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.

Adding that, if OP's criteria was work life balance and interesting work, then in house is an obvious good option. But she wants to have the salary of someone in PP making bonus, but have a work life balance. I don't think a move in house will get her that, certainly not immediately (unless as I said she's spectacularly under paid but then the bonus shouldn't be hard to reach!).

The whole thing sounds awful to me OP can't you leave and get another job

One thing I forgot to add is that you do seem to be managing to clock off within your contracted hours and I’d be really interested to understand how you manage to meet all your client deadlines by doing that? I’d have found it impossible. Are you having to pass work on to other people to finish (meaning your matters have to be over-staffed, resulting in more write-off), or routinely having to deliver more slowly than the client would ideally like? The partners may be happier to give a matter to an associate who can deliver more quickly.

And the paralegal you mention, this seems to be one of 2 things- either the partner has decided to start charging for stuff that was previously not charged out, but isn’t increasing the capped fee- very silly. Or the work was always charged for but they have to keep the rate low to stay within the cap/not have the client raise eyebrows and she’s perfectly capable of it. The latter is the reality of getting more senior I’m afraid. A lot of firms make senior people redundant if there is not enough work coming in that is worth the higher rate.

Your maths doesn’t make sense. If you’re 0,4 below target now, and work to rule, you’d not have to work 12 hour days and 50 percent more to hit target. More like 10 -15 percent, which is an hour, so 30 mins more in the morning and evening.

i think you will have a similar issue where ever you work op.

This is a fair point. There are compromises associated with the pay you get in practice.

@Unopenedpackofmenssocks

their contracts are nominally 7 hours a day = 45 hour week and yours is 6 hours a day= 30 hour week.

7h a day is a 35 hr week. 9h a day would be a 45hr week.

But all the rest of your points are great :-)

Doh, bang to rights, @SheilaFentiman

Menopausal brain fog. Hopefully the general idea still makes sense!

(and add to that the name change fail as well!)

Because the costs of running a solicitor's firm is huge.

I'm an equity partner in a smallish firm and everyone's target is 3 x salary

I’m aware of that. What I disagree with is the statement that 3.4 x “barely covers costs”. This is untrue.

@MuchasSmoochas Yes, in my firm it would cover costs. But as a business owner I don't want to break even, I want to make a profit.

Firms with high admin/paralegal costs would need a higher multiple to cover costs.

None of my fee earners work set hours. Everyone works above their hours, and partners more than anyone.

For fixed hours, you need a local authority or government position. I'm not knocking the OP's wish for boundaries/fixed hours, but that's not the way private practice operates, so if that is what she wants (and it's a valid choice) she needs to be in a position within the industry where that is possible and where she would still be valued

It sounds a bit shit for you, OP.
Make sure you time record every minute you spend thinking, and make sure the paralegals under your supervision do as well.
I had a paralegal colleague who was great at her job in conveyancing, but lost it because despite repeated explanations and then warnings, she would not/could not time record properly. For example, she would spend 20 minutes on a phone call to a client but record it as 5, because she thought that's how long it should have taken. She didn't record all the calls with estate agents because that wasn't really work, just telling them what progress was. She went round and knocked up a client who wasn't responding to phone calls and then helped him pack up to vacate, because she thought that otherwise he would be in breach of contract, and she wanted to help him avoid that. That was neither authorised or time recorded. She didn't record time spent looking things up, as she thought she should have known them, didn't record multiple chasing calls , and generally did what she could to keep costs down for clients by not recording most of her work. She didn't get that in order to set prices, the firm needed to know how long was spent on any transaction, and needed to consider whether particular tranches of work were worth undertaking as loss leaders, or better off not not being offered as part of the service as it was impossible to make a profit ( conveyancing competitively!) She was the only person surprised when she was let go! The clients loved her, though!

OP. I work three short days (contractually). I do however work over my hours every week. I'm happy with this because

1. Although I work over my hours, because I do shorter days my "overtime" still keeps me within a 9-5.30 window whereas my full-time colleagues start their extra hours at 5.30 and often before 9 too. This means I still have good work-life balance.

1. Because I work over my hours I achieve well and get a bonus. This effectively pays me for that extra time I spent. I could just do three full days but then I wouldn't have the option to cut down my work and NOT get a bonus if life is busy or something crops up.

This year I got a bonus AND a very good pay rise. I'm in an all-female team and the majority of us work part-time (all the others either three or four full days though). My firm values our contribution and our reward and remuneration are set so we can achieve well based on our working pattern. It sounds like your firm is not really set up to appreciate part time workers.

People are just being honest with you. Do you think the people responding on here don’t also have kids? Why else would we be on mumsnet?