As a young associate, you have a vague idea about what billable hours mean. You think that it’s just the way clients get billed – by the hour.
When the firms speak about billable hour expectations, everything sounds great. You do the math – a 2,000 hour billable hour requirement divided by 12 months means you’d have to work 160 hour month. Divide that by 4 weeks, and you get a 40 hour work week, which is the American average. Sounds doable, you think!
What young associates miss is that the above calculation assumes you:
1) never have a workday off;
2) never have a sick day;
3) never take vacation;
4) never take a holiday off including Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc.; and
5) never engage in non-billable tasks during any workday.
Yes, you read that right. There are no carve-outs for any of the above. So, if you take a sick day, guess what? You have 8 hours of work you need to make up. Even though your office may be “closed” on Christmas, you were still required per the above calculation in order to work 8 hours that day.
You may be thinking – no big deal, if “I take a week off as vacation (40 hours), I can just make that time up the next month.” Though that is technically true, what that means is you will need to work your typical 160 hour month plus the 40 hours you missed the month before in order to have a 200 hour month in order to make up for that time. If you’ve never worked a 200 hour month before, trust me, it’s rough.
You may also be thinking – “well, I could just make up 20 hours one month, and 20 hours the next.” Well, what if you get sick that next month, and want to enjoy the holidays with your family? You’re even more behind. As you struggle to make up for one week of vacation (which you believe you were entitled to when you signed your engagement letter), all of a sudden, you are struggling to keep up.
Another factor which makes the current billable hour standard difficult (and in my opinion, unsustainable for associates) is that as you get more senior in a firm, you will have more “non-billable” requirements. These include:
1) taking summer associates out for lunch;
2) attending firm events like the office potluck, group meetings and trainings;
3) taking clients out for lunch in order to win their business;
4) reading legal periodicals and attending CLE’s in order to advance your knowledge; and
5) otherwise handling administrative tasks such as training your secretary and paralegal.
Yep, you heard me right. None of this time is billable, and none of this time counts towards your billable hour requirement. So despite how much time you’ve spent “working,” not all of it counts.
Add kids and/or any interest to have a life outside of work, and this model becomes even more unsustainable.
So, at the end of the year, despite what recruiters and law firms tell you, your hours (non-billable and billable) requirement is about 3,000 hours a year, give or take. Divide that by 12 months and you get 250 hours a month. Divide that by 4 weeks and you get 62.5 hours a week. That is 22.5 hours above the average 40 hour work week that most Americans work and find exhausting. And that 3,000 hour a year requirement still allows for no exceptions for days off, holidays, sick days, vacations, and non-billable tasks.
In my opinion, this model is absolutely burning people out. There has got to be a better way. We are all smart and capable, which is why we’ve made it to this point. But expecting this much out of our people is killing them. I’m not sure I’ll last long enough in a firm to see what change comes, but I hope I live long enough to see it happen.