11-21-2003 The Billable Hour
The computer crashed at work recently. They upgraded the billing software, something snapped and it crashed the server. Since the big crash I've been keeping my hours on a legal pad. It looks something like this:
8:20 (Fen-Phen Lady's Name) R&R bill from hospital. Directions to MBM re same.
8:25 (Dr.Client's Name) Review of letter to client and cases cited re: his potential lawsuit
8:46 (Trustee work)T/C to Judge's chambers. Kayla or Emma will need to address my question. WCB
8:50 (Dr.Client's Name) O/C with Odd Senior Lawyer re Doctor's problem.
9:04 (Odd Senior Lawyer's new case) Do research on the COA and ethical fee split
9:12 BR
9:16 (Dr.Client's Name) finalize letter
9:39 (Trustee work) T/C from irate defendant in adversary.
9:53 (X's Case) Work on objection to plan and disclosure statement
10:12 (Trustee work) T/C from Emma in Judge's chambers
10:15 (Trustee work) T/C from different irate defendant in different adversary.
and on through the day. I sometimes feel like I never get any work done but instead spend my time talking on the telephone, talking to other lawyers in my office and making nonsensical notes about my cases.
Normally I would put this directly into the computer. Our billing program has a timer feature where you can turn it on when you start a task, get a telephone call, or whatever. You can turn the timer off and start another in another case when you are interrupted. Since it went down I've been keeping these stupid hand-written notes. Nothing like having to create a few days of billing from memory to make you paranoid.
Last night I brought home a "Daily Time Sheet" pad to write this stuff down so one of the secretary's can put it into the computer. I didn't get very much done but it's a start. If I stayed at my office and did it myself it would probably take 1/2 a day or more and I don't think they'd let me bill for billing the client.
I really hate the billable hour feature of my job. I know they have to have some way to measure our performance and put a figure on our worth but I find it really distasteful.
When I started working here they told me to bill for .2 of an hour regardless of whether it is a 2 minute conversation or a 10 minute conversation. .2=12 minutes. Our contracts say we bill phone calls at .3 but I have a hard time doing the .2 thing when I only talk to someone for a couple of minutes so I know I couldn't do .3 for a two minute conversation. I think they (and by "they" I mean the legal profession generally) justify it because while you are on the phone for only a couple of minutes you generally have to memorialize it some way and that takes time too.
Some of it that bothers me that I never know how to bill for is situations like this.
I know the attorney for the Chapter 13 Trustee. We aren't good friends. We don't go out to lunch or dinner. We don't live in the same neighborhood and our kids don't go to the same school. But when I have a case with her we talk. When we are at meetings we sit together. We share things; her father is an old lawyer whom I've met. We both have old houses. We are women working in what is still very much a man's business.
So I call her. I call her because I want the Chapter 13 Trustee to be on my side about an issue in a particular bankruptcy. The discussion of what I want the Chapter 13 trustee to do, or not do, takes 4-5 minutes but we talk for 15 or 20.
Part of what I do is forge relationships with these people so when I call they'll call me back. When I ask for something, if they have discretion, they'll give it to me. When I tell them something, they'll believe me.
Do I charge the client for the .1 for the time I've actually talked about their case? Do I charge the client for the whole conversation? Do I split the difference?
Now if I did what our contract says, I'd charge them .3 because any phone call is charged at .3. That doesn't seem quite right.
Or the situation I feel the worst about is getting stuck at the end of a long docket on a case where the client can't afford it. Go to Court for a hearing that should take 10 minutes but it takes two hours because the Judge put 150 cases on his docket and I am at the very END.
So what do I do? Sometimes it depends on whether I like the client. If it's someone I don't like, I charge them for the whole conversation. If it's someone I do like, I'll note the full amount of time I spent on the call in one window but only charge them for the amount of time I spent on the case in another window that's designed for just such a circumstances.
I'm kind of on the other end of that right now. One of the partners in my office is a bankruptcy trustee. We have a big bankruptcy that started out as a Chapter 11 reorganization and got converted to a Chapter 7 discharge. And I've been assigned to handle the some 80 or so preference claims that have been filed. I filed another 100 or so this week. It looks like I'll handle those too so it may be a wild ride for a time.
Let me tell you, there is no law people hate more than this preference law. If you are paid by a company, or an individual, within 90 days of when the bankruptcy is filed, under the right circumstances, you can be forced to pay that money back.
It's not my fault. I didn't make the law up. But try explaining that to some poor dumb smuck who got paid $20,000 on invoices that were 150 days old, 30 days before the company filed bankruptcy and who is still owed another $30,000 by the bankrupt company. Cause in addition to taking the $20,000 away from them, I disallow their $30,000 claim too.
The preference law is designed to keep companies that know they are getting ready to "take the cure" from paying all their friends and relatives, and themselves, before they file. It's also designed to keep creditors from pushing too hard to get paid when a company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. If a company got aggressive right at the end, and got paid by being aggressive, they know they will have to pay that money back so it can be spread out among all the other creditors who weren't so aggressive.
That's how it's designed. The cases talk in terms of "giving the debtor breathing room." In the real world, my clients don't care about giving the debtor breathing room. They are pragmatic.
Are they fully secured?
What are their chances of getting fully paid?
The bankers just figure it's part of the cost of doing business. What are the chances this company/guy/customer can really work his way out of this problem? If they assess the chances as being good, they work with him to work his way out. If they don't assess those chances as being good, they press, hard, and get paid $5000 this week because then that $5000 they got on the 91st day they may get to keep. It's all about business and money.
These 180 something preference cases will certainly improve my billable hours and should also improve my collectible hours.
Tied to the billable hour thing is the collections portion of that equation. Of course in my office they want us to have collected X dollars a year but they don't ever share with us exactly how much of the cases we've worked on are collected. I have very little of my own business so I'm always working on cases brought in by someone else. I have a vague idea of what's collected.
The banks always pay. I like working on cases where the bank is the client. Some of the bankruptcy cases are kind of dicey. You have to get your fees approved in bankruptcy court, so there's always the chance someone will balk and your fees will get reduced. And there is always the chance that the bankruptcy won't work and you won't get paid either.
Trustee work is generally pretty good but there is often a delay between the time you actually do the work and the time you get paid; unless you apply for a different deal, the bankruptcy statutes only allow for payment every 120 days. Sort of like working a case on a contingency without the upside.
My billables are up. They told me I could get prices on getting a new laptop to replace the one I have. I think it's a reward of sorts. They didn't give me the raise I asked for but they did give me 180 new cases to handle.
I think I'd rather have had the raise.
12/18/2003
