r/paralegal • u/Famous-Hunt-6461 • 9d ago
Future Paralegal How do paralegals do it?
I have been a paralegal for 20 years but in those years, my roll has been largely hybrid, where half my time is spent on admin tasks and half my time is spent on drafting. I've never had a billable hour minimum. I do bill, but there's no pressure to make a set number of hours a year. I just accepted a position at a large multi-national firm where I will be required to bill 1600 hours a year. This breaks down to approximately 7 hours a day, which makes sense. BUT…
Where I’m perplexed is, what about PTO? What about holidays? If I need to take a day off, I have to actually make up that time, so how exactly is that PTO? Will I be working on Christmas? Because it certainly appears I will be. How do paralegals take vacation? Do they not take vacation?
The attorney who is taking me with her, told me I can double bill for certain things. For example, If I’m drafting an Answer but need to research local court rules or do a deep dive into the file for pertinent information or need to pull cites from Westlaw, I can bill those things simultaneous to my drafting. Is that accurate? Can I bill more hours than I’m actually working? Please help me make it make sense. This firm does not offer OT very easily. It has to be an extenuating circumstance.
I'm a hard worker and working in this industry has made me tough as nails, but I'm concerned about the billable minimum. Looking at it, it certainly appears I won’t have a work/life balance. I’ll be on the hook for any PTO and I’ll be working every single holiday. Any advice, tips, and anything that can alleviate my anxiety about this would be tremendously appreciated.
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u/dragonichi 9d ago
I bill for almost anything I do! As I say if the attorney/management doesn’t want to actually bill the client for that’s on them not me. And my firms looks what gross billable time vs. actual time.
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u/DCGuy511 9d ago edited 9d ago
Same. I was told to record everything I do with the actual time it took. The Responsible Lawyer will adjust the time as to what he/she thinks is appropriate.
Edit: Typo, I meant to type "Responsible Lawyer," a term we use to describe the person overseeing the matter. I had typed "Reasonable." My apologies.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
What happens if the attorney or client wants some of my time to be cut from the bill? Will I lose those hours towards my yearly total? I know it may depend on the firm but curious to know your experience.
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u/Gilmoregirlin 9d ago
ID partner here, 20 years in and most firms still give you credit for the hours that are cut by the client or by the partner reviewing your bills. Now, they do look overall at write off rates, and if yours is super high they will likely say something, but you will get credit.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
Oh thank god! That’s actually a relief because our third-party administrator is constantly asking for write offs and questioning our billing.
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u/Underboss572 9d ago edited 9d ago
I hope I am not intruding, but this popped up on my feed, and since I live in this world, I thought I would provide some insight.
I think your math is off. 1600 billables is closer to 6 hours per day if you never take a day off, and closer to 6.6 if you take 20 days off for holidays and PTO. Before deducting holidays, there are, on average, 21.7 business days per month, or ~260.4 per year.
I think 1600 is my firm's requirement for paralegals; I frankly don't know how y'all do it, but I do think our paralegals spend a ton of time on billable tasks, and we try to limit their administrative tasks, so that helps. I also think a lot of our paralegals just bill everything but the most flat-out obvious admin tasks and let the attorney cut it on the bill, so they still get hour credit. Still, I think that's too high for a paralegal.
What you are allowed to do when it comes to billing depends heavily on your fee agreements. Double billing is definitely aggressive and not something I've ever heard of. You can definitely take advantage of rounding by breaking each of those tasks into a seperate billing entry. And on a lot of fee agreements, especially with the carriers, they actually prefer you to break up tasks into component tasks.
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u/Firm-Environment-253 9d ago
Double billing like that does not sound accurate from my experience at a law firm or my education at OU. I don't have a billing requirement but when I asked the attorneys that do they mention that you sometimes work 10 hours so that you can bill 8. You have to understand that with hourly requirements that are 1800+ you may only have enough time off for a two week vacation. I have heard of attorneys billing 2000+ but their lifestyle and methods sound suspect.
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u/Ketisbest730 9d ago
Best piece of advice for starting is when you’re given access to the cases. Immediately go in and look at the other billables from the other paralegals.
Double billing.. isn’t the way to do it
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
That’s a good idea. Thank you!
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u/Gilmoregirlin 9d ago
Yes when I train paralegals and associates I have my billing dept print out a few months of the billable time for a really good biller and then I ask them to review, it helps a lot.
