Reply to Law firm cutting my billed hours and "bonus" -- legal???

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find it a little surprising that a senior attorney would not understand the difference between time billed to client matters, for which the firm will be paid, and time billed to internal activities or pro-bono, for which the firm no only won't be paid but often cost money.

There are some gray area activities around business development and attorney development that you could argue will make the firm money in the long run, but which are an expense in the short run, but firms tend to be stingy about how these are allocated regarding billable hour requirements.

But even when a firm allows such activities to contribute to a billable hours requirement for purposes of bonus structure, they generally cap them. While your firm has a somewhat unusual system for billable requirements, it's very common for firms to set out billable targets for associates for them to qualify for certain bonuses, and there is no firm out there that would allow an associate to count hours billed to internal firm matters, as opposed to actual client work the firm can charge for, as a significant portion of that billing target.

Again, it is really surprising to me that you would not know this... I'm guessing you have spent most of your career in government service or an in-house position? This is very standard for law firms and even if you find a job elsewhere that does an annual billing target instead of a monthly one, you will not find a firm that doesn't make this distinction with its billables and tie it to bonus structure. It would be irresponsible for them to do otherwise because it can seriously hurt firm profitability if you don't incentivize attorneys to focus on client billings.[/quote]
I read this more as OP was billing client matters, but the numbers where cut. Like PP said, a client isn't paying 4 times the hours for a new associate to get up to speed. I doubt this is a case of pro bono or firm committee work not getting paid.  [/quote]

The new firm’s definition of billable hours is hours that ARE billed to a client, not hours that COULD be billed for working on client matters.

The attorney who reviews the bills will cut hours if an attorney spends too much time on a matter for the amount done and/or to keep a client’s bill down so they don’t go to another firm.   At a reasonable firm, cutting hours for a new attorney getting up to speed and/or client relations is something the partners absorb.  An inefficient attorney might get told to be more efficient at some point, but having been in big law and having reviewed bills when newbies are billing, it’s bad management to cut the hours an attorney  credit for without significant warning, especially with a newbie.

My guess is the firm does this deliberately, as a bait and switch, because 150 hours a month is low for a patent litigator.  Billable hours of 165-170/month means some excepted inefficiency is built in.  The employment agreement allows the firm to define billable hours, so I’d agree with the employment lawyer.   Find another job, preferably with a higher billable hours requirement that is linked to billABLE hours rather than billED. 
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