I don't believe anyone really bills $3,000 hours without padding Forum

[blahblahxyz]

2,000 hours without padding, with detailed billing entries stating exactly what you did, i.e. 2,000 hours that is 95%+ collected, is very hard. If you work every single weekend maybe you can bump that to 2500-2750. But 3,000? I simply don't believe it.

[blair.waldorf]

Okay.

[Prudent_Jurist]

Get good.

[almostperfectt]

2,000 hours without padding, with detailed billing entries stating exactly what you did, i.e. 2,000 hours that is 95%+ collected, is very hard. If you work every single weekend maybe you can bump that to 2500-2750. But 3,000? I simply don't believe it.

Show your math please. Conclusions without reasoning are frowned upon (in this field, on this site, in the world)

[DiligentSage]

If this doesn't feel possible to you, you're not in corporate and you've been hiding under a rock for the last 18 months or so.

[jc9812]

i'm sure it's physically possible. my incredulity is more at the fact that there are people who would willingly do it.

[BenJ]

For what it's worth, as someone who deals with bills regularly now, putting too much detail in your entries is much more likely to get challenged by clients and cause difficulty than putting too little detail.

But everyone's realization rates are basically exactly the same anyway, at least in my practice.

[Anonymous User]

Ask any Hong Kong US cap mkt lawyer. That's the norm.

[Anonymous User]

But everyone's realization rates are basically exactly the same anyway, at least in my practice.

Tangent I know but what is typical realization rate and how much does it actually matter?

[publius365]

Okay.

[blahblahxyz]

I guess it's a capital markets thing with giant budgets and banker/lawyer fees.

[Anonymous User]

3,000 is obviously brutal, but there’s the transaction volume for good associates at busy firms to easily hit 70 billables half the weeks and 50 billables the other half. That’s basically 3,000.

[Anonymous User]

People are going to flame you OP but you are 100% correct. People who bill 3000+ hours are almost certainly lying liars committing fraud on clients and padding like crazy. Padding in biglaw is a lot more rampant than most people actually realize. I’m not saying everyone does it, or even the majority, but there’s lots of unethical gunners playing the numbers game to chase partnership.

[Anonymous User]

I'm an incoming ass., no first hand experience (yet). But my '20 grad friends really are that busy. 3000 hours is 60 hours a week, or ~ 10 hours a day plus 10 over the weekend. Assuming 10 hours billable is about 12 hr workday, that's about 9-9, or maybe 9a-6p + 8p-11p, ect. It's hell, but it's what people seem to be doing now, at least in busy practice groups. They are not padding, they putting in those hours. I am not looking forward to it!

[Anonymous User]

People are going to flame you OP but you are 100% correct. People who bill 3000+ hours are almost certainly lying liars committing fraud on clients and padding like crazy. Padding in biglaw is a lot more rampant than most people actually realize. I’m not saying everyone does it, or even the majority, but there’s lots of unethical gunners playing the numbers game to chase partnership.

Quite strong conclusory statements here w/out anything to back it up.

As someone who has personally done a 3k year, if anything, I underbilled that year. My physical and mental health suffered that year, personal relationships suffered, and I was generally miserable. I know other ppl who have done 3k years, and most of them were the same - I do know one psycho who has done multiple 3k years (legitimately) but he is "passionate" about this stuff - absolute nutcase.

If you and OP were to revise your statement and say "happily/healthily bill 3k hours", you might be right. I know of one person who billed well over 3k hours and also maintained a very active social life - everyone knows this guy frauds and in fact he invented a "review due diligence" scheme that is well known by folks at my firm and has been adopted by other bad ppl.

In any case, you and OP's statements just make you look like ignorant a**es. I can confidently say, w/ much more confidence that you say noone can ethically bill 3k hours, that you and OP are either stub years or on the low end of v100 (if in biglaw at all).

[mardash]

Get good.

get ded

Agreed with others who have posted that this is physically possible and has been done by all kinds of people who (1) want money and/or (2) have self destructive personalities/chose a group that demands blood letting. It’s not a sustainable thing to do year over year.

Don’t act like it’s unheard of, but also you should think of it as a thing to avoid.

[Anonymous User]

People are going to flame you OP but you are 100% correct. People who bill 3000+ hours are almost certainly lying liars committing fraud on clients and padding like crazy. Padding in biglaw is a lot more rampant than most people actually realize. I’m not saying everyone does it, or even the majority, but there’s lots of unethical gunners playing the numbers game to chase partnership.

Quite strong conclusory statements here w/out anything to back it up.

As someone who has personally done a 3k year, if anything, I underbilled that year. My physical and mental health suffered that year, personal relationships suffered, and I was generally miserable. I know other ppl who have done 3k years, and most of them were the same - I do know one psycho who has done multiple 3k years (legitimately) but he is "passionate" about this stuff - absolute nutcase.

If you and OP were to revise your statement and say "happily/healthily bill 3k hours", you might be right. I know of one person who billed well over 3k hours and also maintained a very active social life - everyone knows this guy frauds and in fact he invented a "review due diligence" scheme that is well known by folks at my firm and has been adopted by other bad ppl.

In any case, you and OP's statements just make you look like ignorant a**es. I can confidently say, w/ much more confidence that you say noone can ethically bill 3k hours, that you and OP are either stub years or on the low end of v100 (if in biglaw at all).

What is this scheme?

