I hear you. I worked in a law firm writing Biotech patents as a scientific adviser. I had billable hour targets, but for half my work (and others like me) they didn’t feel they could bill the client.
This drove me batty.
I know what hourly rates the attorneys bill, I know what I make, and I know generally what the more junior paralegals and secretaries (and junior associates, for that matter) make. Frankly, if the firm can’t make a mighty nice profit with what they are billing, then they are doing something very wrong. Much of what my firm does is not as cyclical as, say, M&A or real estate; we do plaintiff class actions, employment law (which is busy as hell in an economic downturn), personal injury/medical malpractice, etc.
I’ve previously worked in a high-volume practice that did most matters on a flat-fee basis, and on average I billed anywhere from 6 - 10 times my salary on an annual basis. When I worked in-house, I spent only maybe 25% of my time prepping cases that would otherwise be farmed out to outside counsel, and the rest of my time coordinating the farming out of the work, plus developing company policy, coordinating with the various lines of business, etc. Even with the 25% of the time I spent doing work that would have otherwise gone to outside counsel, the money I saved was, oh, call it more than double my salary. I’ve done plenty of unpaid overtime - at the first firm where I worked (before the Dept. of Labor issued revisions to the FLSA regs that clarified that in the vast majority of cases, paralegals, because they are, by definition, required to have their work reviewed by professional staff before it goes out the door), it was expected that we would all do at least 1 - 2 hours of overtime a day, more in busy periods. It wasn’t the overtime, per se, that drove me bonkers, as long as I was being fairly compensated for it.
I acknowledge that because I chose not to go to law school, if I want to continue working in the legal profession, I am not going to be able to run the show. However, what gets my goat is the unspoken implication that non-billable work has no value and should not be openly acknowledged, and taken into consideration for evaluation purposes. I can’t tell you how many times my non-billable work has, say, potentially saved the firm from some very significant malpractice liability, just to name one example.
I may not be able to run the show at my workplace, but neither should the management get to take advantage of me, or violate Federal labor law, by having me work for free, just because they don’t value non-billable work appropriately.
Luke 10:7. Similar statements in Matthew 10:10 and Timothy 5:18. All from the Christian Bible.
This religious information is brought to you by a godless heathen, who has her handbasket all picked out and well provisioned.
I think the partner is entitled to get paid whatever he or she can get away with charging the client. I have no problem with lawyers here charging $700 per hour. If the client thinks that’s a fair rate for the services rendered, fine.
What I’m “bitching and moaning” about is the partners extracting work from employees, in violation of the spirit if not the letter of the law, that they are not willing to pay the worker for.
I am perfectly happy to work long hours. I do, often. I regularly work 80 hour weeks. I regularly work on weekends. I work more hours than nearly any partner here, and as many or more than most associates. The hours aren’t the issue.
And I should point out that those “ambitious, high-strung attornies [sic]” *will *be compensated for their efforts, in the form of a partnership (if their efforts are great enough and the quality of their work is high enough), and bonuses. I will *not *be compensated for my effort, because the firm will not even admit such effort exists. That’s my problem with the whole thing.
I don’t imagine that happening at all. It certainly would never happen because of me. Believe me, if work needs to be done, I’m going to be here doing it.
My problem with the whole thing is the dishonesty of it. On the one hand, the firm, from the managing partner on down, makes a point of telling us that they’d never expect us to work hours that we’re not paid for. On the other, they’re exerting enormous pressure to work large amounts of time for which we’re not paid.
If the firm were to say “look, we’re having a tough time right now, and we need your help,” they’d get my help. And it would be nice if that help would be acknowledged. But it won’t be, because they can’t or won’t acknowledge that they’ve pressured us to work uncompensated hours.
Exactly. Glad someone figured it out.
Legal support staff that are paid piecemeal- ie., by the time they bill- are generally classified as independent contractors, not employees, so they wouldn’t be eligible for overtime anyway.
