As an associate at a large multinational law firm, I rapidly realized that my worth to the business was directly connected to the amount of hours I billed in a month. Associates who routinely billed 2,100 hours or more earned incentives, increases, and excellent yearly reports, such as myself. Associates who did not reach their hours, regardless of the quality of their work, did not get incentives, faced pay cutbacks, and were among the first to be laid off when layoffs were necessary. After all, all employees are expected to provide high-quality results. However, if you aren’t charging enough hours then you aren’t earning your keep.
As I previously said, I never struggled to work 2,100 hours each year. Some may be surprised to learn that I seldom arrived before 9:00 a.m. and rarely departed after 6:00 p.m. I only worked on weekends when I was on business travels or before trials. I took annual vacations and holidays. Meanwhile, several of my coworkers would arrive at 8:00 a.m., remain until late at night, and return on weekends on a regular basis. Nonetheless, several of these same lawyers struggled to work even 1,900 hours each year. Although other reasons might be at play, I ascribed the difference in our billable hours to how effectively they recorded the time they worked and/or office efficiency. Here are a few of my suggestions on getting more done at work:
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Capture all of your billable work
As I was leaving work one night, I stopped by one of my coworkers’ offices. I invited him to join me for a drink before going home. He responded OK, but he needed to input his time for the day before we went. I’m not sure whether this was typical behavior or if he’d just been working on one big project all day. Nonetheless, it highlights one possible challenge that some lawyers may have when invoicing for their services. You should always charge as soon as you finish your task.
In my view, entering your invoice immediately after finishing a job is the only way to correctly and ethically capture all of your labor throughout the day. Whenever feasible, I invoiced every job I completed shortly after doing it. There are two explanations for this. For starters, this insured that I was never in a situation where I had to estimate the time I spent on a job. I’ve always taken invoicing seriously and prioritized honestly and fairly reporting my work to customers. Second, it assures that I used all of my billable hours. For example, if you neglect to input billing until later, you’ll probably miss dozens of little but valid chores. Small work, such as composing letters to opposing counsel, reviewing a letter pertaining to a case that arrived in the mail, or speaking with a witness over the phone, may seem inconsequential in the short term, but they may really build up towards the end of the year. And, of course, if you don’t record that time right after executing the task, these minor initiatives are exceedingly simple to forget about.
When things are sluggish, stay focused.
Distractions are everywhere, including the workplace. There’s nothing wrong with dropping into a coworker’s office to mingle, browsing Facebook for twenty minutes when you need a break, or swinging by the coffee shop for a quick caffeine fix. Nonetheless, if you want to get in and out fast, you must limit distractions. If you’re anything like me, this is relatively simple when you have a lot of stuff to accomplish, but more difficult when things are a bit slower. Nonetheless, being focused is particularly vital when things are slower than usual if you want to bill a solid billable year without worry.
My minimum aim was an eight-hour billable day. If I had a slow day and only billed 4 hours, for example, it meant I’d have to bill a 12 hour day (or four 9 hour days) later in the year to make up for it. It was simple to meet my minimal billable hour needs by staying working even when things were sluggish. And, of course, there were sure to be enough busy times throughout the year (because of trial, arbitration, lengthy discovery, etc.) to help push my hours up and over the minimum and to make up for the time I’d miss due of vacations and holidays.
