$500 for two people to eat dinner is not a prize. It's a friday.

Clifford Chance still has this policy in place, though it was amended about 2 years ago: the limit is now $400, but it's not limited to 2 people anymore. There is no limit on the number of guests, as long as it's $400. Not sure if the limit is a "hard" limit.

The $400 reimbursement to you is also taxable as imputed income under IRS regulations. No gross-up.

What the hell is a vacation voucher? Is that like extra vacation? What are the odds that some D-bag who bills 300 hours/month is going to take the vacation he is given, much less extra vacation.

3:31,

It serves is a gratifying acknowledgement of the Firm's appreciation of your hard work and personal sacrifices in terms of time away from loved ones and friends.

And it's a heck of a lot better than nothing at all.

I'd rather the $400 in cash to schedule a day at the spa....

That's a very thoughtful gesture on CC's part. Really wish my firm did the same.

I'm also at WilmerHale and I've never heard of the vacation vouchers. I know some pretty high billers and they haven't mentioned anything like that. I know people on some cases received gift cards.

Cravath has "penalty dinners" where the associate goes out with a date and spends whatever he or she wants on dinner. A friend of mine got ridiculed for not spending enough.

Townsend used to give associates who bill over 2600 (or 2800?) a Rolex. They ended it last year but one hard working associate didn't realize it was over. As a joke they bought his wife a Rolex anyway because he was gone all year.

What a bunch of suckers. Seriously. A normal person should never have to bill more than 160 hours in a month. If you bill 250, that's 90 hours over which, at $300 an hour, is a cash bonus to the firm of an extra $27,000 for that month alone, with very little if any associated marginal operating expense for that extra profit. Out of that, they "reward" you with a $400 dinner. You bring them an extra 27 grand, all of which will go into equity partners' pockets to pay for their yachts and Porsches . They give you back about 1.5% of that as a reward. And people actually "appreciate" that. Now that is funny.

Big billers get the ultimate prize: more work.

Atlanta to 35% off Spa Sydell treatments!

4:06, yup. As it is, most associates only get about a fifth (if that) of what they bring in anyway.

I'm at Cravath, have billed over 250 hours many, many times, and have never even heard of the "penalty dinners".

4:06
Most of these perks are above and beyond yearly bonuses that typically factor in billables.
Get your lazy ass to work. Only sissies bill 150 hours a month.

Who the hell doesn't bill more than 160 in an average month????

I heard that last year at WilmerHale the people who billed crazy hours (I think it was over 2700 or something) got two free plane tickets to anywhere in the continental US and were told to go take a vacation because the firm didn't want anyone billing that much. I did not bill nearly that much, but I was told this by a very reliable source.

The satisfaction of a job well done is all the reward I require.

What practice area generally leads to the greatest % of in-office hours being billable? I believe this is an important topic.

Cravath's "penalty dinners" are true and have been imported to the Armonk office of Boies Schiller, which has several ex-Cravath partners who came over with Boies when he started the firm.

At Boies Schiller, the dinners aren't formalized in the sense that you get to go out if you bill a certain number of hours. What happens is if you have a particularly horrendous filing or deal that requires all nighter after all nighter, the lead partner on the matter takes the associates out, with spouses/dates if you want, and drops about $5,000 on dinner. The "penalty" is presumably to the client, who eats the tab.

What practice area generally leads to the greatest % of in-office hours being billable? I believe this is an important topic.

Here at CWT if we bill more than 220 hours we get to keep our jobs.

4:23, you call that a bonus or a penalty?

"Who the hell doesn't bill more than 160 in an average month????"

Midlaw Phoenix. Base salary = $110K. Adjusted for NYC's cost of living = over $200,000.

$400 or $500 dinner for 250 hours billed? What a joke.
Interviewed at a mid-size firm in LA and was told that if I hit 200 in a month, it was $1K cash, no questions asked.

4:36: Yeah, but CC is one of the only firms that does something like this. I hit 250 a month many many times at my BigLaw firm and didn't get any special gift (in fact, I was told that I was expected to bill 250 a month, even though our stated minimum billable was 1900). The $1k cash is certainly a better deal (and one which I would love -- it would help me get Sallie Mae off my back that much sooner), but something is better than nothing and anything would be appreciated very much by most associates. So props to CC.

A biglaw firm expected you to bill 250 hours a month? I expect that kind of billing fraud to take place at an insurance defense sweatshop. Surprised to see it seep into a biglaw outfit. Wow.

Well, the associates either had to put in those hours or the firm would have to turn clients/work away . . . .

