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

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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.

I’m pretty astounded that the concept of “overtime” has ever been part of your professional vocabulary. In 25 years in private practice there has always been a clear understanding that “overtime” is what support staff do and the lawyers just do the work and try to balance with life outside the office as best they can. Back in the days of my training contract we used to joke we’d get better hourly pay at MacDonald’s but we obviously took the long view.

Thing is, for me working longer hours has never taken the form of “I had better start a new task at 5pm so I can log 2 more chargeable hours”. It has been driven by “this pleading has to be filed tomorrow and I need to finalise it for the partner to review first thing” or “we need to go back to the other side with comments on this agreement by cob tomorrow so I have to make sure Sue is fully briefed on my part” or “if we are to meet x deadline we need to have reviewed 3000 documents by next Tuesday”. It’s usually obvious that you won’t meet your deadlines if you clock off at 5pm or start at 9:30. Sometimes that is due to factors beyond your or the firm’s control, triggered by client/counterparty/witness/other side law firm actions and you just have to respond and get on with it. Or you have a day full of meetings and need to get the notes and action points written up afterwards so others can progress the matter.

It’s really really hard to manage a matter when your team have no flexibility to work late as needed. The system is designed to weed out people who don’t want to work like that. Sorry. I stepped back from client work and now do a KM role because deadlines and targets were no longer for me. Even so, I still do work late when needed though.

To answer your question I’ve never been in a firm with a salary multiple target, only hours. Current place (mid tier City) is 1650. But we know it is not fair to judge associates on recoveries as they have no control over write off. That seems fairly obvious.

Your admin assistant’s job will all be done by AI very soon anyway. Sounds like your partners needs to overhaul their fee structure.

@Vermin I think has the best reply. Floating the idea at work this morning + everybody pretty surprised that somebody working 9-5 who isn't hitting their target would be upset with a 2% rise & no bonus.

I think decide what your priority is (career, home life, work life balance, salary, promotion etc) & re-shuffle accordingly. We can't have it all! X

I mean in reality though your target should be achievable within your contracted working hours. It shouldn’t be the case that you have to work 9-7/8 just to meet your target. If that’s the case your target is too high. The nature of the work obviously means that flexibility is required but just to meet your basic target should be achievable within “normal” working hours

I asked what other people's targets are to try and gauge if my firm has unrealistic targets?

It feels as if the majority of posters have used this an an opportunity to have a dig about the fact I dare to work part time and don't willing commit every waking hour to the job.

Clearly If I worked in the Glasgow firm referred to above I would be hitting my target and getting a payrise

I think you’ve had an unfair time - I don’t think your target should be so high as to be unachievable in normal working hours. If you want/need to work above and beyond that then that should be compensated by a bonus.
My firm’s view is that if you are routinely working above that just to achieve your target (3x) they consider something to be going wrong - too much work/not enough support.
Equally if you want to work extra to benefit from the bonus that’s fine, but they don’t agree with people having to work “extra” just to meet their basic target - it’s not a huge firm and the partners are very vocal about the importance of work life balance (whilst accepting that sometimes you do need to stay on to meet deadlines but it’s not expected daily)

I think that you are conflating part time and “work to hours” too much.

Part time means that you don’t have to be available for work 5 days per week. It doesn’t mean that you work fixed hours on the 2, 3 or 4 days that you do work.

It’s important when going PT to have a very detailed discussion with the partner whose work you do to ensure that you do not end up doing 5 days’ work in 3 days and only getting paid for 3, and also for them to be clear that you are not available on your non-working days. This requires the line managers who have approved the part time to think properly about how work is allocated to you, make sure the target is pro rated and ensure that there are other people on the matter teams who can do work to meet deadlines when you are unavailable.

To be honest that’s not a model that tends to work very well, so part time jobs often don’t work out in private practice. We have no part time fee earners in our team.

It's pretty demoralising. I went into local authority legal work. Quite a pay cut really but it's £50,000 salary full time (South Yorkshire) with a great pension and flexible working.

I have no core hours so as long as I average 22 hours a week (I work part time) over my three working days, it doesn't really matter when I work. I work from home. I have billing targets but they're hourly (averaging 6 hours per day). If I work over my hours (which I don't, unless absolutely necessary) I can claim that time back in annual leave.

