Billable hours! (1 Viewer)

[Tabris]

This is a guide that is on Yale Law School's website....not sure if the billing system is similar in Australia.

http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/CDO_Public/cdo-billable_hour.pdf

 

[04er]

gross

 

[Frigid]

good post, but 1600-1700 billable hours (or 7.0-7.5 billable hours per day) is the standard for big firms in Australia. unless there's work on, in which case you bill away until it's done.

i would also refer you to a working paper from the University of Melbourne Law School's Centre for Employment & Labour Relations Law:
Campbell, Malone & Charlesworth, "'The Elephant in the Room': Working-Time Patterns of Solicitors in Private Practice in Melbourne" (PDF).

 

[flamearrows]

(tiny text is obnoxious by the way. at least use a serif font to aid reader comprehension)

Good luck!

 

[Frigid]

What's to stop a lawyer over billing on the timesheet to make up for lost time? (tiny text is obnoxious by the way. at least use a serif font to aid reader comprehension)

you mean what stops us timesheet paddinghttp://www.bitterlawyer.com/index.php/site/columns_detail_comment/padding_hours_if_i_did_it/? well, there is a sword of Damocleshttp://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/lpa2004179/s60.html, for one.

my advice is don't do it. not once. not ever. otherwise you'll fall into a bottomless rabbit hole of adding 0.1 units here and 0.2 there, which ultimately compromises your professional integrity as a legal practitioner. remember we're lawyers, not doctorshttp://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26090993-421,00.html.

(i'm compromising my default font size just for you on this one)

 

[Omnidragon]

Billable hours is boring. In my short stint at top tier law, people were billing every 6 minutes but in reality most of the time was spent facebooking, cahtting to the person in the office next door.

If I ever retain a lawyer I'd know how much of a rort it is because my firm made me rort several clients once. When I was still a measley articled clerk, I remember I was once made to call up ASIC to ask about some crappy matter. Anyway I billed $200 for that because most of the time I was put on hold. LMAO $200. It was my first week into the job too.

What a rort.

 

[flamearrows]

Well, that's not really a rort. If it really did take you an hour to get the answer then it took an hour.

Also, it's highly likely that your partner wrote off the expense. A decent slice of what you bill as a clerk, then doubtless as a junior solicitor on rotations will get annihilated by the partner doing reviews come billing time.

 

[Frigid]

When I was still a measley articled clerk, I remember I was once made to call up ASIC to ask about some crappy matter. Anyway I billed $200 for that because most of the time I was put on hold. LMAO $200.

but that's the nature of time costing. our friends in finance might give me a spiel about time costing not really "adding value" to a client, but i query whether every single piece of financial wizardry they dream up adds 'value' (CMBS?).

or, to put it another way, lawyers are like tradepeople when it comes to charging. it's simpler that way. we can't do maths.

 

[Lara1986]

or, to put it another way, lawyers are like tradepeople when it comes to charging. it's simpler that way. we can't do maths.

nice point



It is interesting the way many members of the public seem to view legal billing/the expense of legal services in general -

I overheard a discussion yesterday between an unknown person and someone who appeared to be their caseworker from some sort of government agency.

The person was venting about how ridiculous it was for a lawyer to charge $300 an hour for something or other. But the 'caseworker' asked the client how long it took him to get to the court by taxi, he said 5 minutes. They asked him how much he paid for that taxi ride, he said $25. So the person pointed out that it was costing him the same amount, being $300 per hour.

Unfortunately the client's response was less than sensible to this point, but it was interesting nonetheless that people are willing to pay a certain rate for someone to simply drive them from point A to point B, but yet are outraged at having to pay a comparable rate to a person who will save them from going to jail or losing their children or incurring significant debt etc

 

[Omnidragon]

Also, it's highly likely that your partner wrote off the expense. A decent slice of what you bill as a clerk, then doubtless as a junior solicitor on rotations will get annihilated by the partner doing reviews come billing time.

Well you'd think I'd know that. But nooooo... my partner did not write my expense off. He increased it.

In fact without name dropping at all, I worked on a matter for a major client (the Rio Tinto / ANZ / ExxonMobil type). I later found out my partner was just making up the entries. He'd get juniors to push a trolley and bill some 3 hrs work and he didn't put proper annotation down.

 

[Omnidragon]

but that's the nature of time costing. our friends in finance might give me a spiel about time costing not really "adding value" to a client, but i query whether every single piece of financial wizardry they dream up adds 'value' (CMBS?).

or, to put it another way, lawyers are like tradepeople when it comes to charging. it's simpler that way. we can't do maths.

The difference with finance - which is what I've gone back to - is it's a fixed cost and you know what you're up for. But don't get me wrong, I'm a solicitor myself as well, just that I don't practise anymore. So not payout out the profession or anything.

But you're right! Lawyers are like tradespeople and tradespeople are (#%&*%()@#. I had one come to my investment property which I bought last month to help me remove the heater, rewire the alarm and a few other things (it wasn't even a big deal, I could've kept it there). Anyway he took forver to disconnect the heater, then said he had to go (his friend's son's christening) and would come back another day, without putting it back together. "Thanks for the warning that you can only stay for 3 hrs and do a half-a@@ job at everything, dickswat"

Lucky our family has a whole fleet of these foremen etc. So I got someone else to come and also fix some other the things up. This guy worked for us for over 20 years and still dogged me. I got him blacklisted on all the projects our family works on.

Anyway funny you should compare lawyer to tradespeople was my point.

 

[Frigid]

The difference with finance - which is what I've gone back to - is it's a fixed cost and you know what you're up for. But don't get me wrong, I'm a solicitor myself as well, just that I don't practise anymore. So not payout out the profession or anything.

But you're right! Lawyers are like tradespeople and tradespeople are (#%&*%()@#...

Anyway funny you should compare lawyer to tradespeople was my point.

my dear friend, you know i wasn't making the general point that lawyers are tradespeople. i was saying lawyers are like tradespeople when it comes to charging.

on the fixed cost issue, explain to me which other profession has as heavy regulation of costs disclosure (including costs estimates), trust accounts and costs assessmenthttp://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/lpa2004179/index.html#s301 as lawyers.

 

[melsc]

I don't know how it goes for solicitors but when I do a barristers billing it says that you are free to have the costs assessed under the LPA

 

[Omnidragon]

my dear friend, you know i wasn't making the general point that lawyers are tradespeople. i was saying lawyers are like tradespeople when it comes to charging.

on the fixed cost issue, explain to me which other profession has as heavy regulation of costs disclosure (including costs estimates), trust accounts and costs assessmenthttp://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/lpa2004179/index.html#s301 as lawyers.

Don't know. I'm not a "costs lawyer"

But the legislation didn't prevent my partner from doing what he did. Maybe he's just breaking the law.

Re costs assessed : I think it's also possible to dispute it with some organisation under the LPA. And you can request disclosure etc etc.