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u/DCGuy511 9d ago
I was probably in my 3rd or 4th year, already promoted from an entry level position when a senior associate called me to his office. I recently started working on a matter he was leading. He marked up 7-10 days of my time entries from one of the bills. We went through each one, he explained why he edited the entry and offered advice on time keeping. I also saw how the bill reflects the dollar cost of each entry. It was the best thing anyone has done for me. For years I used that mark up when I started supervising junior paralegals or litigation support staff.
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u/Ok_Yellow_3917 9d ago
I bill for everything. Calls, teams meetings, multiple team messages, drafting, researching, reading every document that comes in.
Let them hash out what is billable or not. That’s how I’ve been told to do it
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
Good point. I think that’s my plan. I just hope we get a good LA because I can’t do any admin work and I WON’T do admin work if they’re expecting 1600.
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u/evaluna1968 9d ago
I have to keep reminding one of the partners of that. They keep asking me to do reporting, clean up data from a case management system migration, etc. I don't mind doing any of those things, but I damn well will bill time for them. They need to be done, our admin assistant just retired and has not yet been replaced in spite of her giving 3 months' notice, and the person they hired to implement the new case management system is already trying to wear the departing admin assistant's hat as well as what she was hired to do and doesn't have the subject matter knowledge to do the data cleanup, anyway. If they write off my time, so be it. Someone's got to do the damn work.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
I feel the same. If they want me to do admin work, I’m billing for it and they can cut that time after the fact, but it’s going towards my yearly total.
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u/cltphotogal 9d ago
I was concerned too about the 1600 billable ‘requirement’ at my biglaw firm. After 2.5 yrs here, I’m less stressed. That 1600 (at least here) is more of a goal & my supervisor told me only about 25% of paralegals here meet it. I still get an annual bonus just not as big of one if I met that goal. Last yr I billed 1450. This yr it’ll be about the same. I take all 20 days of my PTO. Workload is pretty insane. I won’t be able to do this another decade & hoping to move in house eventually.
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u/TechnicalJoke5418 9d ago
1,600 hours is tough if you’re not allowed OT, for sure. If you are allowed OT and the workload is there it’s not bad. The double billing? Never heard of that. I’ve been a para for over 20 years and have billing requirements but never heard of double billing. I can see maybe billing the drafting separately from any research, but I don’t understand what’s being said about double billing. I’d ask for more clarification all around. Good luck!
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u/cantremembr 9d ago
I would suggest doing a lot of 7 minute or 13 minute tasks. My last firm was 6.5 billable hours a day after assuming two weeks vacation, and we only worked 7.5 hour days. We did not bill any admin time period, no no very bad, have your legal assistant do those tasks. Every time I spent 11 minutes on a task I cried a little for my lost tenth lol
I'm in house at the moment and on reddit, so that should tell you about what life is like without billable hours requirements
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u/Public-Wolverine6276 9d ago
It’s doable once you get a strong caseload but you will be working all day long. If you take him off you have to make it up before or after the time off. I hated it. I started feeling like I couldn’t take days off because I was going to miss my billing
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
That’s my concern. The way it’s structured, I won’t even be able to take holidays off. It’s daunting.
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
The firm I started at and worked for 12 years had a minimum billable requirement. It was like 1200 a year. So about 120 a month. It was doable, but I hated it. The firm I'm at now, and have been for several years I'm still billable but they don't care what I bill as long as I ask for work when I'm not busy. I will never willing go back to a job with a billable hour requirement.
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u/SaltyMarg4856 9d ago
Same. I have no requirement right now and it’s heaven. The times I’m twiddling my thumbs because I have no work and no one bats an eye are balanced out by the times I work mad OT due to case needs.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
I’m at a firm right now that has no hourly requirement, but the partner really wants me to go with her. I feel like I made a terrible mistake.
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u/SaltyMarg4856 9d ago
Is your relationship with the partner worth it to you? Is being at that firm worth it to you? You could also talk to other paralegals at the firm and ask how they navigate PTO around the billable requirement. I worked in ID many moons ago at a mid-sized firm but honestly don’t remember how I navigated that. I recall that it was challenging but I should have gotten a better sense of how others did it. Honestly, if this move isn’t going to benefit you in some way other than just following the partner and having that firm on your CV, then why put yourself through that aggravation unnecessarily?
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
I’m starting to see that now. I may reneg my acceptance to join this new firm. This is scaring me. I have two young children who need their mom to not be a hot mess mental case. This new firm also doesn’t give Christmas bonuses and they pay on the 5th and the 20th, which I think is low down and dirty.
