Reply to Law Firm - How to Handle "Temp Number" Abuse

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
I would do as someone above said and post it to a matter for same client and let the partner transfer it. people do that on my matters all the time it's not a big deal  or ask their admin for the number or when the number is coming up
[/quote]
That’s another solution.  “I just billed this to Matter X instead, let me know when you have an engagement letter and I’ll have your assistant transfer the time.”  It will piss him off if he’s taking advantage of you but you’ll get (some) credit and the firm will be aware of what he’s doing.[/quote]

This is not politically smart.[/quote]

Nor is it ethical.[/quote]

There is no way that the person who suggested this was a lawyer.  it is an incredibly stupid idea to falsely bill to the wrong client. [/quote]

Its not billing its timekeeping with the expectation that it will be corrected before filling. And it isn't the wrong client, it is the wrong matter. Another PP and I both mentioned that is is standard in our firms to bill to a "general" matter for the specific client and note in the narrative that the time should be billed to the not yet in existence matter number. This gets transferred before the client is billed---which could mean it sits as unbilled time for an extra month, but it is not billed incorrectly. [/quote]

I agree with the immediate PP that this is a good, if risky, strategy but ONLY if the other matter is also reviewed by the partner that keeps insisting that they'll open a matter for the work that OP did. Partner will see it on the bill that they're reviewing and do one of the following: 1) (Best case) see the entry during review, say to themselves "oh shit I need to open that matter," actually open it, and move the time over; 2) write it off, in which case at least it will count towards OP's billable hours but it will cut down OP's realization rate, so that's not great for performance reviews, 3) partner will get mad at OP and say "I told you to bill this to a temp number" and OP can say "well you've told me to do that a bunch and then never give me the matter and I didn't want to lose the revenue," or 4) partner will not see it and it will get passed on to the client, who will either not care b/c they have deep pockets or care a lot, get mad at the partner, and then outcome 3 will occur (but with more wrath because it got passed on to the client).[/quote]

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