Support staff are usually on salary.
I didn’t hit enter, I didn’t!!! I hit refresh the way you’re supposed to! grrrrr
Good question, I have no idea! I am always a good little enviro-tech and am scrupulously honest on my timesheet. I’m not in the legal profession, I’m in the environmental industry if that helps?
One thing our company does that’s slightly annoying is that we have to have our timesheets into our headquarters (located on the East Coast) on Thursday afternoons. BIG pain in the ass. So that means, we have to complete our timecards from sometime on Thursday (depends upon whether we’re in the field that day or not) through Friday with our best guess at to which projects we’ll be working on and for how long on each one.
Grrrrr! Then, for the following Monday, we come in and fill out a timecard supplemental with what our actual hours turned out to be. Which basically means that through Wednesday afternoon, we’re completing our timescards online at our company website based upon real time, but then because we’ve electronically signed and closed out our current timecard as required on Thurs afternoon, the Thurs/Fri hours we’re actually working have to be kept separately so that we can remember what the hell we did so as to complete it on the supplemental come Monday…ARRRGGGGhhhhhh! (okay, it’s more than slightly annoying).
Not so bad for those who are always in the office and are pretty much slated to the same projects all of the time, but for we sci-techs our timesheets look like patchwork quilts with all of the different projects we bill to. I might Plaaaan on working on Joe Blow’s BlahdeBlah appendices for 4 hours on Friday, but if Joanie May calls me up and says “Help! can you run out to the TootToot systems and do a secondary system reading”? Then on top of that, what generally happens is not only does PM#1 call up with a small request like that, 14 other PMS also have tasks they’d like help on. This takes my nice neat guesstimate from my complete and closed out timecard from 4 hours on X Prj. 4 on Y prj. to .5 on the TootToot system, 1 on the Blahdeblah, .7 on the Cold proj. etc…
Grrrr!!! But yet to be all legal and above board, we have to turn in our changes properly and on the appropriate form. Yeah, now I WOULD like to know what statute we have to follow. All I know is that our company has offices all over the place and the timecard regs have to be followed company-wide, so except for OT laws, it’s not an Alaska thing.
I’m not sure I understand the issue here.
If the file can’t support some necessary bit of work, the correct approach surely is to docket the time & then write it off. We do that all the time, and the time is then counted as “billable” for evaluation purposes. The only concern is of course where large amounts of time are written off, it may get remarked on by management at evaluation time - that issue is easily solved though, as management will ask the billing partner about it & that partner will then tell them that the write-offs were necessary because of fiscal restraints and not because time was wasted or used inefficiently (moreover any large write-offs must be approved with reasons).
Staff here is on salary, with overtime mandatory & billed to a particular file - subject of course to being written off as above. If stuff can’t be billed, it isn’t considered appropriate to require overtime work.
The OP’s managing attorney won’t write stuff off because it looks bad for him. Why the OP doesn’t keep track of his/her own time, I don’t really understand.
Ummm, getting paid a salary has nothing to do with whether or not the firm is also responsible for overtime. It has do with your exempt/non-exempt status. Non-exempt employees must be paid for overtime.
From the American Bar Association:
Regardless of the opinions of Rand Rover and msmith537, the principled “professionals” running the OP’s firm are, at best, on shaky ground with regard to labor law and more likely are trying to flat out break the law.
Saintly Loser, unless you are willing to take it to Wage and Hour*, unfortunately you’re probably stuck for now, but document everything. Whether you or someone else finally does report the behavior, the documentation should help ensure that you’re paid proper retroactive OT (which will be necessary since the size of the fine plus back payments will probably bankrupt your firm - and the disregard for the law may well cost the partners their licenses).
Should you decide to report this, Wage and Hour can be reached at 1-866-4-US-WAGE. My understanding is that you can remain anonymous/confidential.