If you can afford to do it with your partner's salary being 5x your own, and you want to work to live, rather than live to work, check out LA roles. We have a commercial property team and it's quite interesting work actually.

This thread slightly surprises me, as I’ve family in law and none of them would say they’ve “working hours”. It’s known to be a profession with billable targets and high demands. Typically reflected in baseline high salaries. Eg. On annual leave, I’m in healthcare and I may answer the odd emergency call (as I’m in a leadership role) but I’m not expected to have oversight/knowledge of what’s happening daily. Those I know in legal roles are (typically when off the individuals I’m thinking of would work 2-4 hours a day, versus actual working days of 13 hours plus) - hence the trend of leaving firms to move in house to regain balance in life. Female partners often have Nanny’s or wfh more flexible partners. However, in their firms progression (ie into more senior leadership/partner roles) and bonus would be linked to time achieved but salary’s would still raise yearly (linked to inflation/years pqe expectations).

I haven't conflated part time and work to rule everyone has piled in on me and effectively said that I should be happy to work extra hours to hit my target and assumed that I am petty and work to rule.

I work everyday but work 6 hrs instead of 7 and I agree that having a day off doesn't really work.

I said up thread that my boss is happy and clients are happy.

The issue is the target feels/is unreachable and the only way to hit it is to routinely work overtime.

I'be just crunched the numbers and assuming my recovery rate stays the same I would need to work and extra 8 hrs a week every week to hit my target.
That's defeats the point of reduced hours!
That's why I was trying gauge other people targets.

I'm sorry if you felt my posts were harsh. I'm trying to say that you've had a basic inflationary pay rise + you work your hours.
Big pay rises & bonuses are for going above & beyond which you (understandably) don't want to do right now.
I just think your position is very standard, is all. Defo not criticising you for putting family life first

it sounds like you’re assuming that the full timers in your firm who are maxing out on bonuses and are meeting targets are doing so by working 9-5 with an hour off for lunch each day. That’s the question you should be asking them.

Because career progression isn’t linked to billing targets in house. Also on average hours tend to be more reasonable - not saying everyone in house works fewer hours but lots of businesses manage to avoid the sort of long hours culture that’s baked into the law firm model.

The issue for OP isn't career progression though (she's just been promoted). It's salary/bonus. Yes in-house your bonus doesn't depend on chargeable hours but then that's generally because you don't get one. A 2% pay rise isn't bad going either!

Yes hours are generally less in-house but again, OP isn't looking for shorter hours, she wants not to need to work unpaid overtime consistently to be able to meet her bonus targets (or to average 30 mins a day that she is currently doing presumably). I don't actually know what % above working hours that translates to but it's basically the equivalent of one 'urgent' "Can I just check". I have heard of complete 9-5 in-house positions, but never met anyone in one! Are you one of the lucky few?

A lot of the issue the OP is facing is specific to her/her firm/her main partner because it seems she can actually meet the target (the work's there) but the issue is the time is written off because the fee estimates are unreasonable (although of course presumably the fee estimates are low because otherwise the work won't be there!). The time recording element of that is a PP issue of course, but it doesn't magically go away in-house - managers will commit you to projects you can't get done within your working hours leaving no option but to work 'overtime'. It is the nature of the profession. Some employers are worse than others, but it's there the vast majority of the time to wind extent.

I absolutely agree with you. When I worked part time in private practice I finished at 2pm 4 days a week and I HAD to finish at 2pm because I had to do the drive home to do the nursery and then the school run. I couldn't just 'stay longer'. Then I'd do dinner and bedtime and by the time I had time to do any work it would be 8.30pm - 9pm. For me, it was an impossibility to even try to work overtime hence why I got out of private practice as quickly as possible.

My trainee cohort were being promoted around me (promotions depended upon billable hours too) and by the time I left the only two in the team that were still solicitors and hadn't been promoted were the two part time mums.

Sounds to me as though your write off is too high, so either your fee estimates are the problem or you aren't delegating appropriately or you are spending longer on tasks than you should (or than your narrative justifies).

As a senior associate I would expect you to have input on your fee estimates, even if they require partner approval.

If you are getting close to the estimate then you need to notify your client and increase the estimate rather than continue working and write off the overspend.

I am quite saddened by some of this thread. An expectation you will go above and beyond hours wise is not going to be possible for some people, and will be much harder for mothers. Acknowledging a culture exists is fine but surely we should be challenging it not reinforcing it?

