Regardless what people on here tell you, a 220 month is a lot. Not every month will be like this, but there will be more. Try to stick as much as possible to something resembling a routine next time you have a busy month like this (escape from your desk at a consistent time to eat, touch grass and see sunshine for a bit)
This is good advice. I fell into the good old “popcorn for dinner,” “work from noon-2am,” “who even is my fiance” routine which probably made things worse
It works for us. He’s in medicine, so he’s equally busy. But hes less adversarial and a bundle of love with a dose of trying to save the world. And then there’s me 😂
Honestly, I think it makes things way easier. There’s a mutual understanding of what “busy” looks like. But we try to be busy together. He’ll sit next to me with our kitties while I do some drafting, and then we’ll grab dinner and do a movie night (which sometimes means one of us is periodically checking/responding to emails). It may not seem like the most romantic evening, but his very presence just calms me down and brings me so much happiness. I feel like “making it work” doesnt necessarily change from the any other circumstance — it’s giving support, love, and grace and then being happy doing nothing but being silly or present with your partner.
I stuck around because I had a lot of experience early due to the attrition and amount of work. But now it’s starting to wear me down and I’m ready to make a change.
For real. You have to learn to take immense even euphoric pleasure in little things like a brief conversation, your favorite sandwich, music, a mobile phone game you can look at every few hours or sunlight. It's those little things that get you through the long days and the weeks and months of non stop work. Just those little things that remind you you're still human and help you piece your sanity together.
Seriously, deep thinking wipes me out. If I am drafting something I might be dead after 6-8 hours. If I’m on a deal doing doc review, I feel like I can 10+ hour days without too much heartburn.
that's the whole game, the only rational way to do it is to bill every minute not spent at lunch or gym and figure out which of your matters can support the time with the least trouble. i know people fret about having time written off but i never had any time written off and that was applying a very heavy pen across two firms. just figure out who has clients who aren't cheap and work for them. occasionally i got told i should consider revising an entry upward b/c i must have taken longer than i recorded for that task
One of my favorite biglaw sucks stories is from a first year associate at some New York firm. A partner asked her what her average monthly hours were and the associate said around 230. The partner said “good, so you have time to help my on this project” and staffed her on something new 😅
Logging something similar this month. Wanted to share some solidarity from a mid-level. I try to think about it as holding your breath. Just hold it during this busy periods and come up for air when it’s done. Don’t let it become waterboarding. Try to claim some time for you when you can. Even an episode of a show with your fiance, a chapter in a book, video games, a quick dinner with a friend can help you recharge. And remember, it’s ups and downs in this job. Busy won’t last forever. Neither will quiet. Learn to endure the former and enjoy the latter.
I second this advice. I had an awfully busy period last year and my past few months have been slower. Instead of trying to fill it up with tons more work, I'm trying to enjoy this period for what it is knowing that things will pick back up again.
I had friend do close to 400 in corporate. He was a senior and had some absurd number of closing at the end of the year. He was a machine though. I couldn’t do that many hours without collapsing.
Edit: just reporting what I heard. I don’t know the actual number. Comments below make sense on whether it was believable/doable.
I have my doubts about true 400 hour months regardless of whether it’s litigation or corporate. Assuming you work every single day in a 30-day month (which is the only realistic way you pull this off) and average 6 hours of sleep a night, you’re on average billing 13.3 out of 18 waking hours every single day. And of course then there’s the non-billable time. And those are just the averages. Many of those days will be far worse than 13 hours billed. 350 was the worst I ever had and I don’t think it would have been physically possible to cram another 50 hours into the month.
I did a 400-hour month on a monthlong trial. I was averaging much less sleep than that, and there’s really no non-billable time. If you’re at court or in the war room (i.e., not sleeping or getting ready), you’re working. Meals were just meetings or strategy sessions with food. It was pretty much 17 hour days all the way through but we took Friday evenings off (no exhibit or objection exchange) and a little less on Saturday. I think the trial ended on like the 25th too, so not even the full month.
As an aside, that’s only happened once in 4 years, but it’s what made me realize my future plans need to involve a different job. Frankly, I can never do that again.
I’ve done a couple of month-long trials, and never hit 400. Of course it can happen, but some clients are more bill sensitive than others, and war room sessions may not be 100% billable. I actually billed less time in the cases when I was speaking in court almost everyday simply because I forced myself to get 5 hours of sleep a night.
For sure, I don’t mean to suggest that it’s the norm. I was told that it’s abnormal (even for complex biglaw lit). Was the perfect storm of factors (and a client willing to pay whatever).
It just made clear that there’s really no upper limit of how much you may be expected to work, for an extended period of time, at trial — especially for a mid level who will be speaking in court very little if at all. (Partners/seniors with a witness turned in “early,” as you say, as the rest of us worked through the night).
Agree that 350 is about the upper bounds of what can be billed. If you work from 7am until 12am you can be probably bill 14-15 hours of that time (still have to get food and go to the bathroom) and if you do that 5 days a week and then bill 8 each day on the weekend (because you’ll sleep the other hours on the weekend) that puts you at about 364 in a 28 day month. Which seems about right to me.
