Sentences with phrase «fewer billable»

Less formality translates to faster outcomes and fewer billable hours.

Less litigation means fewer billable hours, so the Florida Bar acted like a special interest group, suggesting messages to the Governor from non-attorneys would be best, so they should write from their private email addresses to hide their profession.

These potential costs savings should result in fewer billable hours preparing for disclosure, motions, discoveries and trial.

Under these initiatives, the law firms pay their new associates much less than the market rate and require far fewer billable hours from them; associates spend most of their time in apprenticeship, training and shadow programs with experienced lawyers, with (unbilled) client contact and observation opportunities where possible.

This encourages the firm's «best and brightest» partners to accept administrative assignments and not feel uncomfortable because they may record fewer billable hours.

As we've established, clients are pushing back on both B and C, by pushing for fewer billable hours and lower rates, and increasing the number of producers is not always a profitable option for many firms.

Those that do have the power to make great strides, redefine the way legal services are delivered (ideally with fewer billable hours).

When senior female lawyers are asked to mentor junior associates, time is taken away from their billable hours in a scenario that already sees women clocking fewer billable hours and contributing more hours to non-billable but essential firm functions.

We communicate better with our clients, we lose fewer billable hours, and we can work on - the - go, which is important for firms with lawyers who waste countless hours waiting around courthouses.

«We are taking a leap of faith that if we get better, which means fewer billable hours, we will get more business,» says Ken Dorsney, of Elliott Greenleaf.

At Elliott Greenleaf, that reality evolved into a radical plan to generate fewer billable hours for clients, but with better value.

20 % fewer billable hours in February means 20 % less revenue come March.

Not exact matches

In practical terms, that will free up the design staff to do more creative, speculative work because it will take fewer traditional «billable» hours from the staff to cover the firm's operating costs.

But since 1) that's a sum total of two people, 2) the last few years have just been weird for bonuses and billable requirements anyway, and 3) it seems like it's a touchy / taboo subject.

I've asked around a little about target billables and the bonus structure with a few more senior, but not too senior, associates in my group.

By the time an attorney has spent a few hours writing about a topic, and the article has been reviewed, edited and finalized, the cost - in terms of billable hours invested and out - of - pocket expenses incurred (e.g., ghostwriter)- can run anywhere from several hundreds to several thousands of dollars per article.

An estimate is a less formal document that only includes a few details such as billable hours and pricing information.

Just a few of their efforts and costs are: having attorneys and legal staff spend billable time on the non-billable hiring process; your salary and benefits; payment to a legal recruiter (if you're using a headhunter); and the costs of training you (again, this takes considerable time away from your bosses» billable work).

Below are a few tips to help you manage associates» billable hours to foster firm productivity and increase client satisfaction.

A few interviewees opined that «it would be nice for more to count toward the target, as it's the easiest way to make up hours when billable work is slow,» but realized «there needs to be a limit or people would start to avoid paying work!»

This issue also presents some suggestions for making meaningful mentor - mentee matches; a few interesting items about lawyers» billable hours and clever resources to help lawyers track their time; some recent publications by me and others; and information about upcoming conferences where I will be speaking.

Yes, biglaw has a reputation for some qualities that give the law a bad name — high fees, leveraging associates to increase partner salaries, huge billable hour requirements, and lousy work / life balance, to name a few of the popular gripes.

But she also blamed the billable hour, which penalizes women who may work fewer hours, even though they maintain the same level of productivity.

Likewise, despite the persistent cries of death to the billable hour, few predict its demise.

101 Incidents of ethical violations resulting in professional discipline and even criminal prosecution are on the rise.102 Faced with declining profit margins, firms have been accused of «overworking files» and overstaffing projects in an effort to increase billable hours.103 And they have bent the rules governing conflicts of interest.104 One survey indicated that one - third of the 30,000 clients interviewed felt dissatisfied with the representation they received from their attorneys, citing primarily a failure to communicate and inadequate attention given to their cases, suggesting that law firms are under pressure to increase their case loads without hiring new associates to staff them.105 The recent decline in professionalism is even further evidenced by a decline in pro bono commitment.106 Thus, new graduates face even heavier workloads, increased pressure to meet high billable requirements, and fewer pro bono opportunities.