I understand that associate hours are long and grueling, but I have just one question to put it into better perspective for me: What is the ratio of hours spent in the office to the hours actually billed? I ask because when I did my "calculations" for hours per day for a 2100 hour year, it seemed somewhat reasonable. Another reason is because I have been super slow in the litigation department, which makes me wonder where the insane amount of billables are coming from if there are no pages to check and no binders to make.

4:04 makes a good point, but if you work those extra hours you also get a bigger bonus at the end of the year. go solo!!

Hey Midlaw Phoenix,

Since the title of the blogpost is "BigLaw...", that makes your snippy comments rather irrelevant now don't they?

Oh, and no briefs to cite-check.

NY to 190....

4:33 Midlaw Phoenix. Base salary = $110K. Adjusted for NYC's cost of living = over $200,000...

Re-adjusted for living in a miserable city = $60k

Hey 5:12

What's so snippy about my comment?

I've had the opportunity to switch to Phx biglaw. It's easy in this town. But would you do it, given my numbers?

If you are not billing 180 a month, you should be fired. Plus, I wouldn't want a job where I bill that little. I wouldn't learn anything. If you want to be lazy, go work for the government.

People that bill 150/month don't realize how far behind they are compared to their peers who actually work for a living.

"Re-adjusted for living in a miserable city = $60k"

Different strokes for different folks, dude. NYC is a big festering dump if you ask me, especially if you have to live in a 75 square foot apartment as most New Yorkers I know with six-figure salaries do. I guess there's always Brooklyn. (muffled laugh)

Living like a sewer rat gets old after a while.

I average 120 legit billables a month. Salary= 125K with bonus. I dig it.

5:29,

Your comments are completely meaningless without an accounting showing your firm's break-even point. At many firms it's at 100 hours, which means that billing 150 hours brings in 50 hours of pure profit to the firm, rendering your 180 hours pretty meaningless except in increasing the degree of wealth of your equity partners.

Hey 5:34--My comment had nothing to do with firm accounting for the financials. It had to do with whether you are developing as a lawyer. Are you learning anything? At what point could you practice without some old dude watching over your shoulder? If you are only billing 150 per month, I would never trust your work.

"If you are not billing 180 a month, you should be fired. Plus, I wouldn't want a job where I bill that little. I wouldn't learn anything."

Are you serious? How many hours you bill has very little relationship to what you're "learning." If you get staffed on an enormous doc review, you'll put in time, but how much are you learning? Not all that much.

@ 5:29:

I don't see where billing 180 is any sort of magic number that proves that you're learning anything. Someone who bills 140 but did it arguing in court, writing briefs on challenging issues, or even taking deps learned a heck of a lot more than someone at a biglaw sweatshop who billed 180 for doc review and signing form letters. Half the time people end up billing 250 it's because the partners loaded them down with busywork to pad the firm's bottom line.

I billed well over 400 hours one month and got nothing for it and had to fight with the firm to get them to cover my missed travel and even tix.

I once got a coupon from Proskauer NY after working crazy hours for 4 or 5 months straight. It basically told me I could bill any one of about 10 things (worth about $500 IIRC) to the firm, like an iPod, a day at a spa, theater tickets, etc. I had never heard of the program before and I have no idea what the threshold might have been. But it was a nice touch after several months of no sleep.

I just want to do a good job!

My Vault Top 5 satellite office does it informally. If you have a horrific month or two (it would have to be at least 300 hours), the partner you are working for usually offers to pay for a dinner for you and a guest. However, it depends on the partner.

Hey, 5:49 , what a way to use an extreme example! People don't do doc reviews forever but move into doing more sophisticated work.

The harder you work, the better work you get b/c people can rely on you and b/c you know more than the lazy goofball in the office next door.

Stop rationalizing under-performance.

I agree that anyone averaging only 160 per month should be let go. It's not because they aren't learning or developing, it's because they aren't carrying their fair share of work and are leaving their peers to pick up their slack (all the while pulling down the same paycheck). Having some associates leave at 5:30 or 6 each night while others have a standing dinner delivery order is extremely demoralizing for top-performing associates (unless, of course, those top-performing associates receive bonuses comensurate to their pain).

You really don't get cause and effect, do you? It's not working long hours, in and of itself, that's going to get you lots of sophisticated work to do. It's doing a good job in the first place and proving yourself to the partners in your firm. If you turn out excellent product but only bill 150 that month, it's true that next month you're probably going to bill 180. That's because the partners will realize they're underutilizing a valuable resource. You won't get more work because a partner is going through the bills at the end of the month, sees you billed 230, and figures you must be great. I've worked with plenty of d-bags who've padded their bills and couldn't handle jack squat as attorneys.

Therein lies the folly of lockstep billing. You have to deal with freeloaders and lazy asses who count on you to pick up their slack.