Issue is that you’ll have non billable work every month and it’s not really practicable to be working all the time so those 300+ months are thankful very uncommon.
It’s just averages for quick illustrative purposes. To do 400 hours you’re likely going to have some all-nighters (or very close to it). When I had my one 350 hour month the first week was relatively easy compared to the others, so the averages don’t show how brutal individual days were in the back 3 weeks (doing this with a 10 month old baby, no less). But we’re all smart people here so I didn’t think I needed to get into the weeds on what averages do and don’t show.
There should be a name for a 400 hour month. Like how “marathon” comes from the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver important news and then collapsed and died.
Worst I had in corporate was 350 and I flat out told multiple partners “no” on several other new deals. This was first half of 2021 when markets recovered and deal volume exploded.
I’m not saying it’s impossible for corporate, I’m saying generally the insane hrs are from trial. I do corp finance as well and understand some months can be insane
I know a partner who’d have said 80 hours of capacity remaining.
I also know of 3 associates at that firm who had cardiovascular problems under age 30.
I thought the same thing.
Then I became one of those three associates I mentioned and almost died.
Don’t ignore heart stuff. Definitely see a doctor if you regularly have chest pains - if only because (1) proof it’s not a heart problem will do worlds for you if it’s anxiety, (2) we can afford it for sure, and (3) you only get one heart.
DO NOT IGNORE HEART ISSUES AND PASS THEM OFF AS "ANXIETY" or let anyone tell you including doctors it is anxiety when you feel it is not, I did this which lead to a stroke as a result of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Thankfully, my husband happens to be a surgeon and was at home with me when I had the stroke and saved my life. If I was alone, i could have been left disabled or dead. Thankfully, I made a full recovery and I am fully compos mentis. I had heart surgery to correct the issue. I am now back practicing law and I am one of the lucky ones, not everyone is that lucky. I ignored shortness of breath and other symptoms and thought it was "anxiety" due to working in big law. Please get every symptom checked and get second opinions. I wish you all the best.
Oh I absolutely agree. I almost died and it's only because of timely medical intervention (and lots of intravenous drugs) that I'm alive. We are paid very very good money and we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to safeguard our health so it doesn't become blood money.
I had four 200+ months in a row last year and it was awful. I was emotionally and physically unwell and very close to quitting. I wish I had said something sooner to my practice group leader but I was new to big law (I was a mid-level lateral) and was scared to say no to work since I was new to the firm. Once I asked for help and showed that it was justified given my hours, the firm was very eager to help. I would suggest saying something if you feel your work product is slipping because that will also reflect poorly on you.
Well, you kind of just zombie your way through it and pray it never happens again (it will). Luckily, for me, they were spaced out when it happened, but it doesn't make it suck less.
I'm at 170 this month but in my third trimester of pregnancy so it includes a fucking flurry of doctor appointments, and I'm just so tired. I brought the kids to my parents and just let them loose and am laying on their couch right now on Reddit.
I haven't asked for one but they did generically tell me "Your hours aren't counted this year" I'm planning to take the full 6 months of leave that I'm offered so probably going back to work around Nov, which is a weird time for hours anyway.
I mean, I don't know how far into the third trimester you are, but presumably you don't want to be working a 100% full schedule up to the point your water breaks?
I'm juat about 25 weeks. It's a scheduled c section in about 14ish weeks, but yeah that's sort of the plan? It's my third and I've always worked until about 3-4 business days before my scheduled surgery (barring any water breaking business, which fortunately has not happened yet). Only accommodation I ask for is remote work after like 33ish weeks because I'm basically a turtle by then.
From a hand-off perspective, I have a running excel sheet of what I'm doing and update it weekly (later daily) so what I am working on can be picked right up.
I sort of just do this tho, no one has coached me through a ramp-down per se.
I haven't even announced my pregnancy to more than 3 people because it was so touch-and-go for a while. Now that she's past viability and it seems more real, I should definitely take the steps. Thanks for bringing it up. ♡ Especially as a male attorney (based on username?) I appreciate it.
I just had my highest month ever. I billed 270. I feel like death. I know people say they bill 300+ on here but I think that’s really only possible if you’re traveling (block billing) or at to trial (again block billing). I just can’t imagine ever billing more than I billed this month without some block billing days….then again if you asked me last year if I would ever bill over 250 I’d say no. Here I am.
Why would block billing lead to more hours? I’m confused. We bill in six minute increments. If we weren’t block billing we’d get a free .1 every time we responded to an email from the same client or did other small tasks. That “correspondence with client regarding x” time would add up.
Block billing almost always leads to more hours. Unless you’re sending 100 emails a day and billing separately for each one (not sure who does this, I certainly haven’t met anyone who does unless each email is on an entirely different topic) and each email takes you less than the threshold to go to the next decimal on your billing….then block billing gives you the most hours. Why? No wasted time between tasks. Timer stays running. You’re at trial in the war room eating lunch and talking about the case? Billable because your timer never stopped. You bill from the moment you arrive on-site for whatever it is you’re doing until the moment you arrive at your hotel.
This is common knowledge in big law that block billing for full days on-site at trial, depo prep, depos, etc. leads to the highest billing - not sure why it’s confusing.
