Biglaw, Billable Hours, Job Survey, Reader Polls

Featured Job Survey Results: Billable Hours By City(Or: Do New Yorkers really work harder?)

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So far, we’ve received exactly 1,400 responses to last week’s survey on hours and bonuses. You can see how bonuses broke down for the Classes of 2005 and 2006, based on hours, in the results to yesterday’s Lawyer of the Year survey.
But how did billable hours break down by city?
There’s been a lot of discussion in responses to our previous surveys about whether New Yorkers really work as hard as other cities, especially given the Christmas and New Year’s efforts of their California brethren.
Find out how New Yorkers really stack up, after the jump.


As it turns out, New Yorkers really are working harder than associates in Atlanta and Texas, but so are associates just about everywhere else. When it comes to associates billing 2400 hours or more, there’s not a huge amount of difference between New York and D.C., and Boston, L.A. and San Francisco aren’t exactly slouches either.
Breakdowns for the number of hours spent on billable, pro bono, or administrative work were relatively constant across classes and locations. About 60% of associates had fewer than 50 pro bono hours, with another 18% in the 50 to 99 range, and the rest at 100 or more. About 40% of associates had fewer than 100 administrative hours, with another third in the 100 to 199 range. But there were a couple of exceptions: Texas and Chicago lagged the rest of the country in pro bono hours, New Yorkers were much less likely to spend time on non-billable work, and a surprisingly high percentage of associates in Atlanta lost at least 300 hours to non-billable time.

Hours By Location

Less Than 1800 1800 to 1999 2000 to 2099 2100 to 2199 2200 to 2299 2300 to 2399 2400+
Atlanta 24% 28% 14% 18% 6% 4% 6%
Bay Area 7% 27% 24% 12% 10% 11% 9%
Boston 20% 22% 24% 11% 4% 7% 11%
Chicago 9% 9% 32% 17% 13% 9% 11%
Los Angeles 7% 15% 25% 17% 16% 10% 10%
New York 14% 16% 23% 13% 11% 7% 15%
Texas 19% 26% 14% 15% 8% 8% 8%
Washington, D.C. 9% 23% 23% 13% 8% 10% 14%
Other 15% 25% 26% 14% 8% 4% 9%

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