A bonus that is only open to people who can go over and above hours wise is not fair.

A bonus that is only open to people who can go over and above hours wise is not fair.

Isn't that the very definition of a bonus?

Of course what also exacerbates the position around hours when you're part time is that often a billing target is a straight and simple percentage pro rata.

But you still have to attend 100% of team/ office meetings, 100% of training requirements etc. That leaves a part time person having a disproportionate admin burden compared to a FTE. This in turn makes it harder to achieve or go beyond billing targets.

I think a bonus should be paid for doing the job above the standard required, but that standard should not be set based on hours. Surely the excellent feedback OP gets from her clients, assuming it is above the standard expected, could suffice?

Interesting that you read people’s comments as ‘having a dig’. I just see lots of people confirming what their experience of working in law is. I don’t think you are being judged for working part time, people are just explaining why your approach is unlikely to be rewarded or respected in law firms. It’s harsh, it’s the nature of the beast. I’m glad I’m no longer in that environment tbh.

A bonus that is only open to people who can go over and above hours wise is not fair.

But that's not actually true in the OP's case. It's not that she can't get sufficient billable time down during her working hours, it's that not a high enough percentage is recoverable because the files are going over the agreed fees. She could achieve the bonus during her working hours by either (a) negotiating higher fee estimates, or (b) finding ways to do run each matter more efficiently so she can keep wishing the existing fee estimates (either to do her own work more quickly or delegate more to junior fee earners (assuming that even if it takes them slightly longer, it costs the clients overall less because the hourly rate is lower - obviously doesn't work for everything on a matter, but it does for some)).

Negotiating better fee estimates may not be possible if OP is doing all her work for one client and there's already a pre-negotiated fixed fee for almost anything, but then the trade off is she's getting a steady stream of work, with scope and fees already set (my big time drain when I was a Senior Associate was always around the business development and scope/fees agreement). If it's not that situation then she needs to work with the partner to use the fact the client thinks she's incredible to negotiate higher fee estimates. Not always possible, but this type of thing is part of starting to be a more senior lawyer. Openly, law firms are businesses and if the clients loving her doesn't lead to more money coming in over someone who actually bills more recoverable time, she's never going to be materially financially rewarded or progress*.

She will be doing some of the efficiency stuff already, but there is always scope to improve there.

It won't be achievable for everyone without working extra hours but it is achievable for top performers because the constant stream of work is there.

*Not saying this is the OP, but to explain to people who think you should get a bonus just because of client feedback... Take two senior associates charging the same hourly rate and paid the same. One does belt and braces with the client, showers them with love and will happily spend long phone calls explaining all of the details. The second does a good enough job, but not the same belt and braces approach - client satisfied but not fawning. Second lawyer records half the time the first does because having the client love you takes time. Both approaches are valid but if the first lawyer isn't actually able to recover the extra time spent, then the second is far more valuable to the firm. Ultimately having a client love you only matters (to a law firm) if that helps the firm in some way. If she wants to make more money OP needs to find a way to leverage it, or she needs to become more efficient which will realistically mean the client satisfaction dropping a bit.

OP this is actually where in-house might be a good move for you - it's generally the other way round. Assuming it's not taken to extremes, very happy internal clients is usually far more important in practice than how much actual lawyer work you do. Closing one deal where the client raves about you is better than closing two where the client thinks you're so-so, even if on both the legal outcome is the same.

I mean in most jobs (career jobs), we all work "free" overtime. That's really not unusual. That's one of the reasons we're paid high salaries. If you're a clock watcher, you really can't complain about not getting ahead or not getting a bonus. What would you be getting a bonus for? You're just doing the actual job (which you get paid for) to the letter - to get a bonus, you need to be going above and beyond, that's the point.

I don’t know any firm with billing targets that doesn’t have an unwritten expectation that you’ll do unpaid overtime.

Not a solicitor, but ex-Big4, and this is my experience too.

I agree with the advice to make sure you scrupulous bill all your time. It is hard, but means you can evidence the time you are spending on the work.

If your boss writes your time off - make a note every time it happens so you can argue your case when it comes to pay review.

Adding value above and beyond what you're paid for doesn't necessarily have to involve working additional hours. It should be what you do with the hours that really matters.