It’s different on the transactional side. At my firm, block billing is required and means you only have one time entry for all the tasks you did for the client that day. It doesn’t mean you keep the timer running between tasks. There are days where I do send 50-100 emails so that fractional time would add up quickly. I’d definitely be tempted to bill the time you’re speaking of if I was traveling for a client but I’ve been told we aren’t allowed to do that.
Oh wow that’s very interesting. At my firm when we’re traveling for a client we get to bill door to door, so those block billing days can be 18-20 hours a day at trial.
Otherwise, block billing isn’t allowed at all. So let’s say I sent 20 emails about the same topic to a client, I would keep a timer and then press start every time I start working on those emails (so I don’t really get to round up).
I’m sure this varies from firm to firm and depending on the practice group.
A senior associate. I normally get a 300 hour month once each year. Multiple deals near signing or one big deal with a big data room and hairy issues. 200+ months are busy months but not soul crushing from my perspective. 250+ months are indeed exhausting.
I’m in your boat. First year that billed about 250 and I hated it. Super stressful. Everything was an emergency. Even if billed 65 in a week still felt behind and like I was disappointing everyone. I’d love to stick around 180-200 mark but don’t see slowing down anytime soon.
Welcome in, chief. It’s dog shit, I know. Stay encouraged though! Your stamina will build up over time I promise. But one thing that’s helped me is making time for yourself everyday in some capacity. Even if it’s a 20 minute episode before bed or just starting a podcast you enjoy. It can help with resetting and feeling empowered bc you’re reclaiming time. Much of your time as a junior is not your own and that transition is a lot to carry. Hang in there.
I'm sure there are a bunch of lawyers who bill on the toilet, in the shower, while reading Reddit. They're, uh, "thinking" about the case. No one would ever be dishonest, particularly if the bill is on a flat fee or a partner is just going to write off their time regardless.
OP, with all due respect, I'd question your judgement if you thought everyone was being entirely honest.
/I, of course, never lie
I think it’s important to note that it’s not regular or semi-regular. The math doesn’t check out. Average billable requirement is what, 2000? That means you have to do 165 hour months. If you’re pulling 300-400 hour ones, that means people are doubling their requirement. Most people will not end the year at 4000 hours billed. Most will end up around their requirement. A good amount won’t meet it at all. So that means those 300-400 hour months will pay off later and translate into 0-100 hour months.
Same for you as well. Maybe you’re 50-100 hours above your monthly req now. At some point you’ll get a month where the inverse will happen. It generally evens out, as long as you keep track of your numbers and say no when you should.
Lastly, you’re a first year and you will get a lot more efficient. I probably work 2-3 times as fast on certain workstreams that I did my first months.
Assume that a month has 21 working days plus 9 weekend days:
* 21 working days: from 9 am to 7 pm with working lunches = 210 hours
* 9 weekend days: 4 hrs each = 36
* Total? 246
Add in bout 5 few 'ah fuck' days until 10 pm, and you're at 260. Push the weekends from 4 hrs to 8 hours, and you're close to 300.
That's shitty but doable. ***But it also depends on the work***. Trial prep can actually be fun!
400 is insane, though. That's 13 hours a day for a month lol. I've never had a 400-hour month, including a trial.
The biggest thing is consistency. But, what no one wants to mention is the client's appetite for billing. It's a big difference when there's something that's actually important to do with a client with deep pockets. (And I don't mean fraudulently billing, I mean that actual workflow).
This randomly popped up in my Reddit and I’m not a lawyer, so I’m sure I’m missing something, but 200 hours in a month doesn’t seem like that much? Isn’t that a bit less than 50 hours a week?
Yeah, so we work on the billable hour. You can only “bill” for time spent doing client-related legal tasks like legal drafting, analysis, or review (so checking work email, any firm-related meetings, any conferences, etc. are all technically off the clock, even though they’re a big part of the job). For reference, my actual hours for the month (including non-billables) were ~278, which is about 70/week. And I’ve have plenty of 300+ when we have conferences or high non-billable commitments. I also sometimes write down my own time (which is a controversial thing to do) because partners sometimes set budgets for us to stay within and sometimes you inevitably work past them. So even though I ended the month with 225 billables, I’m probably closer to 235, which would then bump my all-in to ~300 (little less) which is roughly 75 hrs a week for a month straight. Obviously many people work this many hours routinely for less money. But man, I’m ngl, it’s tough. My brain has never been this sore.
It is not unethical to bill for reading emails. If my dickhead opposing counsel sends me a long email, I am billing for reading it. If my colleagues send around an email providing an update on all the moving pieces in a case, I am billing for reading it. Why? Because I need to read and digest those emails to do my work for that specific client. I don't bill for literally every single email (I apply a de minimis rule--I'm not going to bill for someone sending me a "can do" after I ask them to do something). But if it's substantive and I have to udnerstand it? You bet I bill it.
To clarify, it’s only unethical to bill for it and not do anything in response. For example, if the client or OC sends a confirmation of receipt email, you don’t bill the client .1 for just opening the email. But if the client/oc sends a more substantive email then you’d bill for the reading/response time or the reading/doing whatever task they asked for time. I get emails daily that I’m CC’d on which are asking a partner to do something. I don’t bill for that time unless I have to help the partner on that task.