[JusticeJackson]

I can’t see any way that billing 3000 hours could be worth it unless it was an absolute one time thing and it guaranteed partnership. Lots of market paying firms will be pumped if you hit 2000.

I did 2600 one year and I thought about quitting every single day. And then I did. Thank god.

The funny thing was that I worked for a famously insane rain maker and no one was even remotely surprised that I quit because I was just the latest in a long stream of people that quit after working for this woman.

[Big Red]

The incentive to pad no longer exists at that point. It blows my mind that people are able to do that or frankly that they would be allowed to do that, but I think the universe of people who actually get to 3,000 is pretty small.

[Anonymous User]

I can’t see any way that billing 3000 hours could be worth it unless it was an absolute one time thing and it guaranteed partnership. Lots of market paying firms will be pumped if you hit 2000.

I did 2600 one year and I thought about quitting every single day. And then I did. Thank god.

The funny thing was that I worked for a famously insane rain maker and no one was even remotely surprised that I quit because I was just the latest in a long stream of people that quit after working for this woman.

In my case, I didn't feel like I had a choice. In retrospect, that was insane. But it is how I felt (and how others made me feel and I was dumb enough to believe) in the moment.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah like, if you bill 60 hours a week every week, you'll hit 3k. I got close once and felt like i was going to die, but it's plainly POSSIBLE. No one who does that is well, though.

[Anonymous User]

I was on pace for 3000+ for about six months a few years ago, but my group stepped in to help me reallocate some of that. Still ended up at 2700+ that year and it was terrible. I think it also depends which practice group you're in. 3000 hours is bad in any group, but I think if you're doing it in a group like tax or exec comp where there isn't a lot of mindless filler (e.g., conference calls, diligence, consolidating comments), it's going to be even worse.

[Anonymous User]

People are going to flame you OP but you are 100% correct. People who bill 3000+ hours are almost certainly lying liars committing fraud on clients and padding like crazy. Padding in biglaw is a lot more rampant than most people actually realize. I’m not saying everyone does it, or even the majority, but there’s lots of unethical gunners playing the numbers game to chase partnership.

Quite strong conclusory statements here w/out anything to back it up.

As someone who has personally done a 3k year, if anything, I underbilled that year. My physical and mental health suffered that year, personal relationships suffered, and I was generally miserable. I know other ppl who have done 3k years, and most of them were the same - I do know one psycho who has done multiple 3k years (legitimately) but he is "passionate" about this stuff - absolute nutcase.

If you and OP were to revise your statement and say "happily/healthily bill 3k hours", you might be right. I know of one person who billed well over 3k hours and also maintained a very active social life - everyone knows this guy frauds and in fact he invented a "review due diligence" scheme that is well known by folks at my firm and has been adopted by other bad ppl.

In any case, you and OP's statements just make you look like ignorant a**es. I can confidently say, w/ much more confidence that you say noone can ethically bill 3k hours, that you and OP are either stub years or on the low end of v100 (if in biglaw at all).

First of all, you can swear on the internet. No need to censor yourself comrade.

You billed 3,000 in a year. Okay. Just FYI, that assumes (i) that your efficiency rate is at least 90% (anything lower and the rest of the math is even more unbelievable than it already is lol), (ii) you billed an average of 8.2 hours a day and worked an average of ~9 hours a day (average is including weekends and holidays, not just M-F). If this is in fact true, please seek professional psychiatric help.

But come on buddy, both of us know it's not true. And it especially isn't true for your friend "who billed well over 3k hours and also maintained a very active social life." Did you report him to the bar by any chance? If not, any reason for the failure to do so?

[nixy]

I mean, the person you’re talking to already admitted that the 3000/yr + active social life person lies to get to those hours, so you two agree on that part and I don’t know why you’re acting like you don’t.

The problem with “you worked an average of ~9 hrs a day every day” is that no one works the average. If you work enough 12-14 hours days where you billed most of that, you get some free days in there as well, which makes this all more feasible.

I’m not saying people do this a lot, that anyone wants to do it, or even that they do good work when they do it. I’d bet too that at a certain point people are burnt out enough that it takes them longer to get things done so there are diminishing returns on working that many hours, if you’re thinking about efficiency. But none of those things mean it’s mathematically impossible.

[Anonymous User]

People are going to flame you OP but you are 100% correct. People who bill 3000+ hours are almost certainly lying liars committing fraud on clients and padding like crazy. Padding in biglaw is a lot more rampant than most people actually realize. I’m not saying everyone does it, or even the majority, but there’s lots of unethical gunners playing the numbers game to chase partnership.

Quite strong conclusory statements here w/out anything to back it up.

As someone who has personally done a 3k year, if anything, I underbilled that year. My physical and mental health suffered that year, personal relationships suffered, and I was generally miserable. I know other ppl who have done 3k years, and most of them were the same - I do know one psycho who has done multiple 3k years (legitimately) but he is "passionate" about this stuff - absolute nutcase.

If you and OP were to revise your statement and say "happily/healthily bill 3k hours", you might be right. I know of one person who billed well over 3k hours and also maintained a very active social life - everyone knows this guy frauds and in fact he invented a "review due diligence" scheme that is well known by folks at my firm and has been adopted by other bad ppl.

In any case, you and OP's statements just make you look like ignorant a**es. I can confidently say, w/ much more confidence that you say noone can ethically bill 3k hours, that you and OP are either stub years or on the low end of v100 (if in biglaw at all).

What is this scheme?

Interested in this too