The Pressures of Billable Hours: Lessons from a Survey of Billing Practices Inside Law Firms

Abstract

This paper examines whether lawyers’ experience of time-based billing and billable hour budgets subjects them to pressures that encourage unethical practices. We argue that billable hour pressure is merely the ‘face’ of more fundamental pressures stemming from the way that lawyers in private practice perceive their work environments. Even without excessive billable hour targets, lawyers may be more likely to engage in unethical behaviour where they believe that unethical behaviour is necessary in order to meet performance indicators; that ‘everyone’ within the firm in which they work is engaging in such behaviour; and that there are no other ways to succeed at the firm – whether or not their beliefs are correct. If this is the case, the interventions necessary to prevent billing fraud must deal with lawyers’ perceptions and not merely the billable hours regimes in which lawyers work. Indeed quite fundamental reform of the way in which firms manage their lawyers and communicate expectations about billing and ethics might be necessary to achieve a healthier environment for lawyers and a less exploitative environment for clients. This paper examines these issues through data from the Queensland Billing Practices Survey (“the Survey”), run by the Legal Services Commission in Queensland, Australia. Solicitors from 25 private law firms answered questions about the billing systems, office culture and ethics policies of the firms in which they worked. From their responses, it is possible to gain a greater understanding of lawyers’ perceptions about their firm, how those perceptions influence their views about acceptable practice within the firm, and what can be done to change those perceptions.