Fried Frank Promotes Renewed Emphasis on Billing Policies (And cuts back on some perks.)
As many of you know, part of the problem firms are facing during these challenging times is that clients won’t pay their bills. Lawyers can’t get paid unless clients pay.
Whether or not clients are willing or able to pay, it certainly won’t happen unless they are billed. Hence, as most associates already know, the days of delinquent time entry are at an end.
But Fried Frank is taking it to a whole new level. Instead of making sure your time is up to date every month or every couple of weeks, Fried Frank wants attorneys to accurately close out their time every single day. This is from a firm-wide memo that went out last week:
The importance of accurately billing and recording time - both from an economic and an ethical standpoint - cannot be overemphasized. Accuracy is essential both for the Firm and its clients. To ensure accuracy, it is Firm policy that attorney time must be entered and released on a daily basis. This memorandum covers the Firm’s current client billing policies and guidelines.
Most of Fried Frank’s billing policy is pretty standard and common sense stuff (you can download the full policy after the jump). But there are some significant changes.
Entering your time every day makes business sense. Here is the relevant change as it was explained to Fried Frank attorneys:
All time must be entered and released on a daily basis.A minimum of 7 hours will now need to be recorded in order to close out each work day in Carpe Diem. Attorneys should record non-billable and pro bono time. If an attorney does not have 7 hours of billable, non-billable, or pro bono time because he/she is unassigned or staffed on a matter, but waiting for work, he/she should record the time to 9999.1000 Unassigned/Waiting for Work.
Failure to adhere to the daily time recording policy will have a material impact on an associate’s performance review and potential bonus.
In good times, reminding people to enter “waiting for work” everyday allows the firm to allocate resources efficiently. In bad times … well, a tipster points out:
They are forcing me to admit to the very offense that will get me fired. I plead the Fifth.
Fried Frank has already been through a round of performance review layoffs.
Aside form billing matters, Fried Frank is also scaling back on some perks:
Reimbursement for dinner should only be expensed if the attorney must eat at the office in order to complete the client work by a specified deadline and will be working in the office past 8 p.m. Absent certain circumstances that are detailed in the policy, dinner for attorneys in the New York office should be purchased in the dining room, once it reopens.In the evening, attorneys will be required to work until at least 9 p.m. in order to expense a car, sedan, or taxi ride home. In New York, cars will not be available in the garage until 9 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Whenever possible, expense reports should be submitted to accounting on a weekly basis. No reimbursement will be made for any expense not submitted to accounting for reimbursement within 60 days from the time the expense was incurred.
That’ll save some nickels. Meanwhile, in this economy, working out is something you should clearly do on your own dime:
The Firm routinely reviews the benefits available to attorneys. It has been determined that the gym subsidy is now a taxable fringe benefit and therefore of lesser value to each individual than originally anticipated. In these challenging financial times and given its lesser value, we have determined that we will no longer subsidize health club memberships. However, each attorney will continue to have the option to purchase a membership at a discounted corporate rate, as well as waive the initiation fee when enrolling in a Firm approved health club. We will also continue to allow payroll deductions to pay for the membership, and on request can divide the cost over two or three pay periods.As mentioned, this subsidy was determined to be a taxable fringe benefit, and, therefore, to be of lesser value as a benefit to each individual….
Going forward, we should expect many firms to tighten up the ship in this manner. We just hope that more transparency in billing methods doesn’t lead to more stealth in layoff news.
Check out the full Fried Frank billing policy below.
Fried Frank Attorney Time and Billing Policies.docx
Earlier: Nationwide Layoff Watch: Fried Frank Stealth Layoff Update
(86) Comments
Comments
D'Oh!
...with a view
Entering time on a daily basis? You must be joking! If I wait and manufacture an entire month's worth of billing at once, no one will know that I'm wildly inflating my hours and pretending to do work that exists only in my imagination. The bastards!
BigLaw Thieving Attorney
Um, isn't recording and releasing time on a daily basis standard practice at most firms? It is at mine.
Most likely they want all of the time entered so when they fire people, they don't lose out on any billables not yet entered into the system.
My firm requires time to be entered on a monthly basis, at the end of the first week of the month (at least for now).
4: No.
Who cares what the hell Fried Frank's billing policy is? Is this really news?
this is SOP for years at most firms. give FF a break. they are most generous frim out there and they don't do layofffs. period.
The Management Committee is now having time clocks installed on all floors near the elevators. Attorney-specific time cards will be distributed with your next pay stub. Please begin using it immediately to record time for all matters.
3 and 5 both make good points
Fried Frank sucks
Most folks at Fried Frank probably won't have too much trouble - at least not the litigators - there are plenty of partners there who are more than happy to give associates secretarial assignments in order to pump up a bill. I once watched a Special Counsel and a second year associate spend a whole night making typigraphical and editorial changes to an interview memo (they were both working on the same memo) when all of the edits could have been input quicker (and cheaper) by one of the people in the secretarial pool. Other than keeping us there until 2 am for this, it certainly looked good for the partner when he generated his reports on how much revenue his matter were generating. In these time I guess it's also good for the associates who can rack up a few hours of billable time for something they should never have been doing in the first place.
All your banks are belong to U.S.
K&L Gates requires time entry by 4:00 p.m. the following day. Periodically we get emails from the office manager if the daily time reporting falls off.
All your banks are belong to U.S.
11- FF does not suck. If it was my choice, I would rather have my firm give no perks rather than lay people off. at this time, in this economy, can anyone really blame FF for tightening the budget? so many hours are lost by people not putting time into their timesheet on a daily basis. again, tightening up.
i would see this as positive news.
