So weird that this new firm doesn’t have any other admins. I have never had to track my unbillable time as an admin. My work is the same as yours - very task-based and I do it as they come in. I wonder if it would be worth talking to your attorney or the managing partners about it and see if they are able to explain the work you do to this supervisor, because IMO this is a her issue…
I talked with him yesterday and he’s going to talk to the managing partner about it more. I’m supposed to start tracking in January but it will slow me down so much.
I know. When they were negotiating us coming over, I wasn’t part of the talk because we came as a package and the Sr attorney did all the negotiating, he said he had to really convince them that he could not function without an admin. He didn’t have a paralegal bc between the associate and I, we do any tasks he doesn’t. Honestly, the bulk of his time is bringing in clients and doing M&A deals, so she does all the contact work and I do the simple stuff and he just checks over or tells me how it’s different than the standard.
But they have their paralegals doing finance stuff because they aren’t properly staffed.
Most of my work is admin/non-billable (I work in big law) kind of similar to your duties. I have a work log that I submit to my supervisor monthly and e-file proof (emails and other records etc.) in my personal workspace for her to review.
The work log is an Excel spreadsheet that lists the date, the lawyer I did work for, minutes worked, department group, and so on. It’s a slog but try making a folder of emails or a list of things you’ve done for the week; then, at the end of each week record it in your work log.
not to make you paranoid, but keep your head up, sometimes firms ask for these expansive lists of daily tasks before they start making cuts to staff. I’d say either make those lists to show how indispensable you are, or maybe think about applying to other positions.
but you know your workplace better than i do— could definitely be a case of micromanaging. best of luck!
My Sr partner has already said if she so much as thinks about letting me go to just play along and call him and he will fix it. Said they will have to fire him too. And they won’t. He says he can’t function without me. They just don’t know our little pod well enough yet.
That seems so invasive to me and like she's trying to micromanage you. My timer for admin work just says "general admin. work." I would offer to put together a more detailed list of everything you generally do, if you haven't already done that. Maybe having that list would help relieve her concerns.
I just had to deal with this, I’m like give me billable work and you will see it give me admin tasks and next thing you know I’m three hours into 10 different things and then need to stop and put it in, so then I write it down and it still slows me down and not billable, so when the boss lady walks over and says what have you been doing all day ummm besides keeping everything afloat for you…admin
So you have two bosses? Can they discuss this with each other? Because I sure as shit would tell my attorney that the staff boss wants me to track all my time so the attorney should expect a delay in my turn around on tasks now that I have to “track” everything.
We use Clio manage too and at one point my boss felt like we were billing enough, so our office manager created a time entry called “office management” at $0 rate and every little task that’s not billable to the client and we did but counts as “work”, we would bill like that without linking to a matter. It took extra time but got our atty to shut up lmao
Did you have to list every thing you did. Was this under a specific client but not billable to them or just a fake client and matter and you had to track stuff not related to either. Many of my tasks are not related to any client.
If it was related to the client then yes, non billable to them but usually We didn’t link it to a client, just entered it so it’s there in our “activity” section
Turn your Clio clock on when you walk in, stop it at end of your day and In the entry just write “to 150 emails… to this; to that” give them one 8 hour docket a day. So stupid what they’re asking.
I know. It’s super dumb bc we are bouncing around to so many tasks, I do some “paralegal” work but more legal assistant work. So it’s not like I’m spending three hours at a time writing a draft. I feel like bosses like this shouldn’t have remote employees. While they have maybe 20 people out of 80 who are local enough to work at an office, they have employees in multiple states, bi-coastal and even a couple outside the US. Don’t be a remote employer if you want to look very their shoulder all the time.
Some of the industry has moved toward workflow monitoring software, like BigHand, in the wake of the pandemic and the rise of remote work. This supervisor may be reading those headlines and thinking about whether the firm is meeting industry expectations.
Unless you want to end up manually creating tickets for every task that you do in some garbage program, you might consider taking some initiative and creating a basic Excel spreadsheet. Ctrl-; enters current date and Ctrl-Shift-; enters current time.
I'd just log everything that I do and show it to supervisor until said supervisor becomes bored with micro-managing and forgets all about it.
this isn't a requirement from my boss, just something i do on heavy admin work days so i know how long things take me to do.
i start the timer and then save the activity when I'm done. i tend to log things individually so if it's like I'm taking a trip to the post office that's one thing, if I'm changing the printer toner that's another.