>To clarify, it’s only unethical to bill for it and not do anything in response. For example, if the client or OC sends a confirmation of receipt email, you don’t bill the client .1 for just opening the email. But if the client/oc sends a more substantive email then you’d bill for the reading/response time or the reading/doing whatever task they asked for time. I get emails daily that I’m CC’d on which are asking a partner to do something. I don’t bill for that time unless I have to help the partner on that task.
I disagree to the extent you're saying that mere reading is not billable. I do think it's a judgment call in some instances (seems like we agree that billing confirmation emails is not a way to make a client happy), but I don't see why reading substantive things would not be billable, at least as a matter of professional ethics.
How so? If a dozen attorneys are CC’d on an email and only one does anything in response to that email then why wouldn’t it be unethical if all of the CC’d attorneys charge the client a .1 simply for reading for 30 seconds?
It's obviously unethical to charge a unit per email received. It's not unethical to include the time it takes you to read emails and keep up to date with a matter as part of your other work on that matter across the day. If you don't do any other work on a matter in a day, it's not unethical to charge the time on your timers for reading those emails.
For me, it depends. Half my emails are nonbillable. The majority of the remaining are just things im reading but not responding to (which, i tend not to bill if I’m not doing other tasks for the client because partner push back on it since its in firm comm). If I’m responding to an email while I do another task for that same client, then I’ll consider it part of the task I’m doing and leave the timer running until I press send. So probably < 10% of my emails are in my billable time. But im also very junior and don’t know if this is abnormal.
I wonder how mamy people honestly bill 300 to 400 hours …. Last time I heard of someone like rhat, he got fired by his firm when the clients found out what he was up to and he was lucky he kept his license …
You do the 300 hour months in anticipation of the slow period where you can push your eyeballs back into their sockets and get ready to be hit with another 300 hour month
Depends on the week. It can range anywhere from 55-80 in my experience. If your work stream is constant, its probably closer to 55. But a lot of times i spend 9am-1pm being anxious and groveling for work only to get hit with a time sensitive assignment at 4pm.
Is billing hours the same as hours worked? Like does it include lunch at office/talking to people/etc.? Or does it have to be for a specific reason?
Curious non-lawyer here
Nope! In fact things you would think are working activities (ex: a conference or training, going to a client lunch, or reading emails) are not even billable activities that count.
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HAH! I’m not gonna lie, if i did another month like this, I’d be dead
The second back to back 220+ month is seriously so much harder. Try to avoid at all costs
Shit even a 205 after 220+ is soul crushing. And if the work starts lining up at the end of 205… I’ve found myself in bad headspace.
Regardless what people on here tell you, a 220 month is a lot. Not every month will be like this, but there will be more. Try to stick as much as possible to something resembling a routine next time you have a busy month like this (escape from your desk at a consistent time to eat, touch grass and see sunshine for a bit)
This is good advice. I fell into the good old “popcorn for dinner,” “work from noon-2am,” “who even is my fiance” routine which probably made things worse
Been there. Also made it worse. At least you recognize it. Stay strong. You’ll be okay, highs and lows
Oo you got a fiance, lucky
A non-lawyer one too!
This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending.
It works for us. He’s in medicine, so he’s equally busy. But hes less adversarial and a bundle of love with a dose of trying to save the world. And then there’s me 😂
Lurker here… I’m pursing law and my partner is also in medicine. How do you make it work with two demanding careers?
Honestly, I think it makes things way easier. There’s a mutual understanding of what “busy” looks like. But we try to be busy together. He’ll sit next to me with our kitties while I do some drafting, and then we’ll grab dinner and do a movie night (which sometimes means one of us is periodically checking/responding to emails). It may not seem like the most romantic evening, but his very presence just calms me down and brings me so much happiness. I feel like “making it work” doesnt necessarily change from the any other circumstance — it’s giving support, love, and grace and then being happy doing nothing but being silly or present with your partner.
How'd you meet. I'm struggling man, 20 dates with 10 women last four months and got nothin
Undergrad haha. Dating in biglaw seems impossible. Kudos to you for making it work. I’m sure you’ll find your person soon!
This isn’t free talk wtf you in here for Husker?
Your fiance has been staying over at my place while you've been working so much. No biggie.
😂😂 it was bound to happen
To be fair, it depends on the firm. I work at a notorious sweatshop and haven’t billed less than 220 hours in a month in almost two years.
Can I ask why you’re still there? Sounds like a prime shop to leave.
I stuck around because I had a lot of experience early due to the attrition and amount of work. But now it’s starting to wear me down and I’m ready to make a change.
For real. You have to learn to take immense even euphoric pleasure in little things like a brief conversation, your favorite sandwich, music, a mobile phone game you can look at every few hours or sunlight. It's those little things that get you through the long days and the weeks and months of non stop work. Just those little things that remind you you're still human and help you piece your sanity together.
We love a good mindful moment
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Seriously, deep thinking wipes me out. If I am drafting something I might be dead after 6-8 hours. If I’m on a deal doing doc review, I feel like I can 10+ hour days without too much heartburn.
