Bill, Baby, Bill … But Don’t Forget To Enter Your Time — Or Else!

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Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

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I practiced law for nearly 15 years and hated timesheets as much as the next person. But it’s just critical it be done on a daily basis. So I’m not surprised law firms are being more aggressive in requiring it and penalizing people, especially in this associate market, which has shifted. Now, they might not have done it two years ago, where it was a seller’s market. But now the shoe is on the other foot.

Even if it makes a 1% difference in revenue or collections or profitability—when you’re looking at firms generating billions of dollars, that’s a lot of money. So yeah, I think in tougher times, they want people to really focus on the basics. And people might also have more time to focus on the basics because it’s not as crazy as it was in 2021.

— Jeffrey Lowe, founder and managing partner of advisory firm Jeffrey Lowe Partners, in comments given to the American Lawyer on the reason why entering time is “more critical than ever,” especially in a market like this one. Lowe’s critical commentary comes in the wake of Sidley Austin threatening to dock year-end bonuses by up to 50% if attorneys’ billable time is consistently entered late.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Biglaw, Billable Hours, Quote of the Day, Timesheets