‘Generally happy’ with billable training

September 2, 2008

I can name only a few young lawyers who say they are happy practicing law. Mostly I hear complaints about long hours, little feedback, monotonous work and a constant pressure to meet billable hours.

Which is why I think they would jump at the chance to work for a firm where they can proudly exclaim “I am generally happy.”

One Atlanta-based firm has apparently found a way to make its associates’ lives, well, less miserable.

About a year after doing away with strict billable requirements for first-year associates, Ford & Harrison has deemed the move a success — and so have its first-years. (Hat tip: The Wall Street Journal law blog, summarizing the subscriber-only follow-up story in the National Law Journal (subscriber-only))

Ford & Harrison associates are required to “bill” 1,900 hours. But these hours can either be billable to clients or can be time spent training:

Jessica Walberg, a first-year associate in the firm’s Orlando office, said that she has had the opportunity to sit in on depositions, arbitrations, negotiations and mediations while law school friends at other firms are toiling on research projects and document review. Said Walberg to the NLJ: “This is great — [doing this] instead of working on this or that research project and never seeing the big picture, like my buddies working at other firms. I would say they are generally unhappy and I am generally happy.”

And, in a “pleasant surprise” for the employment-law firm, the story says that once the pressure to meet billable hours was off, the associates actually billed more. (Presumably, in the billable-to-clients category.)

Do you think firms in Maryland should make the switch?

CHRISTINA DORAN, Assistant Legal Editor

Sphere: Related Content

Posted by Jackie Sauter | Filed Under law 

Comments

One Response to “‘Generally happy’ with billable training”

  1. Russell D. McGeorge on September 2nd, 2008 1:50 pm

    Don’t they still feel pressured to meet what they know to be the recent standard? If I were in their shoes I think I would still feel compelled to meet the client-billable hours goal. If they are any happier in their job, then I suspect it has more to do with the opportunities to learn and gain other experience being added, not the hours expectation being subtracted.

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