’m not expected to do anything. I don’t bill that time. I only bill time when I’m expected to do something. Am I being dumb?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:16 pmI think it’s important to keep in mind that “padding” means something different to each associate. I had a junior once who was reminded that it’s okay to bill the time he spent reading client emails. Another had to be told it’s not okay to bill time he spent waiting for the paralegal to print a draft of the agreement.
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Re: Always be padding?
Any time I am living the kafkaesque bullshit of sitting at a computer or focused on my phone rather than living my own life, I am billing whichever client is most responsible for it. I’m literally selling entire portions of my life. I may not have enough self respect to walk away altogether but I sure as fuck have enough self respect to make sure it counts toward my bonus.
If I was a GC at a public company and learned the brave-little-third-year-that-could sat in front of a screen at 2am waiting for half an hour for a printer to turn comments and didn’t bill it because he “wasn’t working, technically,” I’d literally lose respect for the kid because what kind of self-loathing behavior even is that. Especially if his firm has a bonus floor.
If I was a GC at a public company and learned the brave-little-third-year-that-could sat in front of a screen at 2am waiting for half an hour for a printer to turn comments and didn’t bill it because he “wasn’t working, technically,” I’d literally lose respect for the kid because what kind of self-loathing behavior even is that. Especially if his firm has a bonus floor.
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Re: Always be padding?
You sound like a litigator or restructuring associate. In the words of Sam Jackson - block billing, motherfucker, have you heard of it?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:58 pmFor people who are honest about what they’re billing for (“Waiting for client to send revisions to draft”), I’m all for it. What bothers me is that most people I know who bill for stuff like this try to obscure it by lumping it in with something less likely to raise eyebrows. I don’t think that’s about having self-respect, I think it’s just dishonest.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:51 pmSeriously are there people just allowing themselves to be chained to their desks at 4a without billing for it? I'm pretty shocked by the level of underbilling in here...honestly seems like some people are only billing when they're actually making keystrokes in documents. Have some self respect, guys.notinbiglaw wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:35 pmI will always bill if the client is chaining me to my computer waiting for a response at middle of the night, weekend, or a holiday.
Always.
My note is thinking about responses to potential replies from client.
You don't have to detail every freaking task you did, yeesh. Even when I do deals where I need to do litigation/BK style billing (fucking kill me), that time you spend waiting at 3 am gets put under "Review and revise purchase agreement". Who the fuck would ever put "Waiting around with my thumb up my arse instead of sleeping"?
Have some common sense people.
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Re: Always be padding?
Seriously, this must be a practice group divide or something. Like...I'll bill 12 hours to "draft prospectus" in a day. Because I seriously sat down and worked on one document for 12 hours that day. I don't type out every section I worked on, every precedent I looked up, every blackline I ran...that would be absurd.
Some of the people in this thread are probably costing themselves 100-200 hours of time per year that should probably be billed.
Some of the people in this thread are probably costing themselves 100-200 hours of time per year that should probably be billed.
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Re: Always be padding?
I’m not in biglaw anymore and I don’t bill per se anymore so I don’t really have a dog in this fight. One thing I regret is not billing for my time when I was inefficient.
Like if I’m drafting a brief for four hours and I go on TLS or whatever during that time, I think it should be billed. We are human beings after all. Every other profession bills for this time. I probably cost myself 100s of hours throughout my years.
Like if I’m drafting a brief for four hours and I go on TLS or whatever during that time, I think it should be billed. We are human beings after all. Every other profession bills for this time. I probably cost myself 100s of hours throughout my years.
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Re: Always be padding?
if it's a key part of the legal work you will almost certainly do you should just bill it. being fully up-to-date on your input RE the situation and docs, especially if it's a really fast moving deal with a ton of moving parts and specialists, is something clients should absolutely be paying for imo.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 11:10 pmSome of these are long back and forth chains between partners, partners and clients, partners and specialists, etc. I’m on the deal and the email involves my practice area, but I’m not actively updating that section of the document sometimes. I usually don’t bill this because I haven’t been asked to do anything substantive (sometimes it’s hours minutes of reading the emails and edits to the documents). Based on some responses on here, I’m doing this wrong.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 6:25 pmI don’t bill for emails I quickly read (or even reply to) on my phone while I’m out or just woke up or whatever - in exchange for this, I never feel bad about all my entries rounding up to the .1 even though sometimes I’ve only worked a minute or two. For emails that I get while working on my computer, I usually fold that time into some other task I’m doing for the matter. I don’t get that many long emails that relate to matters I’m not working on on a daily basis (leaving me with nothing to fold the time into), but on the rare occasions that I do, I sometimes bill it to “review working group comms. re [topic].” From reviewing bills in doc reviews or whatever, this type of entry seems like more of a partner thing, although I do see associates doing it sometimes.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:51 pmDo you all bill time reading emails? I’m sometimes on email chains where I’m not expected to do anything. I don’t bill that time. I only bill time when I’m expected to do something. Am I being dumb?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 5:16 pmI think it’s important to keep in mind that “padding” means something different to each associate. I had a junior once who was reminded that it’s okay to bill the time he spent reading client emails. Another had to be told it’s not okay to bill time he spent waiting for the paralegal to print a draft of the agreement.
imagine if you wern't reading those emails and staying apprised. would you be able to do your job? would the client and your partners be happy with you? I doubt it.
they expect you to be able to drop everything and comment on that merger agreement turn at 11pm on a Friday night. being ready to do that is part of the services that we offer.
