As someone who spends a couple of hours a week mentoring, especially young lawyers, I have the privilege of getting intimate insight into their struggles. While the individuals and firms and other facts may change, common themes often arise. And lucky for me, help me provide content for you.
A space where law firms often miss the mark, presuming they spend any amount of time mentoring their young associates, is time-keeping. Instead of teaching their associates from the beginning on the why, how and the best practices, the conversation appears to only arise when associates don’t make their hours – and sometimes, when bad habits are already ingrained.
So while I must insert a disclaimer here that this may not work for all (I am a lawyer after all), here are my personal tips for time-keeping for brand new lawyers.
1. Figure out your (daily & weekly) goals.
This is huge. A mistake I often see young lawyers make is to simply do (and bill) the work they get, as they receive the work and hope they make it to their annual goal of 1900 or 2000 (or whatever it may be). As the saying goes, hope is not a strategy, and this passive approach, while common, is limiting.
Some young lawyers create a monthly goal. While this is better than relying solely on the annual goal, my tip is to figure out your weekly and daily goals. Because by the time you realize that you’re behind a month or two, there may not be enough time or billable work to meet the annual requirement. The worst common example I see is when associates need more work, and it’s already October, when things can naturally slow down for the holidays in November.
Perhaps this is easier with a specific example. When I was in private practice, my goal was 1900 hours. But I also knew that if I wanted a bonus, I needed to bill at least 2000. I divided 2000 hours by 50 weeks presuming that there are probably two weeks of time off or slow time due to holidays. This gave me a weekly goal of 40 billable hours a week, 8 hours a day. While I wouldn’t stress if I didn’t meet my 8 billable hours a day (which meant I actually worked 10-12 hours a day, especially before I learned to be efficient), it sometimes gave me the motivation to work just a bit longer to get it in (if I had the work) because it meant less stress later if I could build a little cushion. More importantly, however, this system gave me more visibility into where I was at and a bit more control – knowing when I could take my gas off the pedal and when to press forward and ask for more work.
2. Create your system.
While law firms usually have time-keeping systems, it’s important to create a system that works for you. And while there is flexibility and your system may change over time, the reality is that habits form quickly, so it’s important to intentionally think about how you want to do this from the very beginning.
For me, I am more analog than digital. While the firm had a time-keeping system with an electronic timer, I am naturally a note-taker. In fact, I still have a physical paper planner (in addition to my electronic calendar). In law school, I was a person who preferred to hand-write notes, transcribe them digitally, print them and then review and highlight. I share all these details to emphasize that it’s important to recognize your preference.
So my system was to jot down my time daily on a sticky note: (1) shorthand for the matter, (2) the task, and (3) time start and (4) time end in one row.
It might look something like this:
Mey Matter – doc review – 8:30 am – 8:46 a.m.
Ortiz matter – research – 8:50 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.
Mey Matter – doc review – 9:30 a.m. – noon.
Some days I had a lot of little entries because I kept getting interrupted. Other days, it was just doc review or research or a summary judgment all day long for one matter. But regardless of the entries, I’d enter in my billable time at the end of the day, every day – right before I made my to-do list for tomorrow. Daily might not work for everyone, but I found it too difficult to remember what I did yesterday, much less on Monday. It was also nice not to delay my weekend because I had to try to remember what I did over the week to input a week’s worth of time like others I’d pass on my way out of the office. The sticky note was also intentional. It was easy to jot down the time I stopped a task, close my laptop in a rush and stick the sticky note on my laptop before putting it in my purse if I had to rush out the door. I would input my time before bed. Again, do what works for you – whether that is a notepad, an electronic timer or recording voice memos. I still keep track of my time in-house (because I want to, not have to) and I love the Timeular for the data reporting.
3. Don’t cut your own time.
I can’t emphasize this enough. I know why young lawyers do it, but please don’t do it. I know it’s because you feel bad for taking so long so you don’t want to charge the client, but let the partner handle that when they review the bills. I also know it’s because you are trying to manage up and you don’t want your partner to know how inefficient you may be as a brand new lawyer, but if you hide the truth from your partner (even out of positive intention), they won’t know that there’s a problem to address – and you are depriving yourself of learning to be better – and are solidifying bad habits that may only worsen and be more difficult to correct.
And while this isn’t a tip and is a reminder – cut yourself some slack. It’s called the practice of law for a reason. Time-keeping and billing is a strange part of our practice and in many ways, the bane of our existence. But like with any part of our practice, there are ways to work smarter, not harder.
–Originally posted at AttorneyAtWork.com on May 11, 2021