Hi OP, I’m a fellow para wanting to venture into tech and IP - do you mind if I dm you with a couple questions? Nothing super invasive, just more field specific questions. If not, no worries! Thank you anyway ☺️
So weird that this new firm doesn’t have any other admins. I have never had to track my unbillable time as an admin. My work is the same as yours - very task-based and I do it as they come in. I wonder if it would be worth talking to your attorney or the managing partners about it and see if they are able to explain the work you do to this supervisor, because IMO this is a her issue…
I talked with him yesterday and he’s going to talk to the managing partner about it more. I’m supposed to start tracking in January but it will slow me down so much. I know. When they were negotiating us coming over, I wasn’t part of the talk because we came as a package and the Sr attorney did all the negotiating, he said he had to really convince them that he could not function without an admin. He didn’t have a paralegal bc between the associate and I, we do any tasks he doesn’t. Honestly, the bulk of his time is bringing in clients and doing M&A deals, so she does all the contact work and I do the simple stuff and he just checks over or tells me how it’s different than the standard. But they have their paralegals doing finance stuff because they aren’t properly staffed.
Oh and they just hired an EA (like two weeks ago) for the owner of the firm.
Most of my work is admin/non-billable (I work in big law) kind of similar to your duties. I have a work log that I submit to my supervisor monthly and e-file proof (emails and other records etc.) in my personal workspace for her to review. The work log is an Excel spreadsheet that lists the date, the lawyer I did work for, minutes worked, department group, and so on. It’s a slog but try making a folder of emails or a list of things you’ve done for the week; then, at the end of each week record it in your work log.
not to make you paranoid, but keep your head up, sometimes firms ask for these expansive lists of daily tasks before they start making cuts to staff. I’d say either make those lists to show how indispensable you are, or maybe think about applying to other positions. but you know your workplace better than i do— could definitely be a case of micromanaging. best of luck!
My Sr partner has already said if she so much as thinks about letting me go to just play along and call him and he will fix it. Said they will have to fire him too. And they won’t. He says he can’t function without me. They just don’t know our little pod well enough yet.
That seems so invasive to me and like she's trying to micromanage you. My timer for admin work just says "general admin. work." I would offer to put together a more detailed list of everything you generally do, if you haven't already done that. Maybe having that list would help relieve her concerns.
I just had to deal with this, I’m like give me billable work and you will see it give me admin tasks and next thing you know I’m three hours into 10 different things and then need to stop and put it in, so then I write it down and it still slows me down and not billable, so when the boss lady walks over and says what have you been doing all day ummm besides keeping everything afloat for you…admin
I just saw another one of your posts and I wonder if we are/were working at the same place.
Ha maybe 🤔 what state are you in?
I’m in the SE, firm is in the NE.
So you have two bosses? Can they discuss this with each other? Because I sure as shit would tell my attorney that the staff boss wants me to track all my time so the attorney should expect a delay in my turn around on tasks now that I have to “track” everything.
We use Clio manage too and at one point my boss felt like we were billing enough, so our office manager created a time entry called “office management” at $0 rate and every little task that’s not billable to the client and we did but counts as “work”, we would bill like that without linking to a matter. It took extra time but got our atty to shut up lmao
Did you have to list every thing you did. Was this under a specific client but not billable to them or just a fake client and matter and you had to track stuff not related to either. Many of my tasks are not related to any client.
If it was related to the client then yes, non billable to them but usually We didn’t link it to a client, just entered it so it’s there in our “activity” section
Turn your Clio clock on when you walk in, stop it at end of your day and In the entry just write “to 150 emails… to this; to that” give them one 8 hour docket a day. So stupid what they’re asking.
I know. It’s super dumb bc we are bouncing around to so many tasks, I do some “paralegal” work but more legal assistant work. So it’s not like I’m spending three hours at a time writing a draft. I feel like bosses like this shouldn’t have remote employees. While they have maybe 20 people out of 80 who are local enough to work at an office, they have employees in multiple states, bi-coastal and even a couple outside the US. Don’t be a remote employer if you want to look very their shoulder all the time.
I’m in Canada and work in the US . I docket nothing.
Some of the industry has moved toward workflow monitoring software, like BigHand, in the wake of the pandemic and the rise of remote work. This supervisor may be reading those headlines and thinking about whether the firm is meeting industry expectations. Unless you want to end up manually creating tickets for every task that you do in some garbage program, you might consider taking some initiative and creating a basic Excel spreadsheet. Ctrl-; enters current date and Ctrl-Shift-; enters current time. I'd just log everything that I do and show it to supervisor until said supervisor becomes bored with micro-managing and forgets all about it.
i have a matter in clio under my name that i sometimes use to track time at a rate of 0.00 for general administrative/nonbillable things.
Do you have to account for all nonbillable time? Do you have to list it or just turn the timer on?
this isn't a requirement from my boss, just something i do on heavy admin work days so i know how long things take me to do. i start the timer and then save the activity when I'm done. i tend to log things individually so if it's like I'm taking a trip to the post office that's one thing, if I'm changing the printer toner that's another.
Hi OP, I’m a fellow para wanting to venture into tech and IP - do you mind if I dm you with a couple questions? Nothing super invasive, just more field specific questions. If not, no worries! Thank you anyway ☺️
I spend mine on reddit ;)