The Billable Hour: Why Big Law Just Can't Quit It

[@foreverneverever7151]

No way a human could continuously function on 1-2 hours of sleep.

[@Essays4College]

How much of his biological life did that attorney give up working that much?

[@SaelPossible]

@@Essays4College Years.

[@Essays4College]

@@SaelPossible exactly

[@Discipleofthelordandjesus]

@@SaelPossiblesad but true.

[@Great_PatBingsoo]

There is no way that lawyers are ethically billing over 3k hours a year. I don’t care what you say, you look hard enough, you’ll find questionable practices. At best, the work product is probably shit at that level of churn.

[@NoahGlanz-go2um]

I agree but there might be very rare exceptions where the work is still of reasonable quality

[@sri112]

Thats only 9 hours per day (on average) with 35 days of holidays

[@NLBruschi]

Whatever Professor Choi bills per hour -- he's worth it.

[@arthurddamulira]

Interesting to watch

[@arthurddamulira]

Does Wachtell use the success fee only in litigation? Otherwise, seems impractical to apply it to M&A

[@Somefatdude]

@@arthurddamulirayou could use alternative fees in M&A and other transactions. It could be a percentage of the deal value, kinda like how realtors are paid. I’m not suggesting that is the best way to do it, but it is an option.

[@jamesticknor1134]

1:40 I own that antique desk!

[@creativemindplay]

Ok

[@trepolkguitar3357]

Robert Plant billed Willie Dixon when creating the saying... a tale as old as time

[@bowenpainterinjurylawyers1]

Very interesting!

[@British_loyalist]

Solution: charge more.

[@edwardpamintuan]

1800 is the most I’d ever agree to

[@principledthoughts9506]

😂

[@linkplays2952]

im not a lawyer but it sounds like 1800 would be a pipe dream. 2000 is standard which is slightly more working then the normal 40hr work week if you assume that some amount of work you do isnt billable

[@therealmitch-a-palooza7262]

This video is kind of worthless. Billable hours as a concept isn't even close to being the problem. It's the minimums set by law firms that attorneys are expected to abide by in a given year. Anything close to 2,000 billable hour requirements, which is the norm in BigLaw, is absolute insanity. Even if BigLaw moved to an "alternative" means of measuring lawyer productivity, they could still set nutty minimums for that as well. Attorneys just need to stop accepting jobs that negate their entire work-life balance, and reject work environments that hamper their ability to be with their families enough and go on actual vacations.

[@jackhallander6706]

It’s lawyers’ fault for accepting this. Caveat emptor. You sunk 200k on a degree that teaches you your own irrationality in pursuing this pyramid-shaped organization that you basically have no hope of advancement in (and even if you did, your reward is more work, depression, anxiety, and over-eating). No one thinks that the law is prestigious; in fact, it’s the most hated profession by far.

[@user-fs8tl7ni1w]

Diversity and inclusion challenges? She sounds like a whiny child. Grow up!