1200 hours a year is healthy and should be profitable by a good margin. Some months have more work and others don't. Any more hours and you risk attorneys churning hours on files which obviously isn't a good for the attorney-client relationship.
To achieve 1,800 billable hours, an associate would work “regular” hours plus an extra 20 minutes Monday through Friday, or work one Saturday each month from a.m. until p.m. The first option would give an attorney 1,832 billable hours, with a total of 2,430 hours spent “at work” (AKA: including performing ...
Although most lawyers have a regular 40-hour week, a significant percentage of them work more frequently. The average weekly work hours for various types of lawyers are: Lawyers working for large firms: 66 hours per week. Lawyers working for small and medium-sized firms: 42-54 hours per week.
The Goal is Between 1,700 and 2,300 Hours Most law firms set a yearly billable hour target for their associates. Using an attorney billable hours chart can help in systematically documenting and managing these targets. This number is usually between 1,700 to 2,300 hours which is the average billable hour requirement.
In Philadelphia, Orange County, CA, San Diego, and the San Jose area, most offices required either 1,900 or 1,950 hours; in Miami, most firms required either 1,900 or 2,000 hours.
As we mentioned, many law firms require their lawyers to work between 1,700 and 2,300 billable hours per year, depending on their situation. This means working between 142 and 192 hours per month, or between seven and ten billable hours per day.
How To Calculate Time in 6-Minute Increments. To calculate time in six-minute increments, divide the work duration in minutes by 6. Each of these increments equals 0.1 of an hour when converted to decimal form. So, for 42 minutes, you get seven increments, which equals 0.7 hours.
Many businesses use billable hours to determine how much to invoice a client for projects. Billable Hours Example. Set an hourly rate. Track the number of hours worked. Add up your billable hours. Multiply your hours worked by your hourly rate. Add any extra fees or charges. Ensuring Accurate Client Billing.
The main problem with the billable hour performance metric is that it specifically rewards and underpins behaviours that can be both to the detriment of the firm and, more importantly, its clients. Clients do not like the billable hour.
In most cases, non-billable hours include time spent in meetings, working on internal projects, or simply conducting any operations not defined in the project scope.