If you are a lawyer in private practice what is you billing target?

[Blankscreen]

I work in a mid size regional firm and our billing target is 3.75x salary. Out team admin also time records on our files so takes some of our fees.

After another a year of not hitting target and not getting a pay rise I am thoroughly pissed off.

It feels like the only people that hit target are those that work free over time. I've raised this and been told that I just need to time record more.

Just interested to know what other people's experiences are.

It’s not confusing to most people but it seems to be confusing you why you’re not hitting your targets and getting a pay rise/bonus. Yea you can have boundaries but with the ones you have and your expectations of salary/bonus private practice isn’t for you. Tbh I was wondering if you’re quite junior as a lot of junior members of staff I’ve seen just don’t want to work for their salary and have high expectations of “fixed hours”.

To put it into perspective my targets are 1600hrs. Last year my utilisation was 50% but I billed 3.5x my salary. I got both a pay rise and bonus.

I can't believe no pay rise if you don't make target OP. That's shocking. You should leave. HOWEVER, if the work-life balance works for you then you may be satisfied in "paying" for that with your current work situation.

Shocked that pay rises are linked to targets - I can see if there is a range for a certain PQE or level then you might not get as much of a payrise as someone who hits the target but no payrise is bad.

I have worked in different types of firms with different targets but the most common was an hours target and not a billing target. The bonus was then linked to whether or not you hit your target - if you did you got the lowest level of the bonus and if you exceeded it you got the next tier up etc. there was also an element of the bonus that was not linked to the hours target (this was always quite opaque and you were never entirely sure what would go towards it).

I have also heard that to wash your face you need to bill three times your salary. Not sure that is entirely true but will depend on the law firm the location and the hourly rate.

In essence though they are saying you need to do more work and that work needs to be recoverable. So you will need to work more hours to hit the target. I get that you don't want to - but you won't change the way law firms work. They expect more than 9 to 5 or a part time pro-rated amount. Personally I would look at moving firms - if you work to rule in the new shop you may still not get a bonus but you will probably get a payrise

Sorry to clarify I got 2% which feels like nothing when inflation has been circa 5% for the last year although I accept it is now 2%

2x covers overheads; 3x covers the partners’ rake. More than that is a piss take.

@Blankscreen I think 2% is pretty standard. Our basic inflationary pay rise everyone gets (including most people who DID hit their target) was 3%, but many years it's 2%.

Hitting your target = very small bonus
Exceeding by certain amount = decent bonus

You have to stand out or be getting a promotion to get a pay rise above the standard one.

I think getting a 2% pay rise when you've not hit your target is pretty generous! But might just be my experience I'm comparing to!

I haven't come across a bonus linked to a multiple of your salary.

My current firm gives both billing and hours targets but have been shifting emphasis to hours more than fees for years. The billing target is basically to give them a way of stopping people from time dumping and writing off in order to hit the hours target.

In my experience it is always necessary to work over your contracted hours to hit targets and make bonus.

I do think part timers find it more difficult and I won't go part time as a result. The reason is that although your hours target is adjusted pro rata to reflect the number of hours you work as a percentage of a full time target the number of hours non-chargeable work doesn't reduce. You still have to go to the same number of team meetings, one to ones and appraisals.

I can relate to a lot of what you have said, been there seen it all and seen it within my team, done the part time stick to my hours with small children and also returned to full time.

To me the biggest thing I have taken from your posts OP is that there is a big issue in your firm/team on how few estimates are dealt with and matters billed, if that was sorted and was more realistic then your targets would become easier and more achievable. Be brave and up your estimates as you go along, if you’ve upped it and the client has agreed to it then no partner is going to say to bill less, you’ll get less hit with the write offs at completion.

Ive been through the pain of upping fees on jobs that lots of people were reluctant to as felt we would lose work - the work and clients we lost were only the ones we didn’t really want, we have better quality work at better fees and far less dross as that all went to the smaller firms instead. Assuming you have some control on your fee estimates then just do it, then time record like you’re in the private client department! There are lots of different and valid strategies for time recording - I’m an avid clock user but overall it under records compared to individual time posts instead.

Why? I agree there's no time recording (yippee!) but OP wants to work pretty strictly to her hours. In house positions often require 'unpaid overtime' (as OP puts it) - in fact it my experience it's the norm.

I do work less hours in house than I did in private practice, but I've also just pulled my second 12 hour day in a row. Not uncommon, and anything less than 10 would be light. Obviously this is towards the extreme end of in-house hours, but I don't know of any of my friends who would say they only work 30mins extra a day on average. Not saying the start on time, leave on time, ignore emails outside of work jobs don't exist in-house, just that they're few and far between. Law is a long hours profession - we all know that going into it!

