Convalescent Leave at Law Firm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom

It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom

It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

Aren’t we taking about associates? Do they do client development? I thought the work flowed from partners?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

PP here (who wrote “serious question”) - I don’t disagree with anything you said above. My spouse is a GS 15 and does about 50% at home. The problem is that most women are uncomfortable outsourcing all childcare to their spouse, in a way that men with SAH wives are not. A very wise (male) partner pointed this out to me very early on. Now that I have kids, I realize he’s right. But - importantly - I don’t think women’s attitudes are the problem here. Nobody should feel comfortable spending such little time with their kids, no matter how much money they make. So the entire biglaw model is unworkable (to the extent others agree with me - and I think many in my generation do). It’s sad because sure, I can and will leave, but I like the work and I’m very good at it.

Most men with Big Jobs are very comfortable spending little time with their kids.

Plenty of people are fine with it. That is why there is competition for these jobs. They aren’t for everyone, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom
C
It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

That should all be under 5%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom

It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

Aren’t we taking about associates? Do they do client development? I thought the work flowed from partners?

If you want to have a chance at partnership you have to do it. Writing client alerts, giving presentations, business pitches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

PP here (who wrote “serious question”) - I don’t disagree with anything you said above. My spouse is a GS 15 and does about 50% at home. The problem is that most women are uncomfortable outsourcing all childcare to their spouse, in a way that men with SAH wives are not. A very wise (male) partner pointed this out to me very early on. Now that I have kids, I realize he’s right. But - importantly - I don’t think women’s attitudes are the problem here. Nobody should feel comfortable spending such little time with their kids, no matter how much money they make. So the entire biglaw model is unworkable (to the extent others agree with me - and I think many in my generation do). It’s sad because sure, I can and will leave, but I like the work and I’m very good at it.

Most men with Big Jobs are very comfortable spending little time with their kids.

Plenty of people are fine with it. That is why there is competition for these jobs. They aren’t for everyone, though.

Right. It’s life changing amount of money, and will allow your children so many opportunities in life, I can see how some people value this path. I went family friendly jobs, and regret our low income terribly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom

It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

Aren’t we taking about associates? Do they do client development? I thought the work flowed from partners?

If you want to have a chance at partnership you have to do it. Writing client alerts, giving presentations, business pitches.

Is this why OP was deficit in her billable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

PP here (who wrote “serious question”) - I don’t disagree with anything you said above. My spouse is a GS 15 and does about 50% at home. The problem is that most women are uncomfortable outsourcing all childcare to their spouse, in a way that men with SAH wives are not. A very wise (male) partner pointed this out to me very early on. Now that I have kids, I realize he’s right. But - importantly - I don’t think women’s attitudes are the problem here. Nobody should feel comfortable spending such little time with their kids, no matter how much money they make. So the entire biglaw model is unworkable (to the extent others agree with me - and I think many in my generation do). It’s sad because sure, I can and will leave, but I like the work and I’m very good at it.

Most men with Big Jobs are very comfortable spending little time with their kids.

Plenty of people are fine with it. That is why there is competition for these jobs. They aren’t for everyone, though.

Right. It’s life changing amount of money, and will allow your children so many opportunities in life, I can see how some people value this path. I went family friendly jobs, and regret our low income terribly.

No one should feel sorry for biglaw lawyers. They are well compensated and everyone knows the drill (or should figure it out quickly). There also is a lot of flexibility (especially now with working from home). Even 10 years ago, I could usually pop out for a dr appointment or kid school event as needed and just make up the time later. No one cared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom
C
It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

That should all be under 5%

I don't understand people like you. Anyone who has worked in big law knows that it's hard to exceed 80% efficiency. A claim of 95% efficiency is fanciful and would be inconsistent with ethical and legal billing practices. I don't know what you do for a living, but it's certainly not legal work that's billed by the 0.1 hour. Learn to butt out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

PP here (who wrote “serious question”) - I don’t disagree with anything you said above. My spouse is a GS 15 and does about 50% at home. The problem is that most women are uncomfortable outsourcing all childcare to their spouse, in a way that men with SAH wives are not. A very wise (male) partner pointed this out to me very early on. Now that I have kids, I realize he’s right. But - importantly - I don’t think women’s attitudes are the problem here. Nobody should feel comfortable spending such little time with their kids, no matter how much money they make. So the entire biglaw model is unworkable (to the extent others agree with me - and I think many in my generation do). It’s sad because sure, I can and will leave, but I like the work and I’m very good at it.

I also left. Didn’t realize how toxic the expectation that your life revolves around work is.

I was good at it - I had the technical legal chops, I had the ability to figure out what a client needed/wanted and how to help them make a decision, I had the ability to see when a risk could be managed due to the nature of the client’s business and when it couldn’t, I mentored junior associates, I had a productive relationship with 95% of the law firm staff, and I could socialize with the awkward clients and partners. And more importantly than all of that, I cared. Not just about my billables and my rate and my resume, but about doing the best job I could for my clients.

But I also liked my kid and my family.

None of the men who made partner in my practice group around the time I left were substantially better than I was in any of those skills above, and some of of their skills were significantly worse than mine. But they were willing to set almost everything else aside and go for the brass ring. And they still have to work at that pace now that they’ve made partner.

They are all a heck of a lot richer than I am - but I don’t think they are happier.

I do think my old firm wasn’t like that 10-15 years ago when I joined. There are still people there I really do like working with, but the overall management is toxic - like most law firms.

I’m in house now - it’s not perfect, I do miss that sweet sweet salary, but I rarely work when I’m on vacation, or after hours, or on the weekends. If I have a 30 minute conversation with my colleagues about work related issues, I don’t have to panic about making up that time. If one of my internal clients asks me to explain something, I can take the time to educate them, so the next time we work together, it’s better for everyone, and I don’t have to wonder how to bill my time.