I'm at a mid-size west cost firm (Fenwick & West). We have the 250/250. If you bill 250 hours in a month, you get a dinner for (spouse, friend etc.) up to $250. Some of you might think that is cheap, and believe me, nobody here aims to hit 250 hours in any month. But when you do have that bad month, it is a nice Small thank you gift.

If I bill over 200, I take the managing partner to dinner. How messed up is that?

At my firm, the associate who bills the most hours in a given month wins a Cadillac Eldorado. 2nd most gets a set of steak knives.

NUGGIT

first

Actually, I'm tired of the inefficient "top performers" who take 6 hours to do 2 hours worth of work, leaving me to take on extra tasks after I finish in a reasonable amount of time. I guess that's 4 hours of learning for the other guy! I imagine being inefficient and not that bright is a great way to get that billable number up...and learn??

4:14: penalty dinners, I think, are more common on the corporate side. I've killed myself on a bunch of deals (including 3 all-nighters in a row on two different deals) and have never been given a penalty dinner. Some of our other colleagues may just work for more generous partners.

jenner had a program where if you topped 250 reported hours (included recruiting) three months in a row, you got $100 gift certificate at crate & barrel. With that kind of generosity, it's a wonder their PPP is still so low.

@ 9:30,

Curious, when you say "3 all-nighters in a row," what does that mean -- that you worked non-stop for 72 hours, without sleeping (at all)?

I have billed over 250 at two different biglaw firms and received no special gift, monetary or otherwise. As for the average monthly billable hour issue, I think it depends on what you are working on. When you are the only associate (or one of a few) working on one big case, it's easy to rack up the hours. If, however, you are juggling numerous smaller matters, it is much harder to bill as much. I have had days where I spent 11 hours in the office and only billed 8 due to non-billable matters (such as billing questions) and the general problem of having 12 time entries to small matters. Either way, billing 220 or above = crappy life, so I have cut back significantly and aim to bill approximately 42.5 hours a week (on top of numerous non-billable hours). I would be concerned about the effect of not billing more, but the chances of partnership are nonexistent, so there is really no incentive.

5:49(2):

How the fuck do you know? My bad: I forgot that Phoenix (or some other mid-level city full of hyper-competitive nimrods seeking to justify the fact that they can't get a job in NY) is filled with high-stakes litigation/stimulating deals.

Keep up the good work defending State Farm.

If you get one free dinner at 250 hours in a month. does that mean you get two free dinners for 500 hours in a month?

Random thoughts

(1) At my firm, the people billing 140 a month aren't efficient, they're slackers. If you have to work with them, you'll end up doing all the work because (a) they'll never finish it on time, and (b) it'll suck anyway.

(2) Although $500 is a little cheap as compared to the profits on a $1000 month, it's still better than nothing, which is what I've gotten the many months I've busted 200, 250, or even 300. They did give me three days off before my wedding though, so that was nice.

(3) The whole "but you get a bigger bonus" noise is crap, especially for junior associates. You really think that at a 1950 firm, the associate who bills 2700 hours gets a bonus equivalent to three months pay more than the associate who bills 2100 hours? Really? At my firm, first and second years are locked between about $25k and $35k, which means that once you hit 2200 hours, you're working for free.

11:38:

Once you hit 2200 hours, you're working for the large salary you already get, though your bonus won't get larger.

One month I billed 300 hours, and the firm bought me a bunch of meth...it had a street value of $500.

I just billed 300 last month on a very large litigation. My prize? The senior partner gave me a hard time because some of my other files had fallen a little behind.

12:29: the salary at a 1950 firm is based on billing 1950 hours, FOR THE WHOLE YEAR. If I pay a plumber $200 to unclog my sink, and he does it in 10 minutes, he doesn't say "I'm done early, how about I clean the gutters." He goes home.

I repeat, once you hit 2200, you're working for free.

Lat, can we do a post on bonuses....i.e. what firms have bonuses, what firms dont, what you have to do to hit a bonus, and how much the bonuses are. (point in case: im starting at a bigfirm this week and have no idea about the bonus structure)

Must be nice...

7:52: Don't forget that the third-highest biller and everyone on down get fired.

Latham has a "hardship bonus" - kill yourself on a deal, partners tell you to do a nice dinner on them

How much do typical associates at WilmerHale bill in a year?

WTF? Which office of Latham has a "hardship" bonus? In LA, you kill yourself on a deal, you get a call the day after closing (or day of if you're not lucky) from the same partner re-staffing you on the next deal.

Complimentary b/j from high end hooker for hitting 325 in a month...

Cadwalader has a dinner voucher they issue to associates who bill enough in a month. It is limited to specific restaurants, the Kobe Club being one a know of for sure.