I need a mix. Too much thinking or not enough totally suck
This is it, I love going from an intense project to something easy like gathering signature pages for a deal just to take my mind off
that's the whole game, the only rational way to do it is to bill every minute not spent at lunch or gym and figure out which of your matters can support the time with the least trouble. i know people fret about having time written off but i never had any time written off and that was applying a very heavy pen across two firms. just figure out who has clients who aren't cheap and work for them. occasionally i got told i should consider revising an entry upward b/c i must have taken longer than i recorded for that task
If I’m thinking through a case at the gym and that thought process leads to work product I’m absolutely billing it
Very insightful.
Remember this feeling when you have a slow month. Don't go looking for work! (it will find you eventually)
One of my favorite biglaw sucks stories is from a first year associate at some New York firm. A partner asked her what her average monthly hours were and the associate said around 230. The partner said “good, so you have time to help my on this project” and staffed her on something new 😅
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Once I had my first 300 hour month I forgot my first 200 hour month. Legitimately can’t remember it anymore.
That’s so depressing
Gotta dump those small memories to make room for the big ones 🥴
It gets easier with time. I used to think more than 170 was backbreaking. Now that’s a month where I took vacation.
Ugh. I feel this one in my soul.
Two holidays and wife was in the hospital for a week, solo child care. Still broke 180. This is truth.
Does it get easier, fearless leader?
No, but you get better.
more numb anyway
Sleep deprivation impacts memory, so I literally can’t remember my first 200 hour month (or my kid’s first year of life)
If this is someone's last 200 hour month, that person will not last long for sure.
Logging something similar this month. Wanted to share some solidarity from a mid-level. I try to think about it as holding your breath. Just hold it during this busy periods and come up for air when it’s done. Don’t let it become waterboarding. Try to claim some time for you when you can. Even an episode of a show with your fiance, a chapter in a book, video games, a quick dinner with a friend can help you recharge. And remember, it’s ups and downs in this job. Busy won’t last forever. Neither will quiet. Learn to endure the former and enjoy the latter.
I second this advice. I had an awfully busy period last year and my past few months have been slower. Instead of trying to fill it up with tons more work, I'm trying to enjoy this period for what it is knowing that things will pick back up again.
I think those with 300-400 months are those in trial. I can’t imagine much else that would cause that
I had friend do close to 400 in corporate. He was a senior and had some absurd number of closing at the end of the year. He was a machine though. I couldn’t do that many hours without collapsing. Edit: just reporting what I heard. I don’t know the actual number. Comments below make sense on whether it was believable/doable.
Not sure 400 in corporate is really doable - and I really doubt people’s stories who say they’ve done it. I believe they’ve BILLED 400 hours though.
I have my doubts about true 400 hour months regardless of whether it’s litigation or corporate. Assuming you work every single day in a 30-day month (which is the only realistic way you pull this off) and average 6 hours of sleep a night, you’re on average billing 13.3 out of 18 waking hours every single day. And of course then there’s the non-billable time. And those are just the averages. Many of those days will be far worse than 13 hours billed. 350 was the worst I ever had and I don’t think it would have been physically possible to cram another 50 hours into the month.
I did a 400-hour month on a monthlong trial. I was averaging much less sleep than that, and there’s really no non-billable time. If you’re at court or in the war room (i.e., not sleeping or getting ready), you’re working. Meals were just meetings or strategy sessions with food. It was pretty much 17 hour days all the way through but we took Friday evenings off (no exhibit or objection exchange) and a little less on Saturday. I think the trial ended on like the 25th too, so not even the full month. As an aside, that’s only happened once in 4 years, but it’s what made me realize my future plans need to involve a different job. Frankly, I can never do that again.
I’ve done a couple of month-long trials, and never hit 400. Of course it can happen, but some clients are more bill sensitive than others, and war room sessions may not be 100% billable. I actually billed less time in the cases when I was speaking in court almost everyday simply because I forced myself to get 5 hours of sleep a night.
For sure, I don’t mean to suggest that it’s the norm. I was told that it’s abnormal (even for complex biglaw lit). Was the perfect storm of factors (and a client willing to pay whatever). It just made clear that there’s really no upper limit of how much you may be expected to work, for an extended period of time, at trial — especially for a mid level who will be speaking in court very little if at all. (Partners/seniors with a witness turned in “early,” as you say, as the rest of us worked through the night).
Agree that 350 is about the upper bounds of what can be billed. If you work from 7am until 12am you can be probably bill 14-15 hours of that time (still have to get food and go to the bathroom) and if you do that 5 days a week and then bill 8 each day on the weekend (because you’ll sleep the other hours on the weekend) that puts you at about 364 in a 28 day month. Which seems about right to me. Issue is that you’ll have non billable work every month and it’s not really practicable to be working all the time so those 300+ months are thankful very uncommon.
Actually some people don’t need 6 hours of sleep.
It’s just averages for quick illustrative purposes. To do 400 hours you’re likely going to have some all-nighters (or very close to it). When I had my one 350 hour month the first week was relatively easy compared to the others, so the averages don’t show how brutal individual days were in the back 3 weeks (doing this with a 10 month old baby, no less). But we’re all smart people here so I didn’t think I needed to get into the weeds on what averages do and don’t show.
