Docking pay for unmet billables?
Last year, salary wars were big in the news, with New York firms offering starting salaries for newly graduated attorneys at as high as $160,000. This year, the story is those wars will cool off, especially with the downturn in the economy. Even bonuses might decrease. Billable hour expectations, however, likely will not.
But those kinds of stories (and salaries) are for the national big boys. Things are different locally.
Especially at a well known local firm that is reportedly taking drastic measures to deal with unmet expectations for billable hours. Reportedly concerned because only four associates made a 2000 hour billable requirement last year, the firm has taken to requiring 80 billable hours in each two week period. If the requirement isn’t met, the associate’s paycheck will be less. On the other hand, associates now get additional pay for each hour over 80. See Will, Wild Law for more details here and here and here.
Paying employees hourly wages is nothing new, of course, although it is atypical for associates in respectable law firms. The risk of bill padding exists in any billable hour scheme, as Scott Turow point out in The Billable Hour Must Die. But surely the risk seems even greater when you imagine a young associate, burdened with student loans and a mortgage with a sky-rocketing ARM, facing a dock in pay because he chose to work on a pro bono case or attend a CLE.
I suspect hiring partners from other firms have received a slew of resumes from associates from this firm.
