KXVU

It has already been 4 months since I started work as a lawyer, so this is as good a time as any to take a step back and examine what makes me happy and unhappy with the job. I’ve already written that I have good days and bad days, but that they are all exhausting days.  The response to that statement was that every job has the same effect. Fair enough, but I still feel like there is something more … crushing about being a lawyer.

(This is going to be long, so I am putting it below the fold.)

The primary aspect of being a lawyer at a “big firm” is that you are on a “billable hours” requirement.  This simply means that all the work you do has to be accountable to a client.  The work that I get paid for has to be supported by a bill to a client, so I always have to identify which client I am doing work for.  This is measured in tenths-of-an-hour increments, i.e. I have to account for every 6 minute chunk of my day.  What this means is that whenever I read personal email, look at the current news, chat with a co-worker, or zone out for a bit because my brain is tired, I cannot charge a client for that time.  It would be unethical, obviously, one can only charge a client for real work.  I am not being paid for the 6 minutes I’m in the men’s room after finishing my coffee and bagel.

To give context, I am expected (on paper) to bill 1900 hours per year.  That means billing 38 hours a week for 50 weeks out of the year, which works out to a requirement of roughly 7.5 billable hours a day.  The issue becomes efficiency; how many hours do I have to physically be at work in order to reach 7.5 billable hours a day?  That depends, there are good days and bad days, but so far my good days are 75% efficient (which makes the math easy).  So I have to be at work 10 hours at minimum to reach my billable hour requirement.  Now, let’s be honest, I am not always going to be working for 75% of my day.  Either my brain will require rest/distraction or there will not be work on my desk.   Further, that paper requirement is great and all, but the unwritten / unofficial / real requirement is more along the lines of 2100-2400 billable hours per year.  The upper end of that unspoken benchmark works out to 60 billable per week.  One automatically sees how that becomes 10 hour work days for 6 day weeks, if one is 100% efficient.

There are some projects that, even if you are slow and unproductive, still count as “100%” efficient simply by their nature.  Litigation research and document review is tedious and time consuming, but it is a task which is low level but consistent expenditure of mental energy.  The corporate side of law, which in my case is patent prosecution (the writing of patents and correspondence with the patent office regarding the applications), requires a lot more mental energy, and isn’t a 10-billable-hours straight kind of activity.  Prosecuting a patent requires understanding the science behind the application, and then understanding the science behind the relevant “prior art” (similar or related inventions).  There can be a large number of prior art references, and someone has to read through them in order to find some reason to say, “This is not prior art against the application because of reasons 1, 2, 3, etc.”  So, after one understand the prior art, and how that interacts with the application, you have to fit all of that science into the legal argument boxes, and then determine which of the legal arguments are best / most important.   This is time consuming, and wide ranging; I’ve had to spend a fair amount of time re-educating myself about random Electrical Engineering and Organic Chemistry principals.  Once you think you understand the project, then you have to write about it.  This is my particular bane; I am not a quick or particularly good writer.  I spend so much energy trying to understand the science and legal arguments to make, that by the time I get to the point where I have to write a letter or memo to the client / associate / partner / patent office, that I can’t organize my arguments because there is too much to address.

Now, back to the billable hour requirements.  How long am I taking with the above mental work?  Too long.  It is the nature of being new at a job.  So I am constantly trying to be prompt with my work… which leads to me missing important facts that have bearing on what legal arguments we can make.  On top of this, there is learning legal subtleties along the way, so that I realize that there was something else to keep my eye out for which I did not know about the first time through.  But regardless, I take too long, so the various partners I work for will cut my hours for the client.  That means, when the client gets the bill, the part of the bill which lists work done by me will read “First Year Associate - 40 hours - $$$$” and the partner will say to the client, “We can’t possibly charge you for that quality and time of work, so let’s call that 20 hours instead and cut that part of the bill in half.”  The client appreciates not underwriting my training as a lawyer.  But what does this result mean for my billable hour goal?  Let’s just say I am not meeting that goal.

What does all of this do to my head?  Quite frankly, I’m just trying to keep my head above water.  When I do have work, I am trying to do a complete and safe job as quickly as possible, knowing that my time will probably end up getting reduced anyway.  And when I don’t have work on my desk (i.e. I have submitted all of my projects for review by partners and am waiting to hear back) I am paranoid because I don’t have work and thus can’t bill hours, but the work could come back to me at any moment so seeking out more work from different partners could just lead to me overwhelming myself.

So, every moment of the day, I think I need to be doing something else and doing it quicker.  I know that I need to relax and focus on what I have in front of me.  I also know that this is all a part of the process, the learning curve of being a lawyer.  As I figure out the “standard” responses to important parts of each patent office action, and develop my form responses for letters, things will get quicker.  Of course, there is no one format or template to legal analysis; if there was then there would much less need for lawyers (although there is an argument for that).  It is just very difficult to step back when I want to do good work and meet the needs of the partners I work for in a timely manner.

But where does this lead?  None of the other associates who have been lawyers for the past 2-5 years are happy.  None of them, and its not like they are all melancholy people who don’t appreciate joy.  It’s a job, and it pays well, but the exhaustion and the feeling of being behind the 8-ball every moment of the day doesn’t go away.  Apparently, you get better at your job, and then there is just more of it, and you carry more responsibility for it.  I’ll let you all know how this is going in another couple months or so.

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