Discussion of Firms and Life in SF/SV

[frodo corleone]

I'd say that's probably true, though over 2400 also results from long, heavy trials.

True, but how many BigLaw cases ever make it to trial vs. the number of people you've heard claim to have billed 2400 hours? There were a few years there where WSGR attorneys who had taken maternity leave were allegedly billing 2400 hours.

[c2ed]

It seems the stream of attorneys (including high-placed partners) leaving Cooley continues.

Seems that Glenn Nash is leaving Cooley for Latham (oh yes, that den o' vipers). Might not seem like a big deal, but Mr. Nash is (according to my sources) a very well-regarded partner whose departure is a blow and shock (maybe not aweful though) to the technology transactions practice at Cooley.

Who will be left when Cooley finally gets a marriage partner?

[godrestye]

It's not really that hard to bill 200 hours a month without being in trial. If you are on enough matters, you can do it. And many do. It just means that you are very busy and work a lot of weekends.

Once you have done it you get used to it. I am not saying it's a good thing, but I am saying that it's not ridiculous/impossible as some on here are implying.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by godrestye
It's not really that hard to bill 200 hours a month without being in trial. If you are on enough matters, you can do it. And many do. It just means that you are very busy and work a lot of weekends.

Once you have done it you get used to it. I am not saying it's a good thing, but I am saying that it's not ridiculous/impossible as some on here are implying.

It's a piece of cake to bill 200 a month. What's hard is billing 2,400 a year, which is a different question to everyone but mathematicians. That's because one's vacations, car repairs, doctors' appointments, kids' games, and dates with the mistress etc. might not occur in a particular month, but it's really hard to put them all off for a year.

If you can bill 200 in December, either you're in trial, you're billing for air travel to Australia, or your priorities are fucked up. No offense to the MOT posse.

[SlaveNoMore]

Atticus Grinch
If you can bill 200 in December, either you're in trial, you're billing for air travel to Australia, or your priorities are fucked up.

Or any typical transactional attorney.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
If you can bill 200 in December, either you're in trial, you're billing for air travel to Australia, or your priorities are fucked up. No offense to the MOT posse.

Or you're in front of one of them surly killjoy judges.

[frodo corleone]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
It's a piece of cake to bill 200 a month. What's hard is billing 2,400 a year, which is a different question to everyone but mathematicians. That's because one's vacations, car repairs, doctors' appointments, kids' games, and dates with the mistress etc. might not occur in a particular month, but it's really hard to put them all off for a year.

If you can bill 200 in December, either you're in trial, you're billing for air travel to Australia, or your priorities are fucked up. No offense to the MOT posse.

Atticus is exactly right. 200 hour-months are like heroin; its easy at first, but eventually to achieve the high/goal, you gotta start stealing/padding.

I've only been at this for about 5 years and only at 2 BigLaw firms, but the people alleging 2400 hours billed are all the same guy/gal: they're always on the "monster litigations/transactions", always at the office 12 hours a day, always complaining/bragging about how many hours they're working, and yet seem to spend a lot of time chatting with people, generally enjoying themselves, and never seem to produce a whole lot more work-product than anybody else. Now, maybe they're just happy workaholics, but I suspect that they're filling in their timesheets at the end of the day by going "Let's see, I was here 14 hours today, less 1 hour for lunch, less, say, 1/2-hour for bullshitting, so that leaves 12-1/2 hours, divided by 3 cases, that's 4.3 each! God, my bonus is gonna be great!"

Look, I'm no Puritan when it comes to padding a little, but there are a lot of people out there giving themselves way too much leeway on the issue. With rare exception, almost none of us are capable of providing our clients with 2400 hours worth of high-quality work in a year.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by frodo corleone
Atticus is exactly right. 200 hour-months are like heroin; its easy at first, but eventually to achieve the high/goal, you gotta start stealing/padding.

If you bill 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's 2500 hours. If you regularly work into the evening and on the weekends, that's not hard to do. Which is not to deny the existence of the species of GA you describe.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you bill 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's 2500 hours.

Working ten hours a day, every day, for a year is one thing. Billing ten hours a day, every day, for a year is quite another. At 50 full weeks of billing, your two work weeks of non-billing is eaten up --- and exceeded --- by the 14 state court holidays we'll have in California in 2004. So either you're working ten hours on New Year's and MLK and Lincoln's and President's and Cesar Chavez (okay, who am I kidding) and Memorial Day and July 4th and Labor Day and Columbus Day (who am I kidding) and Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve, or you're not taking any vacation or sick days at all.

