Partners Shouldn’t Tell Associates Not To Bill Their Time

It is often said that law partners are only looking out for themselves. Indeed, this can be at the cost of their associates, who are the ones performing for them every day.
 

In particular, there is an unfair practice that has recently come to light. Certain law partners instruct their associates not to record all their time working on a client’s case. This practice affects associates and means they will not bill the number of hours they need to meet the law firm’s standard.

 

What is the Billable Hour System?

If you are already a legal associate, you will be very familiar with the billable hour system. But if you are a law student, this might be something you have heard about but do not know the details yet. Essentially, the billable hour system is used by many law firms, and it is a way for an associate to record the time spent working for a client. The hours they complete is the amount they are going to bill the client for their work. Every legal associate will have a different rate, which the client agrees to beforehand.

Often, law firms will have an electronic time-recording system. This system will monitor the work the associate is completing on their computer. All the time is tracked, and it can be reviewed. But it does mean that there will be some non-chargeable activities or administrative tasks—for example, printing documents and filing for that client.
 

What are the Average Billing Hours?

Every law firm is going to set standards when it comes to billing hours. They will expect their legal associates to bill a certain number of hours each year. This ensures that the law firm stays on track with profits and revenue. In particular, the bigger the law firm you are at, the more hours you will be expected to bill. For example, it is estimated that a legal associate is expected to bill between 2000 and 2100 hours each year.

However, the number of hours can be higher if you are looking to become a partner at a law firm. To impress, you may want to bill around 2300 to 2400 hours per year. As you can imagine, this is a lot of time each week and means that you will be working above the standard number of working hours to achieve this.
 

Why Would Law Partners Not Want You to Bill Time?

Many people in the legal industry are shocked by this new tactic not to bill all hours to a client. In fact, they are confused by it as some law firms tell their associates to make sure that they record all their time working for clients.

After all, you would think that partners would want to bill the most hours possible so that clients pay more for the law firm’s services. Therefore, they need to know precisely what tasks took the longest.

However, not billing or recording time is one of the new billing practices that have emerged. A lot of people wonder, why would this happen? Why would law partners not want you to record all the time that has been assigned to a client? Well, there are a few reasons we can think of that might describe why this is happening. For example, there might be some concern about billing many hours to a client and not being happy about it. Indeed, clients are often on a budget, and they have caps on fees. In addition, law partners are often the face of the law firm and those dealing with the clients. In other words, they are under pressure to deliver the appropriate work and for it to be suitable for that client’s budget. Therefore, even big-spending clients might start to object to the billable hours if they feel it is too much for a particular project.

Clients should always have a budget in mind. It would be unfair for them to start a case with a law firm and not know how much the legal fees will be. But it is up to law partners to set them straight on what they can expect for their budget. In other words, if it is not possible to complete the project within that budget, they have to make them aware of this. They cannot just agree to any price to secure the work for their law firm.

Another reason why law partners might be telling their associates not to bill all of their hours is to gain from that situation personally. Typically, a partner is going to charge a higher billable hour rate. Therefore, they want to record more hours within that budget to benefit, but legal associates do the same amount of work but bill less. This means that associates will not get all the credit they deserve for their work on a case.

A lot of people think that partners should let their associates bill all the time. After all, they can write off the billing entries for a particular task later if the hours are over the fee limit. However, law partners are reluctant to do this because it can reflect poorly on them. Namely, the law firm can look into how many hours were written off. If there are too many hours being scrapped, it can be seen as inefficient.
 

Is this Practice Unfair?

There is no doubt that it is unfair to ask associates not to bill all of their working hours. Billable hours are something that many legal associates stress about and feel anxiety over daily. There is an expectation that they meet their billable hours’ target every year. Having hours scrapped is like doing work for nothing. This can mean that they are reprimanded or miss out on a bonus later.

Let’s not forget that associates are often assigned cases. They do not have a lot of say on what projects they work on. Therefore, it is not their fault if a client has a low budget and a legal partner accepts this case. Yet, they are the ones that suffer from this, and it means their performance will be judged based on this.
 

What Can Be Done in This Type of Situation?

Well, legal partners need to start taking on more responsibility when it comes to billable hours. They need to think less about themselves and, from the beginning, educate the client on what they can expect for their budget. If you are honest from the start, clients might be willing to increase their budget if their expectations are not realistic.

Moreover, law partners should be more willing to share the project. In other words, they should be cutting some of their own billable hours so that associates do not always have to sacrifice their own. In particular, junior associates are dealing with a lot of pressure. They are just becoming accustomed to the billable hour system. It is unfair to scrap some of their hours when they struggle to meet their targets for the year. Associates do not have a lot of choice with the projects they work on. Law partners have to do more to spread out projects with lower budgets so that it is not the same people having their billable hours taken away.

See Also:
 

• Can Rethinking the “Billable Hour” Lead to More Law Firm Gender Equality?
• Don't Let Your Rising Billing Rate Push You Out the Door.
• Billable Hours and Law Firm Economics: What Every Attorney Needs to Understand to Get Ahead.
• The Importance of Law Firm Economics to Your Legal Career.