Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Or billing BS'er.

Not sure why you think this. I’m billing close to 9hr/day from 8:30-5:30, and then around 6 additional hours every week after 8:30pm if I work 2x/week post kids bedtime. Then 4 hours on the weekend. That’s 55hrs/week of billables. Even if I take 4 weeks of vacation, which I don’t do— that’s 2640 hours a year + the 6hrs per month of extra work time = 2712. Since I’m not billing every minute I’m working, my billables come out closer to 2400, with over 300 hours being non billable.

The math works out pretty easily so why do you think I’m a troll?

I mean I know very few practice areas where someone is able work 9 hours a day and also bill 9 full hours. Especially not on partner track, which involves business development.

Exactly. You say you bill "almost 9 hours" between 8:30 and 5:30, so that means you're basically billing from the minute you walk into the office until the minute you leave, which is very, very rare.

Plus, unless you're on the West Coast, I have to point out that we are within that time frame right now so I hope you're not billing for this.

Then there's the commute.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

Key differentiators for me: I am WFH as my firm has no FaceTime requirement; my husband is very involved and supportive — so what you say about men with kids being able to do this is possible for me. I’m in a very busy practice group, so there’s just no downtime when it comes to billables. The math works out pretty easily per my last post, even not counting high billing days like trial + work travel (depos/hearings, where I work pretty much every minute I’m awake to maximize the time away from kids).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

My spouse is a big law partner and regularly bills 2400 or more a year. But he’s a well known workaholic and basically a billing machine. He also sees the averages and averages are all under 2K a year. Hes not a rainmaker so the fact that he is a total workhorse helps at comp time. For most people I agree that 2400 would be really hard to hit.
1900 could be okay or not depending totally on how flexible and consistent the work is. The problem is that if you have a month wheee you only hit like 125 because stuff is slow, you really need to work a lot in other months to make it up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Or billing BS'er.

Not sure why you think this. I’m billing close to 9hr/day from 8:30-5:30, and then around 6 additional hours every week after 8:30pm if I work 2x/week post kids bedtime. Then 4 hours on the weekend. That’s 55hrs/week of billables. Even if I take 4 weeks of vacation, which I don’t do— that’s 2640 hours a year + the 6hrs per month of extra work time = 2712. Since I’m not billing every minute I’m working, my billables come out closer to 2400, with over 300 hours being non billable.

The math works out pretty easily so why do you think I’m a troll?

I mean I know very few practice areas where someone is able work 9 hours a day and also bill 9 full hours. Especially not on partner track, which involves business development.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

When I did my 3,000 hours it was mainly one client. Back then it was 500 an hour. I hit them 12 hours a day every day and I was at the client site 12 hours a day. I had a few other minor clients I also bill.

BTW for those sissy men out there the biggest biller was a guy at my company who billed 25 hours one day. We had to adjusted time sheet. He was flying against time zones and legit billed 25 hours that day. My big partner called him out at meeting and said to all of us lazy people who only can bill like 24 hours a day we need to step up gain. He then joked he should put us all on planes flying around globe with time zones in our favor and have us all start working 30 hour days.

BTW in my 8 years billing I always hit 40 hours by Wed night as usually tried to leave by 530 pm on Friday. And airplane travel is non charge. My business trips were killer as still had to bill. So we fly on Sundays or Friday nights a lot. Or take redeyes after a day of work and take suit to work.

Anonymous wrote:Keep in mind that 1900 billable hours is 38 billable hours a week, 50 weeks a year. If you want more than 2 weeks leave (for both vacation and sick days!), you will need to bill more than 38 hours a week to make that up. Plus, unless you are super busy, it is very hard to bill 8 hours in 8 hours because admin time, chatting time, stepping away from your desk to run out and get a sandwich etc is not billable. And if you bill 1900/50, is that really ok or is the unspoken word you better bill 2200-2400 or you get counseled out. If there is a "part time" option of 1800 or 1600 that would be a good compromise.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

Anonymous wrote:

For people who have been through that grind: does it ever let up later in your career and how many years does it take to get there?
If 10 new hires start down that path (1900+ billable hours), how many of those 10 progress to a higher level that allows more time away from work?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m considering moving to a law firm from an agency for a partner-track senior associate position. The portfolio looks fantastic/ideal to me but obviously 1900 billable hours (1950 for bonus) is going to mean changes and sacrifice. I have heard horror stories of course but am just weighing options here…
There are lots of moms who are associates and partners who make it work. For those moms at comparable law firms, what does your daily/weekly schedule look like? What do you have to miss? What are your hacks? How much vacation do you take? I’m thinking I can do this for a few years and then go in-house. My 2 kids are in high school and middle school and my husband works remotely.
Thank you!

Back in 2004 I did 3,000 Billable hours. 1,950 is a joke That is 7.8 hours a day billable. But to do 3,000 hours I took zero days off that year, no lunch breaks worked around 8-8 every day on average, no vacation or sick days and did non billable admin work at night or weekends or before work. I had a 2 and 4 year old when did it. That was crazy however, but got me a big promotion. I was normally just 2,000 hours billable which was pretty easy.