Can you eat a sandwich at your desk every day for a year? Do you ruminate on potential Rule 56 motions at the urinal? Are you one of those guys who always does his MCLE hours on weekends? I think it's far more likely that a person writing down 2,400 or more without a trial (or whatever Slave does --- supposedly) is doing what Frodo's suggesting: counting hours at the workplace and allocating them among clients who don't care about how much they're billed.

I wish we could get to a place in this profession where every second year writing down 2,500 gets one "talking to" by Sidd about the evil of padding and another talking to by Sebby about the dangers of toolishness. The ancestors of the people billing more than 2,200 were doubtless suggesting to Pharoah that maybe his tomb should be constructed with even bigger sandstone blocks, seeing as how we're all already out here in the desert and everything.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
If you bill 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year, that's 2500 hours. If you regularly work into the evening and on the weekends, that's not hard to do. Which is not to deny the existence of the species of GA you describe.

my last big law had a PI group for awhile- until conflicts killed it- (you ever see a potential defendants conflict check for representing the estate of an airplane crash fatality? )

Anyway those guys had it made. end of the day "10 hrs. Work on Ford case."

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
The ancestors of the people billing more than 2,200 were doubtless suggesting to Pharoah that maybe his tomb should be constructed with even bigger sandstone blocks, seeing as how we're all already out here in the desert and everything.

Could you clarify. I read this to be anti-semitism*, implying that all the padders are Jewish. To give you the benefits, however, it might be possible you worked with an Egyptian guy who did the ole 2350.






*Yes I realize that semites might include the Egyptians, technically. I'm speaking in the vernacular.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by frodo corleone
True, but how many BigLaw cases ever make it to trial vs. the number of people you've heard claim to have billed 2400 hours? There were a few years there where WSGR attorneys who had taken maternity leave were allegedly billing 2400 hours.

No doubt. I was mainly speaking about myself. I've billed over 2400 more than once, and always as the result of being in a trial that lasted over a month.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by c2ed
Who will be left when Cooley finally gets a marriage partner?

One has to wonder.

Personally, I doubt Cooley will find a marriage partner. They are too big, with too many weak points and too many potential conflicts, to attract a high-end firm that wants to use them to start a No. Cal. base. Perhaps they might attract a mid to lower level player -- a la Pillsbury Winthrop -- but even then, it would be tough. And one has to wonder if the egos of the main rainmakers, assuming any are left, would allow that.

I suspect they'll survive, but in drastically reduced form. Maybe they'll even find their soul again -- once upon a time, Cooley was regarded as the humane, cool biglaw firm.

[notcasesensitive]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Or any typical transactional attorney.

Correct. December is always one of my busiest months.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Working ten hours a day, every day, for a year is one thing. Billing ten hours a day, every day, for a year is quite another. At 50 full weeks of billing, your two work weeks of non-billing is eaten up --- and exceeded --- by the 14 state court holidays we'll have in California in 2004. So either you're working ten hours on New Year's and MLK and Lincoln's and President's and Cesar Chavez (okay, who am I kidding) and Memorial Day and July 4th and Labor Day and Columbus Day (who am I kidding) and Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve, or you're not taking any vacation or sick days at all.

Can you eat a sandwich at your desk every day for a year? Do you ruminate on potential Rule 56 motions at the urinal? Are you one of those guys who always does his MCLE hours on weekends? I think it's far more likely that a person writing down 2,400 or more without a trial (or whatever Slave does --- supposedly) is doing what Frodo's suggesting: counting hours at the workplace and allocating them among clients who don't care about how much they're billed.

I wish we could get to a place in this profession where every second year writing down 2,500 gets one "talking to" by Sidd about the evil of padding and another talking to by Sebby about the dangers of toolishness. The ancestors of the people billing more than 2,200 were doubtless suggesting to Pharoah that maybe his tomb should be constructed with even bigger sandstone blocks, seeing as how we're all already out here in the desert and everything.

Life is much different as a transactional attorney. 2400 is barely above average in my group. And for every 180 month, you have a 240 month which more than offsets it. Holidays play no part - Aside from Christmas and Easter, no one much gives a shit whether you want to celebrate a holiday. It is a sad, sad lifestyle.