I was correcting the assumption some posters have made that the OP is paid on a piecemeal basis. Being paid a salary has everything to do with whether or not a person is an independent contractor, not an employee.
The OP is complaining about not getting credit for his/her work, not about overtime. In any case, if the OP was putting in overtime it certainly wouldn’t be charged to the client as such.
ETA: I think you’re confusing Saintly Loser with the OP.
Generally, If it’s work that HAS to be done, then you CAN charge the client for it. If the partner doesn’t feel that they can charge the client for it, then either, (a) it doesn’t need to be done, or (b) the partner left it until the last minute and then expected that you could do it in a couple of hours.
The way it works at many law firms is that attorneys and staff enter their billable time into a computer program (there are several different versions available); you include the client, the time spent, and a time description. At the end of the month, all that information is downloaded to make a bill. The partner then reviews the draft bill and writes off the time he wants to write off. Thus, the employee (who’s required to bill a certain number of hours a year) gets credit for the time, but it’s not billed to the client because the partner writes it off.
But the partner is “graded” not only on how many hours are billed to his clients, but how many go through on the bill, and how many the client pays. Inefficiency is not rewarded. So while the appropriate thing is for the partner to write the time off, he’s trying to game the system by telling employees not to put their time in as billable at all.
End result: paralegal still submits a time sheet that shows he worked X number of hours that day, but can’t put the time in as billable, so while he still gets his salary, he looks inefficient (only billing 80% of his working time, for example, instead of 90%), and he many not make his billable goal. With the result that this employee, through no fault of his own, won’t be rated as highly as other employees who don’t get put on the non-billable stuff.
What is it you think I’ve said that justifies this? Please quote. Thanks.
But the step here that needs more explanation is what happens when the paralegal’s boss sees that he only billed 80% of his working time. If the paralegal’s boss accepts the explanation that the paralegal did something non-billable for Partner X, then there’s no problem. If the paralegal’s boss doesn’t like that explanation, then the paralegal needs to sack up and tell Partner X that he won’t do the non-billable work.
If Partner X is also the paralegal’s boss or has the power to fire the paralegal or direct the paralegal’s boss to do so, then the paralegal should tell the paralegal’s boss that the paralegal’s boss is in the wrong and the paralegal will continue to do non-billable work for Partner X. If the paralegal’s boss doesn’t like this, then the paralegal should tell this to Partner X.
Right, got that. What I do is keep my own time sheet which shows my billable and non-billable time, and submit it to the managing partner of the department at the end of each week.
Two different comments. I was talk about the OP with regard to Rand and msmith537. The comments to Saintly Loser were in regard to Post #64. It sounded to me like he/she was in a very similar situation. Of course, the advice also pertains to the OP and I should have made that more clear.
And your salary is a fair rate for the services you render otherwise you would find another job that paid more.
I can’t speak to the legality of it (IANAL).
Well…sounds like to me you made a bad career choice. I worked those hours as a consultant because I was on the track to managing director. I’m not going to work like that to be some partner’s bitch with no hope of advancement.
Well…what do you feel your compensation should be?
Also, are intentionally being pedantic by [sic]ing my typos or is that just a habit from being around lawyers all day?
There is a certain amount of “the boss is a cheap jerk” in every industry. I think it’s particularly bad in the legal industry as lawyers tend to think they are above everyone anyway.
In my case, I do the vast majority of my work directly for 2 partners, either of whom has the power to fire me. Flat-out refusing to perform a task that either one of them assigned me would be insubordination, and would NOT go over well.
Luckily, my partners are sensible people, and a) trust me to prioritize work appropriately; and b) we have codes in our billing system for recording non-billable projects (admin time for things like running reports, marketing, working on new case intake, developing training, or whatever it might be). So far nobody has given me crap for time charged to admin codes, and I sure as hell hope it stays that way.
I do miss the days when I worked mostly on a flat-fee basis; if I worked efficiently, I could really kick some billing ass.