In the comments of yesterday's post, someone posted a very amusing "rebuttal." I have my doubts as to whether it was the same person who's been e-mailing me the resume. If it's someone different, consider yourself invited to send me a resume if you like, because you're just the kind of person I might actually want to hire. If it's the same person, please don't send it again.
A summer associate dropped into my office today to ask about the very sensitive subject of billable hours. Apparently an associate he's working with mentioned that he had billed 340 hours in the month of May, and the summer associate thought this sounded somewhat alarming. He wanted to know if that's the kind of number we look for. I assured him that the associate was either joking, or hadn't read the memo about not telling summer associates how much work they really do. This answer did not seem satisfying to him. I told him we do not have any kind of minimum billable hours requirements, but that anything below 2400 a year is grounds for termination. He was not sure if I was serious. I am not sure either. We don't have a minimum, technically. But if someone finished the year with 1750, I'm not sure that person should be getting too comfortable, unless there were some extraordinary circumstances, like a head injury that took the lawyer out of service for a few weeks. 340 is a busy month, sure -- but I've seen as much as 400 in a month when it gets really busy. And I've seen as little as 60. Not that often. I told him to think of it like he thinks about things he does for fun -- you don't care how many hours you put into a hobby, or spending time with a girlfriend, or other stuff you enjoy. Just pretend you enjoy work, and it'll all work out fine. He liked that advice. I'm pretty sure it didn't make any sense. But they listen to anything I say, as if I know things and have magic answers. It's remarkable. If only they knew I've never gone to court.
A summer associate dropped into my office today to ask about the very sensitive subject of billable hours. Apparently an associate he's working with mentioned that he had billed 340 hours in the month of May, and the summer associate thought this sounded somewhat alarming. He wanted to know if that's the kind of number we look for. I assured him that the associate was either joking, or hadn't read the memo about not telling summer associates how much work they really do. This answer did not seem satisfying to him. I told him we do not have any kind of minimum billable hours requirements, but that anything below 2400 a year is grounds for termination. He was not sure if I was serious. I am not sure either. We don't have a minimum, technically. But if someone finished the year with 1750, I'm not sure that person should be getting too comfortable, unless there were some extraordinary circumstances, like a head injury that took the lawyer out of service for a few weeks. 340 is a busy month, sure -- but I've seen as much as 400 in a month when it gets really busy. And I've seen as little as 60. Not that often. I told him to think of it like he thinks about things he does for fun -- you don't care how many hours you put into a hobby, or spending time with a girlfriend, or other stuff you enjoy. Just pretend you enjoy work, and it'll all work out fine. He liked that advice. I'm pretty sure it didn't make any sense. But they listen to anything I say, as if I know things and have magic answers. It's remarkable. If only they knew I've never gone to court.
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