My father was on his deathbed, and I sent one email to my manager saying I was going to be out of the office for a while, and no one bothered me for a week an a half other than emails telling me they’d handle one of my tasks and to take all the time I needed.

Big Law is awful. Walking away from it is no reflection on you as a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

PP here (who wrote “serious question”) - I don’t disagree with anything you said above. My spouse is a GS 15 and does about 50% at home. The problem is that most women are uncomfortable outsourcing all childcare to their spouse, in a way that men with SAH wives are not. A very wise (male) partner pointed this out to me very early on. Now that I have kids, I realize he’s right. But - importantly - I don’t think women’s attitudes are the problem here. Nobody should feel comfortable spending such little time with their kids, no matter how much money they make. So the entire biglaw model is unworkable (to the extent others agree with me - and I think many in my generation do). It’s sad because sure, I can and will leave, but I like the work and I’m very good at it.

As mentioned before, if you "are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day" and have difficulty meeting your billable minimum, you aren't, in fact, very good at it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom
C
It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

That should all be under 5%

I don't understand people like you. Anyone who has worked in big law knows that it's hard to exceed 80% efficiency. A claim of 95% efficiency is fanciful and would be inconsistent with ethical and legal billing practices. I don't know what you do for a living, but it's certainly not legal work that's billed by the 0.1 hour. Learn to butt out.

I’m just asking about why the business even entertains non billable activities. Bathroom? lunch? That’s like 20 min a day. Admin? What does that mean? Filling timesheets? Ordering TSP forms? I assume you don’t have hours of internal reporting or other non billable tasks, so where is other time going? The PTO has a similar quota system, and you just chug along like a factory worker on the line.

Now if the work isn’t coming in, then I definitely understand, as an associate the work should be coming from partner. And investing time in developing clients is worthwhile, but would that really take 10 hrs EVERY week?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom

It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

And the more senior you are, the more questions you get.

I was in patent prosecution - when I was in the office (pre COVID) almost everyday had at least one junior associate stop by with a question on how to do something, fix a mistake, or deal with a cranky client. Could I bill for it, sure - but we’d have to write it off or it would reflect poorly on the firm, and even if I did, I’d only get 50% of the time it took away from my billables because I’d have to switch gears.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is showing to me a serious generational gap. Maybe the entire concept of how billable hours, bonuses, etc are calculated wasn't fully explained but it sounds like OP made many false assumptions on how law firms/corporate world/ jobs in general work.

If you miss time, whether it is for vacation, sick days, bereavement, need PTO because it's a snow day and your kid's school is closed, you are expected to make up that time/work. It never would have crossed my mind that "Paid time off" = readjustment of my billable hours requirement. For ex. if billable hrs requirement is 1800 billable, and I took 80 hours vacation (2 weeks) and 40 hours of sick days (5 days over the year), my billable requirement doesn't suddenly get reduced by 120 hours to 1680. Huh? I have to make up that time, whether I work more billable some days, on weekends, or even *gasp* work some on vacation.

On my team, the younger/20 something associates are having a hard time with this sinking in and don't think this is "fair" when it comes to vacation (we have one of those you can take as much vacation as you want as long as your work gets done policies). But that's the way it is.

OP chose not to meet his/her billable REQUIREMENT (which honestly is the minimum, not an exception). Usually bonuses are based on billing over the minimum. OP has a lot to learn. Learn it, work harder, better luck in 2024. Sorry about your grandmother.

Serious question - when do you want us to make up that time? Because for parents of young children, it’s gotta come out of either sleep or childcare. We are already sleeping the bare minimum and seeing our kids max 2 hours a day. I know, it’s not your problem - that’s the whole point of your post. But see why young people (women especially) think making partner is for suckers? We don’t look up to you.

1800 hours a year, over 48 weeks, is about 37 hrs a week. If you are efficient that should be easy to hit, and keep you to a 50 hour work week.

They don’t care about kids, or sleep, or grandparents (and a grandparent dying is such a normal event, you would have had very little recourse — no one cared when my mom died in her 50s, and I work in a far more family friendly corp).

Yea, most big law partners have a SAH partner; it sounds like yours isn’t pulling their weight at home so you probably should look for other employment, that is fairly common.

Billable hours expectation was 1950 three years ago.

~80% billable efficiency (37/50) is high for non-litigation/non-deal practice groups.

Some of us actually want to see our kids. I knew a Big Law partner who bragged she never put her kids to bed the nannies did. Another set of Big Law parents I know ship their three kids to their grandparents for weeks at a time whenever they can..

Curious what are people spending 20-30% of their office time on if not billable work?

Client development
Cannot always bill actual work
Not enough work on a particular day
Admin stuff
Eating lunch
Using the restroom
C
It is easy to have a high % when you are busy and have a lot of work. But workflow is not always consistent.

That should all be under 5%

I don't understand people like you. Anyone who has worked in big law knows that it's hard to exceed 80% efficiency. A claim of 95% efficiency is fanciful and would be inconsistent with ethical and legal billing practices. I don't know what you do for a living, but it's certainly not legal work that's billed by the 0.1 hour. Learn to butt out.

I’m just asking about why the business even entertains non billable activities. Bathroom? lunch? That’s like 20 min a day. Admin? What does that mean? Filling timesheets? Ordering TSP forms? I assume you don’t have hours of internal reporting or other non billable tasks, so where is other time going? The PTO has a similar quota system, and you just chug along like a factory worker on the line.

Now if the work isn’t coming in, then I definitely understand, as an associate the work should be coming from partner. And investing time in developing clients is worthwhile, but would that really take 10 hrs EVERY week?

You don't understand law firm practice, and you certainly don't understand how to bill time.