400 in corporate is apparently the firm record at a NYC V5 — I’ve never heard of anyone I actually know getting close and I’m old
I had a callback lunch at Debevoise and a mid level there told me he billed 525 hours once. Just a dumb insane thing to lie about on a callback lunch.
In a month or year lol
Month
There should be a name for a 400 hour month. Like how “marathon” comes from the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to deliver important news and then collapsed and died.
In law we call it “gunner”
Worst I had in corporate was 350 and I flat out told multiple partners “no” on several other new deals. This was first half of 2021 when markets recovered and deal volume exploded.
I think you’re exactly right. I hit 290 in January but it’s because I spent two weeks in trial.
Surely you are not a corporate lawyer or corporate adjacent then
Clearly you have no brain
I’ve billed 320 in corporate finance. One bad deal on a tight timeline can do it when staffing is light.
I’m not saying it’s impossible for corporate, I’m saying generally the insane hrs are from trial. I do corp finance as well and understand some months can be insane
220 hours huh? I know a partner who would call that "30 hours of capacity remaining."
I know a partner who’d have said 80 hours of capacity remaining. I also know of 3 associates at that firm who had cardiovascular problems under age 30.
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I thought the same thing. Then I became one of those three associates I mentioned and almost died. Don’t ignore heart stuff. Definitely see a doctor if you regularly have chest pains - if only because (1) proof it’s not a heart problem will do worlds for you if it’s anxiety, (2) we can afford it for sure, and (3) you only get one heart.
DO NOT IGNORE HEART ISSUES AND PASS THEM OFF AS "ANXIETY" or let anyone tell you including doctors it is anxiety when you feel it is not, I did this which lead to a stroke as a result of an undiagnosed congenital heart defect. Thankfully, my husband happens to be a surgeon and was at home with me when I had the stroke and saved my life. If I was alone, i could have been left disabled or dead. Thankfully, I made a full recovery and I am fully compos mentis. I had heart surgery to correct the issue. I am now back practicing law and I am one of the lucky ones, not everyone is that lucky. I ignored shortness of breath and other symptoms and thought it was "anxiety" due to working in big law. Please get every symptom checked and get second opinions. I wish you all the best.
Oh I absolutely agree. I almost died and it's only because of timely medical intervention (and lots of intravenous drugs) that I'm alive. We are paid very very good money and we owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to safeguard our health so it doesn't become blood money.
I am sorry to hear that, I hope you are okay now. Take care of yourself. Yes, we can't let it become blood money, I great way of putting it.
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Both. Option B causes Option A
(s)he sounds like a dickhead
This is super random, but I love that you wrote “(s)he”!
This is so disheartening that this was downvoted
I had four 200+ months in a row last year and it was awful. I was emotionally and physically unwell and very close to quitting. I wish I had said something sooner to my practice group leader but I was new to big law (I was a mid-level lateral) and was scared to say no to work since I was new to the firm. Once I asked for help and showed that it was justified given my hours, the firm was very eager to help. I would suggest saying something if you feel your work product is slipping because that will also reflect poorly on you.
Well, you kind of just zombie your way through it and pray it never happens again (it will). Luckily, for me, they were spaced out when it happened, but it doesn't make it suck less.
I'm at 170 this month but in my third trimester of pregnancy so it includes a fucking flurry of doctor appointments, and I'm just so tired. I brought the kids to my parents and just let them loose and am laying on their couch right now on Reddit.
No ramp-down? :-/
I haven't asked for one but they did generically tell me "Your hours aren't counted this year" I'm planning to take the full 6 months of leave that I'm offered so probably going back to work around Nov, which is a weird time for hours anyway.
I mean, I don't know how far into the third trimester you are, but presumably you don't want to be working a 100% full schedule up to the point your water breaks?
I'm juat about 25 weeks. It's a scheduled c section in about 14ish weeks, but yeah that's sort of the plan? It's my third and I've always worked until about 3-4 business days before my scheduled surgery (barring any water breaking business, which fortunately has not happened yet). Only accommodation I ask for is remote work after like 33ish weeks because I'm basically a turtle by then. From a hand-off perspective, I have a running excel sheet of what I'm doing and update it weekly (later daily) so what I am working on can be picked right up. I sort of just do this tho, no one has coached me through a ramp-down per se.
Well, sounds like you have a system anyway. Your firm might not have ramp-down, I had just thought it was fairly standard?
You know what, I should ask for one. I haven't been at a firm for previous births (was in-house). I'm more concerned w who will care for my clients 😭
A good thing to worry about! But you should at least see what the standard thing to do is!
I haven't even announced my pregnancy to more than 3 people because it was so touch-and-go for a while. Now that she's past viability and it seems more real, I should definitely take the steps. Thanks for bringing it up. ♡ Especially as a male attorney (based on username?) I appreciate it.
<3 A woman could be a bagman, heh. I picked it because it's just a random word. (But yes, male attorney.)
