Your Right From Your Wrong
Hourly Billing
Dylan Gallagher
Issue date: 2/22/05 Section: Features
Most law students will not face the type of legal ethics issues that Hollywood movies highlight until after graduation. For example, an intern or part-time law clerk generally will not have to decide whether or not to defend a lying child molester ("The Devil's Advocate") or to falsify documents to be filed with the court ("Changing Lanes"). Still, many students who plan to work for private firms this summer will encounter a certain ethical morass for the first time: the billable hour.
The problems with the hourly billing method are well established: over-billing, double-billing, and flat-out false billing, among others. Lawyers may be "just sloppy about keeping time records," but they may also "systematically 'pad' timesheets," "create entirely fictitious timesheets," or "record hours based on work done by other lawyers, paralegals or secretaries, representing that they did the work," according to Lisa G. Lerner in "Blue-Chip Bilking: Regulation of Billing and Expense Fraud by Lawyers."
Hourly billing juxtaposes law firms' interests with those of their clients and even their own associates. In his memoir, "Proceed with Caution," William R. Keates wrote about being an associate at a huge firm. He explained that, "Even though associates are not encouraged to prolong their assignments, the hourly system does seriously impact their quality of life. That's because the more work the firm can squeeze out of them, the more profitable the firm will be."
Unlike lawyers, summer associates and law clerks generally do not have billable hour requirements. Still, even people who don't work under a billable hour requirement may be affected by the billable hour culture. A law clerk may see time sheets as a way to make sure that the partners know just how hard she was working. She may fear that a partner traveling to an out-of-town deposition will not see her staying at the office late to finish a memo. Billing eleven hours for the day, though, may catch the partner's eye. Thus, the absence of any minimum billable hour requirement does not necessarily mean being free from the temptation to pad time sheets.
The problems with the hourly billing method are well established: over-billing, double-billing, and flat-out false billing, among others. Lawyers may be "just sloppy about keeping time records," but they may also "systematically 'pad' timesheets," "create entirely fictitious timesheets," or "record hours based on work done by other lawyers, paralegals or secretaries, representing that they did the work," according to Lisa G. Lerner in "Blue-Chip Bilking: Regulation of Billing and Expense Fraud by Lawyers."
Hourly billing juxtaposes law firms' interests with those of their clients and even their own associates. In his memoir, "Proceed with Caution," William R. Keates wrote about being an associate at a huge firm. He explained that, "Even though associates are not encouraged to prolong their assignments, the hourly system does seriously impact their quality of life. That's because the more work the firm can squeeze out of them, the more profitable the firm will be."
Unlike lawyers, summer associates and law clerks generally do not have billable hour requirements. Still, even people who don't work under a billable hour requirement may be affected by the billable hour culture. A law clerk may see time sheets as a way to make sure that the partners know just how hard she was working. She may fear that a partner traveling to an out-of-town deposition will not see her staying at the office late to finish a memo. Billing eleven hours for the day, though, may catch the partner's eye. Thus, the absence of any minimum billable hour requirement does not necessarily mean being free from the temptation to pad time sheets.