Sentences with phrase «high billable»

High billable hour quotas, ceaseless deadlines, and large workloads are a few reasons legal professionals leave the profession.

Sure high billable hours that come from performing document reviews in discovery proceedings are not the kind of work that commands high rates, but even document review experience is a positive attribute for clients with work that requires reviewing documents.

Learning to harness technology is what allowed me to leave the high - stress world of a big law firm, with its massive overhead, high billable hours, and excruciating stress.

These huge numbers are brought in by requiring the firm's attorneys to meet increasingly high billable hour quotas, now averaging between 1900 to 2400 hours annually at most large firms.

Partners cracking the whip on associates, young lawyers coming into the office 7 days a week to hit targets, and ludicrously high billable hour rates (is ANYONE»S time worth $ 400 - 500 + / hour?

Certainly the mere fact that a firm has a billable hour requirement is not evidence of complicity, but a high billable hour requirement or bonuses paid for meeting specified targets, or both, should raise a red flag about just how concerned a firm is about the incentives it creates for its timekeepers and the impact those incentives have on the firm's clients.

Both larger and smaller firms were squarely faced with the reality that high billable - hour requirements (sometimes more than 2,400 hours annually) were taking a toll on their principal asset — attorneys.

Otherwise, a timekeeper with low annual billable hours will «cost» more per hour than an equivalent timekeeper with high billable hours.

We were always used to pretty high billable requirements and we first started saying we're so small, just keep in mind you should hit this much to pay for yourself and we trust you, well that didn't exactly work, so we have tried to firm up, like you got to hit this amount.

But, use of advanced technology and a novel firm structure created by experienced counsel can GREATLY reduce the need for high billable rates as a result of lower overhead and the lack of a partner pyramid structure (see http://www.anticipatelaw.com as but one example).

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 economic advantage of a boutique practice is that firms can avoid the high billable rates necessary to sustain the breadth and overhead of large law firms, while still offering their experienced attorneys comfortable salaries.

Thus, while high billable hours will achieve high marks in one category, the high level of success could easily be offset by the quality of hours billed.

Finally, Cisco «got tired of high billable hour rates from so - called global law firms,» so it's selected a firm (which isn't a huge global firm, but open to new ideas) to help it address issues related to corporate secretarial matters.

Partners who do not generate much of their own business, but have high billable hours, obviously promote a system based upon billable hours only.

It's interesting for us all, especially those of us earlier on in our career who are told that high billable hours are a necessary prerequisite to higher levels of practice.

Diligen enables junior associates to focus on higher billable tasks without compromising the speed or quality of critical contract review work.

The fact is, most law students have no idea how to even start the process of obtaining a legal job they will actually enjoy and the majority of law firm associates quickly discover that generating high billables and collections isn't what is going to put them on a solid path to partnership.

When the case is over, evaluation of profitability (and success) on the matter reverts to a billable hour analysis: the lower the billable hours, the happier the client; the higher the billable hours, the happier the lawyer

So, when the case is over, evaluation of profitability (and success) on the matter reverts to a billable hour analysis: the lower the billable hours, the happier the client; the higher the billable hours, the happier the lawyer.

Higher billable targets: A partner recently told me that the minimum hours in her law firm have increased by 200 hours a year since she started working there as a newly called lawyer.

It is not just women lawyers crying out for relief from higher and higher billable targets and increased pressure to work longer in the office.

By merely renting a virtual office and including a New York City office address on a law firm's website, business card, and firm letter head, out - of - town lawyers can often command higher billable rates than their local counterparts.

Proving that lawyers care more about creating a better system than ever - higher billables, Dimock says it would be better to sidestep PMNOC hearings entirely, and go directly to trial.

Not exact matches

Like many service businesses, Share makes its money on billable hours; once the fixed costs are paid, margins on additional calls are high.

But, as businesses grow, and the stakes get higher, businesses typically drop software for actual counsel (and curse incessantly over the concomitant billable hours).

Their billable hours are the highest rates in the world, they earned it.

They can, in other words, «dial back» while still providing valuable service to the firm — service you might not want to sacrifice the high - priced billable hours of others to perform.

Billable rates are already high, and technologically - incompetent lawyers may spend too much time on tasks that technology should make simple.

Gone are the days of high billing rates, stratospheric big firm salaries and huge billable requirements.

Consider the litigation partner who typically works 2,300 billable hours per year, bills that commensurate amount and has exceptionally high working attorney fee receipts.

PSLs are well - respected attorneys, usually with several years of practice experience, who draft or gather high - quality precedent documents, research and summarize legal developments for internal and client use, help billable attorneys find expert colleagues, and train junior lawyers.

The result is that our partners typically receive much higher take - home compensation than they would receive for performing identical billable hours in a traditional law firm.

Firms dealing with high volume civil litigation practices may find it difficult to have the luxury of a managing partner with full - time administrative responsibilities and no billable requirements.

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.

The ranks of associates can't be swelled much larger than they were, and the billable hour targets for those associates can't be pushed any higher, not unless firms start handing out human growth hormone to their new lawyers.

When you avoid exploring an integrated software solution, you're missing out on higher client satisfaction, more referrals, and an increase in billable hours.

He explains that the business model used by most law firms — one based on the billable hour and high - priced, increasingly mobile partners — is no longer viable in the 21st century.

; (b) The individual's historical productivity level (billable hours history); (c) The individual's ability to sustain a high productivity level at a partner's billing rate; and (d) generally, the individual's ability to support himself or herself as a partner.

There's simply no easy way to reconcile the billable hour — especially if you work in a place that demands a high minimum number of hours — with preventing burnout.

The higher salaries, then, seem to be the least that firms can afford to pay to make sure there are enough worker bees to handle billable work.

A tool for securing the extra resources your law practice may need, while keeping high - value tasks and billable hours in - house.

By emphasizing billable hours, lawyers are disincentivized to be quick and efficient, which drives prices up so high that the average American can't afford them.

The commenters at WSJ Law Blog identify the usual suspects: pressure to meet billable hour quotas, stress caused by constant dealings with nasty judges and rude adversaries, inability to cut the golden handcuffs that bind lawyers to high - paying positions, worries about an over-saturated job market and burgeoning student loans and pangs of conscience at defending objectionable clients or having entered the legal profession for security rather than having followed one's heart instead.

Take the time to get that coupon; your billable hour isn't that high.

The model of the billable hour decreases the impetus to make process improvements because in theory the firm is paid the same amount regardless of outcome, but some of this value can be expected to be retained by the law firm through mechanisms as bills being paid faster, repeat business, justification for higher rates, alternate billing, and better delegation.

Regrettably, as with previous episodes that have produced high - profile scandals, the present outcry will probably pass and the billable hour will endure.

So to the extent that the notion that «selling time» via the billable hour is driving the high cost of litigation — what alternative model do you suggest?

Firms with more than 750 lawyers have billable rates that are 30 percent higher than the next smaller tier of firms (501 - 750 lawyers).

The vendor was able to show that its solution allowed existing customers to re-deploy valuable billable hours to higher - value work.