This is an important thread. Predatory firms abound and I have some thoughts* re: billing requirements and the general practice of law.

*A BIG EFFING RANT https://twitter.com/Gsb_Esq/status/1352026868367519746

2004 ABA study showed the average atty needed to work 1.5 hrs for every hour billed. So 1900 billed means an average atty will have actually worked 2850 hrs. This is the equivalent of 10.8 hrs/day, 54 hrs/week, 52 weeks/yr)

For reference, I've never billed <2k in my 9yrs so far.

This does not account for other unbillable tasks like firm meetings, marketing/business dev., unbillable travel, write-downs, CLEs, etc. (Last year I had ~400 "admin" & 2k billed hours which means I worked ~3400 hrs which means my average work week was 68 hrs/wk x 50 weeks.)

This is unsustainable. I'm burning out, fast.

Which means, the firms that REQUIRE 2000, 2100, or more billed are more than predatory, they are frigging savages.

And the atty in the OG quote tweet being asked to bill 2400/yr is being asked to work themself into an early grave.

The biggest problem is that as a profession, we have gone from believing that ~1200-1300 billed hours/yr was a full load to 1800 being a light/easy billable target and 2000 being "normal".

I like being a lawyer, I generally like the practice of law. But, I like my family, sailing, surfing, and lots of other things too.

B/c of work, I've not been surfing for a little over 2 years now, ditto golf. I don't get to sail anywhere near as often as I'd like...

I feel guilty about taking any time for myself b/c I miss so much with my wife and son. I can't help but think, it shouldn't be like this.

This thread is not limited to defense side hourly biller situations. Pltf's counsel can be just as predatory to their associates and sometimes to their clients.

We shouldn't have to work ourselves into the ground to practice law and then tell ourselves it's normal & we're lucky

I get that a law firm is a business. I get the profit motive. I endorse the profit motive, but the concept of a mill firm has to be eliminated from our practice and some serious thought should be put into capping annual billable hour requirements for several reasons:

1) Efficiency and accuracy fall the longer you work in a single day/wk/month/etc
2) The profession experiences epically high rates of substance abuse and suicide. (THERE IS A CONNECTION)
3) The profession loses talented people yearly due to burnout who could help further justice

3) (cont.) and lessen the gap in poverty and minority access to the justice system.
4) We do ourselves no favors by perpetuating this exploitative system of grinding young attys into the meat machine. (See @BigLawFail's comics which are hilarious in part b/c they're an indictment

...of the entire problem I'm talking about here.)

I'm running out of rant steam here, perhaps I'll revisit tomorrow. (end/rant)