The innovation comes out; the billable hour suffers; but you always have a few law firms that are not at the top, and then they say, «We don't have 50,000 associates.

Losing a schmoe probably raises morale all the way around, and since their billable hours are likely to be both few and of low quality, the economic loss is immaterial.

For many law firm associates, at least a few moments of the distracted thought which rounds off their billables is spent considering whether they are at the right firm.

The time you spend mentoring is not legitimately billable — it's properly part of your practice's overhead — and it goes without saying that very few clients are prepared to pay for the hours put in by the young lawyer who's learning what to do.

In the past few months, even Cravath, Swaine & Moore head partner Evan Chesler has taken up the charge for the end of the billable hour.

Even if that means there's a few years where we have a little bit of up and down around billable hours but also in the long term we have people who are satisfied and loyal to our firm and love working here and they want to stay with us.

It seems to me that this data argues powerfully for both increasing eligibility for legal aid, so that fewer litigants are left without counsel, and lawyers to consider the unbundling of legal services, providing services at a flat rate or on a barter basis, and exploring other creative approaches to paid legal services than the billable hour.

Now is the time to talk about working conditions, billable hour numbers and rates if they are applicable, opportunities for advancement, partner track, marketing support, fee - splits, and firm culture, just to name a few.

He writes, «What I find surprising about this is how few people seem to resist (or admit to resisting, anyway) the demise of the billable hour...»

The article described «the atavistic rage among those who went to law school seeking the upper - middle - class status and security often enjoyed by earlier generations...» And if you are one of the few who succeeds in getting on the wealth track, you will be subject to the billable hour and many other horrible tyrannies.

So why have so few taken advantage of this power to move away from the billable hour (and also to require the staffing and promotion of minorities and women — different topic for a different glog, but I couldn't resist)?

A few minutes here or a half - hour there adds up quickly, and before you know it, you've lost billable hours and left sizable revenue on the table.

With technology and a few tricks, you can increase your billable time by catching more of the actual time you spend on tasks.

What if, instead of demanding more billable hours, we shifted our focus instead to how to generate more profits with potentially fewer hours?

I have never hidden my distaste, my biases and my prejudices of the billable hour and the «we sell time» culture that has permeated most professional firms, but especially law firms, over the last few decades.

The idea behind this app is that, depending on your billable hour, if you're able to capture just a few tenths of an hour of billable time each month that you would have otherwise missed, the app more than pays for itself.

These stipulations mentioned are billable hour requirements, something that have been in play in the past few years, New York Law Journal said.

In one of the few infographics we've seen developed by a law firm, San Diego Law Firm ties together a history and data to make a case — in an infographic — against the billable hour.

While there are a few stories of extreme amounts of billable hours (feel free to search Google for those), the average amount of billable hours per year for partners is roughly 1,686 hours, with an additional average of 526 hours per year of non-billable time per partner, according to Major, Lindsay, and Africa's 2014 Partner Compensation Survey.

These include everything from the elimination of billable hour requirements at venerable firms such as Quarles & Brady to flex - time arrangements such as that instituted at Howrey under which associates can opt to work fewer hours for less pay.

Writing in response to recent industry surveys, which confirm the legal industry's increased interest in alternatives to the billable hour (aka AFAs), reporter Chris Johnson noted pure hourly billing is in decline and is expected to decline over the next few years.

But few lawyers today are willing to sacrifice their lives to a firm, one billable hour at a time.

While the billable hour has been categorized by some as archaic, few flawless alternatives have been found — at least in my opinion.

Over the past few years, I've transitioned my practice from the billable hour to flat fees.

For less money than most firms typically spend to send their attorneys out of the office to attend CLEs and for fewer lost billable hours, you can have an in - house ethics CLE tailored to your firm's practice areas, and earn CLE credit at the same time.