Overnight, Australian time, the annual AM Law 100 report for 2019 was published by the American Lawyer.

A fascinating, if not relatively meaningless (with a caveat to follow), look at how the other half live, one insight from this year’s publication worth taking a closer look at is the ever egotistical champion of the industry – the lawyer with the highest number of billable hours.

And this year’s winner comes from the firm of Fox Rothschild (moment of honesty, never heard of them before today) with, wait for it,

While the individual lawyer is not named, nor their rank, let’s put this under the microscope for a second. That’s:

…4,200 (billable hours) in a year / 365 days in a year (2018 wasn’t a leap year) = 11.5 hours of billable time a day (no write offs or, in parlance, ‘time leakage’)…

…every day…

…without a break – for holiday or for sickness…

…billable

…for 365 consecutive days…

…including Christmas Day.

So what does this really mean?

Whenever I’m asked what this really means I always refer people to the excellent Yale school publication – ‘The Truth About the Billable Hour‘.

In that publication a number of different variations are set out, but in order to ‘bill’ 2201 hours, you need to have been “at work” 3058 hours. By their own admission, this doesn’t account for “personal calls at work, training/observing, talking with coworkers, a longer lunch (to exercise or shop perhaps), a family funeral, pro bono work (if not treated as billable hours), serving on a Bar committee, writing an article for the bar journal, or interviewing an applicant.”

– and yet here we are talking about 4,200 billable hours!

So why does this even matter?

‘Why asking someone to work 2,000 billable hours a year will kill their spirit‘ is by a long way the most read post on my blog. And yet here we are talking more than double this amount.

So I have a few questions:

• if you are the supervising partner of a lawyer that has billed 4,200 hours a year, do you have a duty of care to ensure that lawyer is mentally okay?
• if you are the managing partner of a fee earner that has billed 4,200 hours a year, do you have a fiduciary duty to ensure the mental wellbeing of that lawyer?
• and, most importantly, as a client: do you really want someone who is working 11.5 hours a day, every day, without a break, working on your file (because I know my answer this question)?

As always though, interested in your thoughts/views/feedback.

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