Billable hours question

[Choop]

Hello, new poster here.  I have a question about lawyer's hours.  If the average firm requires 2,000 billable hours then over 50 weeks that amounts to 40 hours per week.  So why does everybody say that lawyers work such long hours?  Do they all bill 3,000 hours or what?

[zemog]

Please use your analytical skills and think about it. 

[Wild Jack Maverick]

Hello, new poster here.  I have a question about lawyer's hours.  If the average firm requires 2,000 billable hours then over 50 weeks that amounts to 40 hours per week.  So why does everybody say that lawyers work such long hours?  Do they all bill 3,000 hours or what?

Two weeks vacation allows 50 weeks for working. Then subtract the yearly required pro bono hours (unless receiving court ordered attorney fees), holidays, weekends, sick days, personal days, time for required continuing education, seminars, etc.

Then consider the billable services:

   Interviews, consultations and counseling, email, video conferencing, faxes, letters, phone calls, negotiation, ADR, research, discovery, filing forms, drafting documents, visiting incarcerated or invalid clients, bail time, travel, business meals, trials (including counterclaims, appeals, etc) etc, etc

and think about it some more.
   

[emarejay]

Isnt the simple answer to this question just that lawyers don't work all billable hours? Work a 12 hour day and bill 6 or something like that???

[Wild Jack Maverick]

Here is an interesting link, written by the experts, which better describes a lawyer's "hours at work" and "billable hours". It further includes such considerations as lunch and coffee breaks, commuting, reading legal updates, meetings, conferences, etc.

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Career_Development/cdo-billable.htm

[TheJesus]

Here is an interesting link, written by the experts, which better describes a lawyer's "hours at work" and "billable hours". It further includes such considerations as lunch and coffee breaks, commuting, reading legal updates, meetings, conferences, etc.

http://www.law.yale.edu/outside/html/Career_Development/cdo-billable.htm

Great Link...thanks for posting

[Wild Jack Maverick]

ah, that's okay. Would you click the commendation button?