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Re: Always be padding?
You all seem to think that a partner can just go out and collect whatever you bill. I guess that might be true at super-in-demand firms like K&E, but most often it's not. That's one of the reasons biglaw is a difficult place to work. You have to work very efficiently, and produce high-quality work in a small number of hours. Sometimes, an associate will work efficiently and the partner still can't collect all of their time.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
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Re: Always be padding?
I agree that you can get pushback from partners for billing too much and that having hours written off is not the goal. However, whenever I have time written off it has little to do with me being inefficient but rather the client being stingy or because the partner not understanding how much time it would actually take when quoting a number.motojir wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:25 amYou all seem to think that a partner can just go out and collect whatever you bill. I guess that might be true at super-in-demand firms like K&E, but most often it's not. That's one of the reasons biglaw is a difficult place to work. You have to work very efficiently, and produce high-quality work in a small number of hours. Sometimes, an associate will work efficiently and the partner still can't collect all of their time.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
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Re: Always be padding?
Now we're getting into the substance of what this discussion should be about, which isn't padding hours (which is completely illegal by the way. I guess it happens, but every now and then someone gets caught and the disciplinary bodies make a spectacle of them. It's a bad idea. Just quit your job if it's making you resort to crime.)Casper123 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:48 amI agree that you can get pushback from partners for billing too much and that having hours written off is not the goal. However, whenever I have time written off it has little to do with me being inefficient but rather the client being stingy or because the partner not understanding how much time it would actually take when quoting a number.motojir wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:25 amYou all seem to think that a partner can just go out and collect whatever you bill. I guess that might be true at super-in-demand firms like K&E, but most often it's not. That's one of the reasons biglaw is a difficult place to work. You have to work very efficiently, and produce high-quality work in a small number of hours. Sometimes, an associate will work efficiently and the partner still can't collect all of their time.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
Rather, it's about collecting as much as possible for your work, which I assure you firm management has covered. They have a whole bunch of tricks to make sure clients don't pay a penny less than they want for the work you do, which includes increasing billing rates every year, setting client budgets in a way that lets you take your time and savor the work when the client is willing to pay a lot, and do it quick and dirty when they're not, fixed-fee arrangements that cost the client more than the number of hours required (this is substantively similar to padding hours, in a very loose sense, but it's legal because there's no fraud) . . .
This is also why you don't want to work for anyone but the top-tier in-demand partners and firms, like the K&E's of the world. I don't work for K&E, but I don't think they will hesitate to fire a client who tries to nickle and dime them and force their associates to eat hours. Having a client that wants you to be their lawyer, and is worried about losing you as a lawyer and having to go to a lower-tier firm, is a luxury.
tl dr: Partners are already trying to get as much possible for your work in legal ways, there's no need for you to pad hours
Last edited by motojir on Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Always be padding?
Probably dependent on the billing partner and the firm generally, but I've been on deals where I literally pulled an all nighter where I block billed 24 hours in a 24 hours period and there was zero pushback. I also had a couple instances where I was told to put down my billable work hours on some client matters as development or training or whatever. I was first year, so in hindsight what I think was happening was junior hours were being written off or highly discounted for the client, so the partner didn't want to have to write off those hours against profits for internal purposes. This is at a v10.Casper123 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 7:48 amI agree that you can get pushback from partners for billing too much and that having hours written off is not the goal. However, whenever I have time written off it has little to do with me being inefficient but rather the client being stingy or because the partner not understanding how much time it would actually take when quoting a number.motojir wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:25 amYou all seem to think that a partner can just go out and collect whatever you bill. I guess that might be true at super-in-demand firms like K&E, but most often it's not. That's one of the reasons biglaw is a difficult place to work. You have to work very efficiently, and produce high-quality work in a small number of hours. Sometimes, an associate will work efficiently and the partner still can't collect all of their time.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
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Re: Always be padding?
interesting - is this bankruptcy? how detailed are associate hours in contrast to your partner examples?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:08 pmFor what it's worth, I've reviewed various time sheets for cases (in a practice group where the judge has to sign off on fees and so we make sure all entries are pretty detailed---guess which one lol), and the most egregious billers are partners. Not because they inflate their hours per se, but because their entries are:
3/31 Attend to matter - 10.9 hours
4/1 Attend to matter; conferences - 12.0 hours
because of the scrutiny, would you feel hesitant to do the “aggressive” billing tactics (eg bill waiting up late for a turn) ppl have talked about here?
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Re: Always be padding?