Also OP, unless your paralegal is literally adding admin time to the files (eg arranging a meeting, booking a taxi) then (having been a paralegal), she should be billing. Why can't the firm recover her time too? Having followed a conventional path into law it really frustrated me how non-lawyer staff are so often undervalued by their colleagues at law firms. She's not a leech stealing your time!

Our team admin has been reclassified a paralegal by the firm and given a time recording target. This effectively shifts her cost onto our target. She time records for everything she does so gets a share of the bills apportioned to her.
Ultimately its not like either of us get the money we bill but it is a deliberate move by the firm to shift the admin cost onto our targets - you would think that the admin cost could be covered within the 3.75x multiple.
I think her role is truly admin and I can't for example give her a file and say sort it for completion. I have to dictate each and everything

Yes I think it’s ridiculous that boundaries means you’re viewed as not committed. Im not saying it’s right that lawyers are seen that way, but just that it’s a fact of the profession that no one is working ‘their hours’ and you are expected to do whatever it takes to meet targets or serve clients.

My target billing was 5.5 hours a day, I’ve just worked it out and think it was x7 of my salary which I think reflected how shitty my pay was for what the my expected in return.

Depends really on how much control you have over estimates. Do you decide the amounts or does the partner? If the partner not much you can do.

I’m not a lawyer but a ‘promotion’ with no pay rise sounds like you’re being had on.

The partner decides the fee estimate and they are 'his' clients

You won't change the policies and culture of the law firm. It sounds really punitive and I would look to move.

Agreed!

Ok but unless I’m missing something admin work shouldn’t be recorded as chargeable time anyway? And if it is then you need to have a chat with your boss about changing that, or your 10 hours of legal work will get half the bill and 10 hours of printing/filing/booking appointments etc will get the other half which is clearly wrong? You can’t be the only lawyer affected by this

I agree it is wrong. Three of us in my team have raised it. We've been told that if she doesn't have a time recording target and an apportionment of the bills then our targets would need to go up beyond the 3.75 x.

Obviously the team admin has a lower hourly rate but there is certainly a shift away from using her.

Right now I don’t have a target. Regional firm. My bonus is based on me bringing new clients in. It’s quite refreshing. We are treated as adults who know how to do our jobs and manage it for ourselves!

Previously it was just over 3x salary and an expectation of 1,500 chargeable hours a year, so two separate targets. We had a secretary or assistant and a trainee so the admin was (theoretically) covered.

But we couldn’t charge much for supervision time, our own bits of admin etc, and FT (contractually) was a 7 hour day, so it would have been impossible to get 6/7 chargeable hours a day without working extra. Plus, the culture at the time was very much one of polishing chairs with your arse - if you didn’t have a “presence” at 6pm when the managing partner walked around, you weren’t even on their radar. It was frankly ridiculous that I would start work at 8, work half of my lunch and leave at 5:15 (because I wanted to get home and see my family) - meaning they’d get an extra 1h45 above my contracted hours every day - but I was criticised in my appraisal for leaving at 5:15. Fuck that.

I would start looking at other firms OP. Fee earner 3pqe in PP, I just got my new target £140k, although the firm is moving its financial year, so it's a 10 month year. Regional firm, I am paid above market rate for my area and pqe £60k. I had a 4% payrise and modest bonus, and I didn't hit my target last year. I sometimes work over my hours, when its busy, but not often. Flexible working, 3 days at home 2 days in the office.

Better firms are out there. Law is a tough industry, and high intensity.

Happy for you to DM me, if you want more information.

I work in a firm as an assistant.

Each team has their own assistant who is non billable and we do all the admin work. From file opening to post completion. Post completion note is 'do the usual' unless it is complicated and been a 3,4 or 5 way deal and we are swapping contracts and docs between us.

Our F/E are all 8:30 - 5:30 with only one partner who works later but he takes time in lieu and has the most enviable holiday allocation. Target is 5-6 billlable hours for them a day. At year end last year not one F/E missed target.

I think you're in the wrong firm.

We get healthcare as standard, bonus and payrise every year.

@Blankscreen but surely you should be delegating to her & using freed up time to do further work so your overall bills remain the same?
Unless you're suggesting that when time is written off to meet a fixed fee, only your time is, I don't see how she is taking your bills. Yes, on one individual file, but surely you're working in time she is - if that makes sense!

It sounds like you e chosen the lifestyle track (kids and horse and other commitments) but expect pay and bonuses and progression the same as those who have chosen to prioritise career. Maybe your expectations are unrealistic in an environment where it never has been a work to rule set of hours with “overtime”. Bonuses are for achievement and they’ve been clear what needs to be achieved but you’ve chosen horse etc instead. It’s incredibly difficult to cover both particularly if you’re part time - I don’t think that the BD / training / admin particularly reduces with part time hours so all that non chargeable is disproportionate to free earning hours.

It’s a mechanism to increase her hourly rate for the client

Which then helps her reach her billing target.