Billable Targets as a New Call

[H.Caulfield]

Recent call here, considering my first associate offer. I articled in non-profit so the world of billable hours and private practice is largely mysterious to me. I would appreciate any insight into reasonable billable hour targets as a new call, and any issues that come up such as having to do a lot more actual work on files than can actually be billed, etc.

It’s a major metro area, mostly family law. Clients would be legal aided and regular folks. The main thing I worry about is what is a reasonable billable target starting out. I have heard a wide range of numbers, and also that it can be tough to make targets the first few months while files build up.

 

 

 

[N. Mink]

Maybe 30 collected hours in family law? If you collected 30 a week at $250 per hour, for 48 weeks, that’s $360,000….so what I’m saying is, look at what they are paying you, and ask what your hourly rate will be. Your salary is often about 1/3 of the total you would be expected to bring into the firm. 

[tiktok]

the world of billable hours is a mystery to me too. i heard you need to keep track of your time in 6 min intervals. how does that work exactly? like doesn't it break your concentration to have to do that? 

[OzLaw16]

10 minutes ago, tiktok said:

the world of billable hours is a mystery to me too. i heard you need to keep track of your time in 6 min intervals. how does that work exactly? like doesn't it break your concentration to have to do that? 

You can just put a timer on when you start working on something, turn it off when you finish and then convert the time into decimals. So say I work on something from 9:00-9:40, once I stop, I round up the 40 minutes to the nearest interval (i.e. 0.7). 

The only "concentration break" would be when you're switching files/matters and need to start a new timer, but you've already broken your concentration by switching tasks anyways.

[Cool_name]

13 hours ago, H.Caulfield said:

Recent call here, considering my first associate offer. I articled in non-profit so the world of billable hours and private practice is largely mysterious to me. I would appreciate any insight into reasonable billable hour targets as a new call, and any issues that come up such as having to do a lot more actual work on files than can actually be billed, etc.

It’s a major metro area, mostly family law. Clients would be legal aided and regular folks. The main thing I worry about is what is a reasonable billable target starting out. I have heard a wide range of numbers, and also that it can be tough to make targets the first few months while files build up.

 

 

 

My target is 1500, unless you are working part time, I wouldn’t expect anything less. I have no idea how legal aid files are billed. 
 

My personal advice is to bill everything you possibly can and, subject to firm policies, record non-billable time on anything else you can justify. 
 

Write down bills when bills are prepared, not when recording time. Why would you want you employer to think you are working less? 

[Aureliuse]

21 hours ago, H.Caulfield said:

It’s a major metro area, mostly family law. Clients would be legal aided and regular folks. The main thing I worry about is what is a reasonable billable target starting out. I have heard a wide range of numbers, and also that it can be tough to make targets the first few months while files build up.

Family law lawyers, like many lawyers in private practice, bill in the increment of 0.1 (6 minutes), 0.2 (12 minutes), 0.3 (18 minutes) and so forth... A "1.00" is an hour.

Let me say that Family Law billable hours are slightly different than say, the corporate world.

In addition to your new exposure to private practice billing, you should also be mindful of what you practice: family law.

Unless your firm represents Canada's top 10 percent families who can afford sustained litigation, and subject to your employer's billing policy, I would suggest that you should be careful of what you bill. You don't want to bill for every single thing even if your firm's retainer agreement indicates as such. You don't want your bills to ruin your solicitor-client relationship. You also don't want to bill for ridiculous entries such as "Educating law clerk" or bill 4 hours in "legal research."

Many of your clients may be struggling with interests on large loans, LOCs, and mortgages and feeding their children/sustaining the lifestyle their children had during the marriage. The high cost of living in urban centers, stagnant wages, high childcare costs, and grocery inflation can whittle away at a family's disposable income. An intact family once lived in one household paying all its bills. Now, some might be trying to keep the lights on in two houses. You will find some of your clients are struggling to pay your bills, but are trying nonetheless (a $500, $250 here and there every week).

Nothing upsets a client more in billing than seeing all his/her funds being used up in emails, legal research, review of documents, speaking to clerks, phone calls without anything meaningful being accomplished. On the other hand, you can get a lot of cooperation and trust from your client if you regularly not bill for their "ex's unreasonable behavior" in court or discount your bills to reflect unnecessary procedures and "wild goose chases." Clients would also understand that it is not "YOU" per se that is draining their finances, but their crazy ex.

Ok that was a personal aside... Forgive me. To answer your questions head-on:

As a new call, it may take you longer to do things. You are still learning while doing things in a new practice. Therefore, don't pressure yourself to bill like a veteran lawyer.

If you work from 9 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., I think 6 hour billable each day is a reasonable target to hit. You will soon learn that you cannot capture every second/minute at work. Coffee breaks, washroom breaks, client referrals, and family call can all get in the way. You can be in the office for 9 hours and only bill 7 hours or 6.5 hours. Please don't "make work" to satisfy billable.

Annual billable targets can vary from 1,700.00 to 1,800.00 (160-220 hours per month) on Bay St., prominent family law boutiques at major city centers (Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa etc.)

At mid-size/full-service firms, 1,400.00 to 1,500.00 are reasonable annual hours.

Some "family friendly" firms' targets can be as flexible for 1,200 to 1,300 hours per year.

How much you can bill each day also depends on how many files you carry independently or how much assistance your employer needs on his/her own files.

Try not to worry about billable hours until you are at a reasonable file load - e.g. 35-40 files. Of course, the number of files do not determine how busy you are, it's whether these files are in litigation and whether these are all high conflict.

Finally, don't burn yourself out. Family law is a difficult practice. Your career is a marathon, not a 100-meter dash.

[Phaedrus]

9 hours ago, Cool_name said:

I have no idea how legal aid files are billed. 

If you're working on Certificate, you should first familiarize yourself with your Province's fee tariffs. Most, if not all, jurisdictions are going to have caps on allowable prep and trial time. The main problem is that family files rarely end in a timely manner. There's a lot of client materials, a lot of paperwork to draft (or your assistant will draft), and the ground seems to shift below your feet a lot of the time. It's basically guaranteed that you'll blow past those allowable caps. That said, it's important to track your time in those 0.1 increments because you need to justify your claim to the issuer. 

If you're working in-house Legal Aid, you'll probably need to track time for internal purposes. Head Office collects data not for billing purposes, but for annual stats and resource allocation purposes. Again, you'll be tracking in 0.1 increments but you can be a bit "relaxed" in deciding what gets included. 

In either scenario, you won't be billing excessive hours for "Legal Research" and getting yourself up to speed on a topic you're expected to know about in any event. 

As for time tracking itself, I've used Toggl for years. It's pretty intuitive and has free report generation. Once you get into the habit of hitting start and stop on every task, it becomes second nature. 

Edit: I want to add a bit to what @Aureliuse said about billing 6 hours in an 8 hour day. That seems reasonable, but it's good to keep benchmark levels of productivity in mind for long-term billable planning. Take the big accounting firms, for example. Deloitte and E&Y have their early career accountants aim for 80% efficiency targets (i.e., if you worked 10 hours you charge 8). 80% is reasonable for most professionals, as it leaves reservoir for high stress periods and some buffer during those rare slow periods. Long term, working 12-14 hour days at 90%+ efficiency will lead to burn out. 

That said, I echo not to "create work" for the purpose of inflating billables. It's a shitty practice. 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Phaedrus

[H.Caulfield]

Thanks all, especially @Aureliuse and @Phaedrus for the detailed info. Makes me realize my offer is pretty sweet in setting a very reasonable target. Taking the advice to read the tariffs for sure.