Convalescent Leave at Law Firm

[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.

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.

After I went in house 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. That wouldn’t have happened at my old firm, they would have given lip service to supporting me, and some folks would have actually cut me slack, but I would
have paid for being non-productive for two weeks .

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

Fixed that paragraph.

Really should get work done instead of wasting my time being annoyed at the Big Law model.

Good thing I don’t have billables anymore. 😂

[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?

Here are a few more things

Pre-bills - going thru the bills before they go to clients to make sure you’re not over billing them or juniors aren’t being efficient.

Proposals/estimates for clients

CLEs

Dealing with one staff member who is pissy about something another staff member did.

And also, the more efficient you are with your actual work product, the harder it is to make your hours. It might have taken me half the time to do something as a more junior person, but if it’s a complex issue, it’s mentally taxing to do twice as much work to make the time up.

Also, the higher your rates, the less likely you are to be spending a significant amount of time on one thing, and anyone who isn’t lying on their time sheets loses time switching from one matter to another.

[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?

NP and that was what made me inefficient. Sometimes you're working crazy hours on a deal and sometimes you're waiting around for one to come. Also, sometimes you submit work to a partner and you have to wait for them to review it. So maybe you work late one night and partner gets it back to you at 4 the next day. Meanwhile you've waited around all day to be ready to incorporate that feedback and maybe you have to work late again since you didn't get the feedback until the end of the day. It can be hard to have multiple irons in the fire when everyone wants their work done right away so it can be hard to have other billable work to do while you're waiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

NP and that was what made me inefficient. Sometimes you're working crazy hours on a deal and sometimes you're waiting around for one to come. Also, sometimes you submit work to a partner and you have to wait for them to review it. So maybe you work late one night and partner gets it back to you at 4 the next day. Meanwhile you've waited around all day to be ready to incorporate that feedback and maybe you have to work late again since you didn't get the feedback until the end of the day. It can be hard to have multiple irons in the fire when everyone wants their work done right away so it can be hard to have other billable work to do while you're waiting.

Yes. Work rarely is due whenever you get to it. There are quick turnarounds so you have to do the work then. Whether that is 9 am on Monday or 5 pm Friday when you did nothing all day but wait.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sure, my work is completely different and I’m measured on outcomes alone. But I don’t make money anywhere near a Big Law so it’s very interesting to see. I’m surprised anyone entertains non billable work since basically it’s crippling to your life and career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Here are a few more things

Pre-bills - going thru the bills before they go to clients to make sure you’re not over billing them or juniors aren’t being efficient.

Proposals/estimates for clients

CLEs

Dealing with one staff member who is pissy about something another staff member did.

And also, the more efficient you are with your actual work product, the harder it is to make your hours. It might have taken me half the time to do something as a more junior person, but if it’s a complex issue, it’s mentally taxing to do twice as much work to make the time up.

Also, the higher your rates, the less likely you are to be spending a significant amount of time on one thing, and anyone who isn’t lying on their time sheets loses time switching from one matter to another.

Also:

Summer program
First years

I was in charge of both programs at different times. A huge time suck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sure, my work is completely different and I’m measured on outcomes alone. But I don’t make money anywhere near a Big Law so it’s very interesting to see. I’m surprised anyone entertains non billable work since basically it’s crippling to your life and career.

Clients and work do not just fall from the sky. You have to do CLEs. You have to send out bills. You have to go to your practice group monthly lunch. You have to do your time. You have to answer your colleague’s question about your practice area so they will do the same when needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Here are a few more things

Pre-bills - going thru the bills before they go to clients to make sure you’re not over billing them or juniors aren’t being efficient.

Proposals/estimates for clients

CLEs

Dealing with one staff member who is pissy about something another staff member did.

And also, the more efficient you are with your actual work product, the harder it is to make your hours. It might have taken me half the time to do something as a more junior person, but if it’s a complex issue, it’s mentally taxing to do twice as much work to make the time up.

Also, the higher your rates, the less likely you are to be spending a significant amount of time on one thing, and anyone who isn’t lying on their time sheets loses time switching from one matter to another.

Also:

Summer program
First years

I was in charge of both programs at different times. A huge time suck.

Also if you are a partner you still have billable hours but you ALSO have things like staffing partner, all partner meetings, yearly meetings to determine comp, meetings to determine new partners, etc. Plus a ton of business development and travel to see your clients in person. All of this takes time away from your billables.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a law firm specific question — law firms are odd places — so probably only law firm experience is relevant to the answer. I am an associate at a large law firm that has an hours requirement. The requirement is very firm; missing by hours means no bonus.

Earlier in the year my grandmother died. I contacted HR and was told via email that I was entitled to 3 paid days leave and that I just had to enter con leave on my time entry. I thought that these were real days of “paid leave” and didn’t make-up the hours with other work. Now in January, I am being told by my evaluator I didn’t make my hours and that *his thought* is that con leave is just 3 days you don’t have to show-up to the office but the hours don’t get annualized into the billing requirement.

Does this seem right? What should I do?

Unfortunately, your mentor is correct. Welcome to biglaw.

[Anonymous]

Why even have fake billable hours? She is required to work 1800 hours but can use 100 hours for non billable work? But I’m sure she works way more hours beyond that from posts here, so why not just have 1700 hours billable and drop the non revenue generating fake billable hours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sure, my work is completely different and I’m measured on outcomes alone. But I don’t make money anywhere near a Big Law so it’s very interesting to see. I’m surprised anyone entertains non billable work since basically it’s crippling to your life and career.

Oh! That explains it. You haven’t worked in a billable hour system. And that isn’t me being snarky. I did the same math you did when I started and thought it would be fine. And it wasn’t bad as a junior because I could bill almost all my time in the office.

How much time of your work day do you spend on the substantive work product YOU produce - exclude any conversations or emails with colleagues that aren’t about YOUR work product. Exclude any team meetings, exclude scheduling meetings, exclude your boss coming in and talking about career development , exclude interviewing candidates….


And not doing those non-billable hours is also a career killer…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sure, my work is completely different and I’m measured on outcomes alone. But I don’t make money anywhere near a Big Law so it’s very interesting to see. I’m surprised anyone entertains non billable work since basically it’s crippling to your life and career.

Then why did you come in like an expert, telling every big law lawyer that they should be billing at 95% efficiency? See why you pissed people off?

[Anonymous]

Also: serving on committees, doing performance reviews for associates and staff, recruiting, a million meetings for this that and the other initiatives, industry and subpractice teams, client service teams, internal trainings (giving and receiving), etc. on top of group meetings, associate/partner meetings, office meetings, internal networking and bus dev as others have mentioned.

[Anonymous]

The bonus threshold never gets reduced unless you take parental leave or go on a part time schedule. If you take sick time or bereavement leave you still need to hit 2000 or whatever.

That said, if you were only 24 hours shy of the requirement you should explain the misunderstanding and request a bonus. If the firm doesn’t give it to you it means no one there has your back and you should find somewhere else to work (a partner with clout would get this done for an associate he or she actually values).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Sure, my work is completely different and I’m measured on outcomes alone. But I don’t make money anywhere near a Big Law so it’s very interesting to see. I’m surprised anyone entertains non billable work since basically it’s crippling to your life and career.

Then why did you come in like an expert, telling every big law lawyer that they should be billing at 95% efficiency? See why you pissed people off?

37/50 =74%