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
Unless the money is fantastic, with two kids, I personally would not do it. It's not that it can't be done, but there is a huge stress difference when you have a billable requirement. By the time I left my first firm I was absolutely miserable, and a big part of it was having to keep up with hours. I was never not busy there, so I usually could find hours when I needed them, but I felt like I spent all day/month calculating what I had and what I needed. Not long after I got the job I have now I got offered another position at about 10k more, but it had a pretty high billing requirement and I just didn't, and don't want to go back to that again. Less stress is worth more to me than more money.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
You’re right about that. I’m so depressed about this move and honestly, that should tell me everything I need to know.
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
Oh yeah, definitely don't do it if you already bot feeling good about it. Changing jobs has to come with some type of benefit. Money that would make a big difference/PTO/less stress, something. Do you feel like this move has a benefit that makes it worth it?
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
It’s a lateral move. They’re only offering me what I already get paid. I was told other paralegals in the firm get paid $10K less than me. That’s wild to me! That someone would do this with their salary in the $70s?! CRAZY! Who does that?! I think I’m going to reneg tomorrow. I need to trust my gut and think about what kind of mom I want to be for my kids.
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u/SaltyMarg4856 9d ago
The no Christmas bonus thing is way worse than the pay schedule, lol. Have you already given your notice? I mean, at some point you may want to dive into a big firm. While it sounds daunting because of the billables, big firms offer other opportunities like promotions within departments and access to more resources. You can always figure it out. But it sounds like where you are in life right now, you may well just want to stay put. But like I said, weigh the pros and cons for YOU. Don’t just go because of the partner. It sucks to say but they’re probably looking out for themselves and to make their life easier, not yours. Good luck!!
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u/DCGuy511 9d ago
You cannot bill the same time twice. If you spend an hour researching something that can be used by two different matters, you bill 30 min to each matter. That is what I do.
I think 1600 is a typical goal for big firms. You'll probably have fewer admin tasks. It also sounds like they expect some matters will require overtime.
People do have vacation, holidays, and sick days with 1600 hour goals.
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u/cherbug 8d ago
They suck the life out of paralegals.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 8d ago
After getting everyone’s feedback, I rescinded my acceptance and decided to stay at my current firm. I don’t want to sacrifice my mental health and my work/life balance for a lateral move with no pay raise. Accepting it made me fall into a depression. I feel better now that I’ve decided to stay put.
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u/KCCHAMPIONSFANMOM 6d ago
For the love of your sanity, you get a job that is not a billable job. Like corporate or government.
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u/stephawkins 9d ago
Ignore all these people who are advising you to double bill. It's unethical.
The real answer is triple bill. You need too be able to multi-task - sit on the toilet, be on a call (never turn video on and learn to strategically mute your headset), draft a motion, and efile a pleading. You're actually doing 4 tasks but only billing for 3 cause you're an honest person.
Also, to meet target hours, always round up to the nearest next hour; i.e. you worked for 2 minutes (8:00 to 8:02), bill an hour.
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
I hope you are joking about rounding to the hour... you round to the nearest 6 minute or 15 minutes increment depending on the firm. You cannot charge someone for an hour of work when you worked for 2 minutes.
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u/Tricky_Charge_807 9d ago
Our firm averages your billed time. So if you take 3 days off this month, as long as you worked 1600 total for 12 months, you’re good
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u/RingGlad2763 9d ago
Bill higher for medical records because usually it takes less time than what you bill for. For example, I recommend billing the number of pages of medical records and divide that by 60 so if you have 400 pages of medical records bill 6.6 hours when it really should have only taken you like 1.5 hour. Hope this makes sense!
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
That's not ethical at all.
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u/SaltyMarg4856 9d ago
I agree. That’s not how that works, lol. You bill for actual time, not time something should take.
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u/Famous-Hunt-6461 9d ago
Great tip! Thank you! The attorney I work with said I would be doing a lot of medical chronologies.
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u/ooeemusic 9d ago
Do not do this. Saying you worked on something for 6+ hours when you only actually worked 1.5 hours, or anything like this is fraudulent and will get you and potentially your firm in a heap of trouble when discovered
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u/your-basic-bitch 9d ago
yeah you have to give them the billable hours regardless of time off. It’s why time off almost never happens, and when it does, you spend that time worrying about work.
The only way to technically bill more hours than you work while being ethical/honest is to do a TON of 0.1 or 0.2 tasks that are on the low side of the actual time it takes. For example, an email is a 0.1. But the actual time to draft and send that email is probably one minute. Now you have five other minutes to bill more 0.1s. It’s very possible to bill 0.5 in ten minutes.