This is probably practice group dependent. As a lit junior, it was not uncommon to be told something like "This client has budgeted X hours for this" with the understanding that meant use them all, when the task could easily be done in 0.5 * X. Alternatively, at the end of the year we would get the "Client legal dep't says they have $XXXXX left in budget that they have to use before end of year or they lose it." Which usually meant just trying to find something to bill the client for even if it wasnt efficient.
Having moved in-house, by far the most annoying thing is all the .1 hours for something like forwarding an email (e.g. regulatory body sends email to firm, associate forwards it to us with something like "lets discuss" or "this looks good to me" or something ). its not the money-- i'm fine if it gets block billed into a meeting with something like "prepare for and attend meeting". I'm not going to check to see the meeting took 45 minutes and you billed 1 hour, which means you reviewed this one form email for .2 hours and get mad. But at the end of the month you add all the 0.1s up and think "Wow, this firm charged us $XXXX for forwarding emails" and it just completely makes you question the value add of the arrangement (regardless of the fact that in the grand scheme, its not that much money). And god forbid someone outside legal, from management or financing or something, tries to review a bill and ask "okay and all these $75 charges, what are those for?"
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Re: Always be padding?
Yea, the US Trustee pushes back pretty hard on these kinds of entries (yep, RX) so I guess this situation is a little unique. Since we force our associates to re-write all their entries that are this vague, they tend to have much more detailed time entries because they know we'll come back and nag. The partners are also told to revise their overly general entries, but they often DGAF and ignore the requests lol. And I guess it's less of an issue of padding and more of an issue of how detailed your billing description should be.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 8:55 aminteresting - is this bankruptcy? how detailed are associate hours in contrast to your partner examples?Anonymous User wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:08 pmFor what it's worth, I've reviewed various time sheets for cases (in a practice group where the judge has to sign off on fees and so we make sure all entries are pretty detailed---guess which one lol), and the most egregious billers are partners. Not because they inflate their hours per se, but because their entries are:
3/31 Attend to matter - 10.9 hours
4/1 Attend to matter; conferences - 12.0 hours
because of the scrutiny, would you feel hesitant to do the “aggressive” billing tactics (eg bill waiting up late for a turn) ppl have talked about here?
And I think billing practices depend somewhat on the group/partners you work for. I know certain clients are hardcore about how you bill and run algorithms to look for padding.
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Re: Always be padding?
I don’t know, man, this sounds like the partner’s problem. Your bonus isn’t based on your hours collected. If you have a truly egregious realization rate, I guess you could lose your job, but I’ve never heard of anyone in true Biglaw getting more than a very mild talking to for it. I’ve read about it happening more at regional and midsize firms on this forum, I guess.motojir wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 6:25 amYou all seem to think that a partner can just go out and collect whatever you bill. I guess that might be true at super-in-demand firms like K&E, but most often it's not. That's one of the reasons biglaw is a difficult place to work. You have to work very efficiently, and produce high-quality work in a small number of hours. Sometimes, an associate will work efficiently and the partner still can't collect all of their time.
If you're saying you should pad your hours, only to have the partner write it off then, well, firms have technology to track how much of your hours get collected.
At a big city Biglaw firm you should bill *all* the time you’re working, and let the partner worry about writing it down.
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Re: Always be padding?
I had a "mild" talking to from a partner about how our bill was light and how it was "great" how efficient I was. No one was happy afterwards. I've never had a partner complain about a bill being too heavy.Elston Gunn wrote: ↑Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:03 amIf you have a truly egregious realization rate, I guess you could lose your job, but I’ve never heard of anyone in true Biglaw getting more than a very mild talking to for it.
Last edited by Anonymous User on Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Always be padding?
I have the opposite issue. I'm very bad about not billing for tiny things or reading emails. I almost never bill .1, and I never bill for reading or drafting emails (unless I'm drafting a summary or whatever straight into the email). I probably lose close to an hour (?) every day. Between adhd and how much I jump around, I feel like I'd lose even more time trying to keep it all straight.
I make up for it by working more, which isn't a good thing, but oh well.
I have had a client accuse me of lying, which is frustrating since I underbill if anything. I worked midnight - 2 am one night and billed it the prior day, but the email with the document went out that day during normal business hours. I billed it as Draft and send whatever. He zero'd in on my use of "send," checked his inbox, saw nothing from that day, and accused me of lying. He never thought to just check the next day. The billing partner dropped the client over this, saying he has too much work to have clients like that.
I make up for it by working more, which isn't a good thing, but oh well.
I have had a client accuse me of lying, which is frustrating since I underbill if anything. I worked midnight - 2 am one night and billed it the prior day, but the email with the document went out that day during normal business hours. I billed it as Draft and send whatever. He zero'd in on my use of "send," checked his inbox, saw nothing from that day, and accused me of lying. He never thought to just check the next day. The billing partner dropped the client over this, saying he has too much work to have clients like that.
Last edited by Best on Thu Apr 01, 2021 10:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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