All you need is a supporative spouse which I had and the ability to sleep very little. I have sleeping issues and go to bed around midnight every night and wake up aruond 545 am and fresh as a daisy. I can go on 4-5 hours sleep weeks on end. My spouse needs like 9 hours a night or cant function. Me other other hand can do fine on five hours a night so I have 20 hours extra each week of time.

I think the not sleeping is the wildcard. I could do all nighters in my 30s get home at 5am take a 90 minute power nap, get up, have coffee, shower, new clothes and be on road at 715 am no problem. My spouse it would knock her out for a few days.

It sounds like you're the male partner, and I bet you didn't have kids. Or at least you weren't a mom raising kids when you did that.

Women with big jobs have it easier. A successful women has a rich husband. A successful man often has a sahm wife. My male neighbor for instance went to Harvard Medical School and has a Stay at home spouse they have a pretty average life. But down the block we have a women who is surgeon and her husband is a CEO of a major company. They have servants, mansion, staff. Rich women marry richer men.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

Early retired Biglaw partner here. I'm sorry, but this is total BS. 2400 billable hours a year is a LOT of hours. It's 46.2 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Factoring in nonbillable hours, commuting time (most firms have been RTO for a while now), and you're easily at 60 hours a week 52 weeks a year.

I had access to the billable hours at my well known DC law firm as a partner. If you were averaging 2400 hours a year as a lawyer at my firm -- whether associate or partner -- you were a very high biller. I also have to say, at the risk of sounding sexist, that I never knew of a woman lawyer with young children at home who billed at that level, ever. Fathers with young children at home? Yes, sure. Not fair, I know, but reality. The women I knew who worked at that pace either weren't married or didn't have kids. They certainly didn't have young kids.

2400 hours a year also wasn't expected of the lawyers in my firm, far from it, so long as the quality of the work was good. It's also just about at the point where you have to wonder how, shall we say, legitimate the billed hours are you're recording that number on a consistent basis as this poster claims to be. In my nearly 3 decades with Biglaw (associate, counsel, and partner) I can recall billing 2400 hours just one year in my entire career, and that year was a killer -- months away from home at a trial.

Bottom line: whether knowingly or not, this poster is not being truthful, if not to OP then to either her firm or herself.

When I did my 3,000 hours it was mainly one client. Back then it was 500 an hour. I hit them 12 hours a day every day and I was at the client site 12 hours a day. I had a few other minor clients I also bill.

BTW for those sissy men out there the biggest biller was a guy at my company who billed 25 hours one day. We had to adjusted time sheet. He was flying against time zones and legit billed 25 hours that day. My big partner called him out at meeting and said to all of us lazy people who only can bill like 24 hours a day we need to step up gain. He then joked he should put us all on planes flying around globe with time zones in our favor and have us all start working 30 hour days.

BTW in my 8 years billing I always hit 40 hours by Wed night as usually tried to leave by 530 pm on Friday. And airplane travel is non charge. My business trips were killer as still had to bill. So we fly on Sundays or Friday nights a lot. Or take redeyes after a day of work and take suit to work.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Or billing BS'er.

Not sure why you think this. I’m billing close to 9hr/day from 8:30-5:30, and then around 6 additional hours every week after 8:30pm if I work 2x/week post kids bedtime. Then 4 hours on the weekend. That’s 55hrs/week of billables. Even if I take 4 weeks of vacation, which I don’t do— that’s 2640 hours a year + the 6hrs per month of extra work time = 2712. Since I’m not billing every minute I’m working, my billables come out closer to 2400, with over 300 hours being non billable.

The math works out pretty easily so why do you think I’m a troll?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Or billing BS'er.

Not sure why you think this. I’m billing close to 9hr/day from 8:30-5:30, and then around 6 additional hours every week after 8:30pm if I work 2x/week post kids bedtime. Then 4 hours on the weekend. That’s 55hrs/week of billables. Even if I take 4 weeks of vacation, which I don’t do— that’s 2640 hours a year + the 6hrs per month of extra work time = 2712. Since I’m not billing every minute I’m working, my billables come out closer to 2400, with over 300 hours being non billable.

The math works out pretty easily so why do you think I’m a troll?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1950 is very easy and doable. I’ve been doing 2400 on average and had a baby several years ago. Still get to spend 6:30am-8:30am and 5:30-8:30pm with child on weekdays (I pick up work again after 8:30pm as needed, maybe 2-3x/week), and usually work 2 hours on Sat and Sunday each. About once a month I put in an extra 6 hours of super focused work time on a late night or weekend to clear my to do list. My husband does all the laundry, cooking on the weekdays, and dishes unless I’m having a very light day. I do 20-30 mins of cleaning a day to keep the house tidy and cover what my husband hasn’t. We have a housekeeper come every other week.

Whether this is possible depends on who you’re working with. Are you in a group that will have a lot of random urgent requests come in at all times of day/weekends/etc? That will be a tougher adjustment.

troll

Or billing BS'er.