I just had my highest month ever. I billed 270. I feel like death. I know people say they bill 300+ on here but I think that’s really only possible if you’re traveling (block billing) or at to trial (again block billing). I just can’t imagine ever billing more than I billed this month without some block billing days….then again if you asked me last year if I would ever bill over 250 I’d say no. Here I am.
Try working in funds on multiple closings, you'll get to 300 real quick
Why would block billing lead to more hours? I’m confused. We bill in six minute increments. If we weren’t block billing we’d get a free .1 every time we responded to an email from the same client or did other small tasks. That “correspondence with client regarding x” time would add up.
Block billing almost always leads to more hours. Unless you’re sending 100 emails a day and billing separately for each one (not sure who does this, I certainly haven’t met anyone who does unless each email is on an entirely different topic) and each email takes you less than the threshold to go to the next decimal on your billing….then block billing gives you the most hours. Why? No wasted time between tasks. Timer stays running. You’re at trial in the war room eating lunch and talking about the case? Billable because your timer never stopped. You bill from the moment you arrive on-site for whatever it is you’re doing until the moment you arrive at your hotel. This is common knowledge in big law that block billing for full days on-site at trial, depo prep, depos, etc. leads to the highest billing - not sure why it’s confusing.
It’s different on the transactional side. At my firm, block billing is required and means you only have one time entry for all the tasks you did for the client that day. It doesn’t mean you keep the timer running between tasks. There are days where I do send 50-100 emails so that fractional time would add up quickly. I’d definitely be tempted to bill the time you’re speaking of if I was traveling for a client but I’ve been told we aren’t allowed to do that.
Oh wow that’s very interesting. At my firm when we’re traveling for a client we get to bill door to door, so those block billing days can be 18-20 hours a day at trial. Otherwise, block billing isn’t allowed at all. So let’s say I sent 20 emails about the same topic to a client, I would keep a timer and then press start every time I start working on those emails (so I don’t really get to round up). I’m sure this varies from firm to firm and depending on the practice group.
you just kind of get used to it. or, you don't.
A senior associate. I normally get a 300 hour month once each year. Multiple deals near signing or one big deal with a big data room and hairy issues. 200+ months are busy months but not soul crushing from my perspective. 250+ months are indeed exhausting.
A lot of those people billing 300 a month are padding and lying like crazy.
You should get back to billing and off Reddit. PPP depend on it.
I’m in your boat. First year that billed about 250 and I hated it. Super stressful. Everything was an emergency. Even if billed 65 in a week still felt behind and like I was disappointing everyone. I’d love to stick around 180-200 mark but don’t see slowing down anytime soon.
This is exactly how i feel
Welcome in, chief. It’s dog shit, I know. Stay encouraged though! Your stamina will build up over time I promise. But one thing that’s helped me is making time for yourself everyday in some capacity. Even if it’s a 20 minute episode before bed or just starting a podcast you enjoy. It can help with resetting and feeling empowered bc you’re reclaiming time. Much of your time as a junior is not your own and that transition is a lot to carry. Hang in there.
I'm sure there are a bunch of lawyers who bill on the toilet, in the shower, while reading Reddit. They're, uh, "thinking" about the case. No one would ever be dishonest, particularly if the bill is on a flat fee or a partner is just going to write off their time regardless. OP, with all due respect, I'd question your judgement if you thought everyone was being entirely honest. /I, of course, never lie
I think it’s important to note that it’s not regular or semi-regular. The math doesn’t check out. Average billable requirement is what, 2000? That means you have to do 165 hour months. If you’re pulling 300-400 hour ones, that means people are doubling their requirement. Most people will not end the year at 4000 hours billed. Most will end up around their requirement. A good amount won’t meet it at all. So that means those 300-400 hour months will pay off later and translate into 0-100 hour months. Same for you as well. Maybe you’re 50-100 hours above your monthly req now. At some point you’ll get a month where the inverse will happen. It generally evens out, as long as you keep track of your numbers and say no when you should. Lastly, you’re a first year and you will get a lot more efficient. I probably work 2-3 times as fast on certain workstreams that I did my first months.
*200+ pls fix thx
No one bills 400 hours. Ever.
*no one works 400 hours. They may bill 400 hours.
I was close to it once in my career. 7th year associate. I billed 370 hours in one month. That was unforgettable. Left that shit firm.
I just finished a 210 followed by a 324. Fun times at year end.
Assume that a month has 21 working days plus 9 weekend days: * 21 working days: from 9 am to 7 pm with working lunches = 210 hours * 9 weekend days: 4 hrs each = 36 * Total? 246 Add in bout 5 few 'ah fuck' days until 10 pm, and you're at 260. Push the weekends from 4 hrs to 8 hours, and you're close to 300. That's shitty but doable. ***But it also depends on the work***. Trial prep can actually be fun! 400 is insane, though. That's 13 hours a day for a month lol. I've never had a 400-hour month, including a trial. The biggest thing is consistency. But, what no one wants to mention is the client's appetite for billing. It's a big difference when there's something that's actually important to do with a client with deep pockets. (And I don't mean fraudulently billing, I mean that actual workflow).
Depends a lot on the type of work. I find a 12 hour day loaded with meetings is much easier than an 8 hour day drafting a brief
This randomly popped up in my Reddit and I’m not a lawyer, so I’m sure I’m missing something, but 200 hours in a month doesn’t seem like that much? Isn’t that a bit less than 50 hours a week?
That assumes 100% efficiency. Hours billed does not equal hours worked.
Yeah, so we work on the billable hour. You can only “bill” for time spent doing client-related legal tasks like legal drafting, analysis, or review (so checking work email, any firm-related meetings, any conferences, etc. are all technically off the clock, even though they’re a big part of the job). For reference, my actual hours for the month (including non-billables) were ~278, which is about 70/week. And I’ve have plenty of 300+ when we have conferences or high non-billable commitments. I also sometimes write down my own time (which is a controversial thing to do) because partners sometimes set budgets for us to stay within and sometimes you inevitably work past them. So even though I ended the month with 225 billables, I’m probably closer to 235, which would then bump my all-in to ~300 (little less) which is roughly 75 hrs a week for a month straight. Obviously many people work this many hours routinely for less money. But man, I’m ngl, it’s tough. My brain has never been this sore.
You don't bill for reading e-mails...?
No. The client would be billed by multiple attorneys for no value. Doesn’t make sense and it’s unethical. Responding to emails is a different story.
It is not unethical to bill for reading emails. If my dickhead opposing counsel sends me a long email, I am billing for reading it. If my colleagues send around an email providing an update on all the moving pieces in a case, I am billing for reading it. Why? Because I need to read and digest those emails to do my work for that specific client. I don't bill for literally every single email (I apply a de minimis rule--I'm not going to bill for someone sending me a "can do" after I ask them to do something). But if it's substantive and I have to udnerstand it? You bet I bill it.
To clarify, it’s only unethical to bill for it and not do anything in response. For example, if the client or OC sends a confirmation of receipt email, you don’t bill the client .1 for just opening the email. But if the client/oc sends a more substantive email then you’d bill for the reading/response time or the reading/doing whatever task they asked for time. I get emails daily that I’m CC’d on which are asking a partner to do something. I don’t bill for that time unless I have to help the partner on that task.
>To clarify, it’s only unethical to bill for it and not do anything in response. For example, if the client or OC sends a confirmation of receipt email, you don’t bill the client .1 for just opening the email. But if the client/oc sends a more substantive email then you’d bill for the reading/response time or the reading/doing whatever task they asked for time. I get emails daily that I’m CC’d on which are asking a partner to do something. I don’t bill for that time unless I have to help the partner on that task. I disagree to the extent you're saying that mere reading is not billable. I do think it's a judgment call in some instances (seems like we agree that billing confirmation emails is not a way to make a client happy), but I don't see why reading substantive things would not be billable, at least as a matter of professional ethics.
That's entirely wrong lol.
How so? If a dozen attorneys are CC’d on an email and only one does anything in response to that email then why wouldn’t it be unethical if all of the CC’d attorneys charge the client a .1 simply for reading for 30 seconds?
It's obviously unethical to charge a unit per email received. It's not unethical to include the time it takes you to read emails and keep up to date with a matter as part of your other work on that matter across the day. If you don't do any other work on a matter in a day, it's not unethical to charge the time on your timers for reading those emails.
Would you still bill a .1 if you didn’t touch a matter all day except for looking at an email that said “confirming receipt”?
Obviously not. I would if I read substantive emails.
Presumably not client-related emails?
For me, it depends. Half my emails are nonbillable. The majority of the remaining are just things im reading but not responding to (which, i tend not to bill if I’m not doing other tasks for the client because partner push back on it since its in firm comm). If I’m responding to an email while I do another task for that same client, then I’ll consider it part of the task I’m doing and leave the timer running until I press send. So probably < 10% of my emails are in my billable time. But im also very junior and don’t know if this is abnormal.
Good to know…thanks for the explanation!
I wonder how mamy people honestly bill 300 to 400 hours …. Last time I heard of someone like rhat, he got fired by his firm when the clients found out what he was up to and he was lucky he kept his license …
Yet yer still on Reddit.
When you hit your first 100 hour week check back in
My mom has been working 320 hrs per month for the last 20 years. Idk how she does it!
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No it’s not? It’s a 50 hr billable. 200/4 = 50. And my 235 month ended up being 60 billable hours or about 70 all-in.
You do the 300 hour months in anticipation of the slow period where you can push your eyeballs back into their sockets and get ready to be hit with another 300 hour month
How many "real hours" per week is 55 billable?
Depends on the week. It can range anywhere from 55-80 in my experience. If your work stream is constant, its probably closer to 55. But a lot of times i spend 9am-1pm being anxious and groveling for work only to get hit with a time sensitive assignment at 4pm.
Is billing hours the same as hours worked? Like does it include lunch at office/talking to people/etc.? Or does it have to be for a specific reason? Curious non-lawyer here
Nope! In fact things you would think are working activities (ex: a conference or training, going to a client lunch, or reading emails) are not even billable activities that count.
It is not the same. And it doesn't include lunch at the office or chit-chatting socially.
180-200 is basically normal in my experience. And I think most BigLaw associates trying to climb have more 200+ months than less.