Jimmy Dean is not pleased.
8 = FF partner
Perhaps if you begged a bit more, ATL would lay off (no pun intended) your firm.
Kentucky Flied Flobster?
12: provide names or shut up---time to out people to clean up firms and save good people's jobs
The Oscar Myer of law firms does it again
Why we luv ye
Mofo moved to daily billing requirements for all attorneys in the summer of 2008. Those who were tardy in their time notes were threatened with an adverse mark on their reviews. What does that say about a failing firm?
Remember the 3 golden rules:
1. It was like that when I got here.
2. I didn't do it.
3. (To your Boss) I like your style.
@16, agree with your general point re cutting perks, but not with respect to FF. They've done layoffs as well (>10%); they just don't have the balls to admit it.
Note how firms that were first out of the gate on layoffs (e.g., Orrick) have moved on to a second round. Expect other firms to follow.
This is standard practice. FF is just catching up with it. I'm sure the economic climate is a background consideration here, but it's just good practice to do this. I wouldn't let it bother any FFers.
Whether or not you have to put time to "waiting for godot," the firm knows you're not billing that time.
You’re going to have an exciting life now.
It should be SOP everywhere. It increases billing and revenues and its foolish to rely on a biweekly paper shuffling frenzy followed by outraged emails from management for "missing" time. There is software that makes it easy as pie, gets the data straight to accounting, and takes out all the error-inducing and well-paid intermediate steps. Of course, whatever the policy is, the partners won't follow it and will hand in their chicken-scratch legal pads of time to a secretary at the end of the month.
Yes, 27, billing time to "wasted time and destroyed future because business is on life support" should be SOP throughout the industry.
"Most likely they want all of the time entered so when they fire people, they don't lose out on any billables not yet entered into the system."
I remember not giving a rat's ass about the management e-mails during my last couple of weeks of work and completely neglecting to enter several hours worth of time. It was great.
You know what does suck, 16? Fried Frank trolls.
How did they only just now determine that the fitness subsidy was a taxable fringe benefit?
My firm requires all time to be entered within 3 working days of the end of the day the work was performed. We get an automated warning at the end of the 3rd day and if it is not entered by the end of the 4th day we get docked a small fee for each day the time is not entered after the 3rd day. e.g. Monday's time must be entered by Thursday evening and docked on Friday evening. I just keep contemporaneous time records and I'm fine.
My firm only requires that time be entered by the end of the month. Glad i'm using Chrometa to do most of the work for me. Daily time entry would be annoying but I guess it makes sense.
Some humongous Chimp named Chompers just ate Fried Frank.
Fried Frank? Is that some kind of carnival hot dog or something?
Taxable fringe benefit, people! Don't be like Tom Daschle.
Wow, lots of FF trolls.
Example @16: "i would see this as positive news."
So would I, if someone gouged out my eyes with a red hot poker, or if I had my head so far up my ass, I couldn't see that the ship was sinking around me.
Misclassifying their fitness program seems like a big mistake and a major headache.
White & Case round 2
White & Case round 2
Firms should just put a meter on everyone's computer to keep track of what they're... Oh, wait. Nevermind.
Don't the clients cover the meals? Why does the firm care?
42, when clients refuse to pay, the firm gets stuck with the bill. Try convincing a client to pay for a car home or a $40 dinner when he has to take the train home or just got his bonus cut by 75%.
I hope this has taught you kids a lesson: kids never learn.
16 here- the reason i see this as positive news is that FF is finally getting its ship in order, albeit late, to ride out this storm. i dont work there. our firm fixed its billing policy (similar to this one) several months ago and magically, our billing numbers went up significantly.
The firm would gladly eat the cost of cars and food if it meant the client would pay.
Are people retarded?
You are billing out at $300+/hr. Your car and food won't add up to more than 1/2hr. - 1 hr. at most. You slam the client with a four or five hour evening and the firm just pocketed $1200-$1500.
If that means writing off $100 bucks so be it.
This is standard at my firm and has been for a long time. I don't see the big deal.
@16: "the reason i see this as positive news is that FF is finally getting its ship in order, albeit late, to ride out this storm."
If you think this is going to fix anything, I know of a bridge ~150 yards from FF's office that you might be interested in acquiring. Round 2 is looming.
I like fried franks:
http://www.lastappetite.com/french-fry-coated-hot-dog-recipe/
46 - Partners are always telling us that expenses are almost the first thing that GC's look at when reviewing the client's bill; if there are a ton of car rides or $25 meals on there when the work wasn't time deadline-pressure, the partner's gonna get a call about it, and more importantly, the GC will scrutinize the rest of the bill more since the expenses portion indicates a lack of diligence. They may be BS'ing us, but that's what they've told us.
FF's software is called "Carpe Diem"?! " Really? The irony is galling.
Every firm I ever worked at had thsi policy
Those clowns at Fried, Frank are completely off base. Only BUSY people bill every day! It's much easier to submit a time sheet when you're swamped. It's when you have nothing to do that you wait a month and pad those suckers in fuzzy hindsight.
Does FF only want to get paid for work ACTUALLY done? Losers.
My last firm required daily entries. If you missed more than 6 deadlines, it was definitely reflected on your review.
The reason for the daily entry/release schedule was that our clients demanded better accounting especially when they were trying to get bridge loans and needed to supply the "banks" with numbers relating to unbilled legal time. Oh, and let's not forget the clients that took their work to other firms--we wanted to send them the final bills with their files.
FF has certainly done layoffs, of the stealth variety. And more to come.
54 - what sort of firm did you work where clients left on a routine basis?
43 and 50: I can assure you FF and other big firms don't have clients that complain about cars/meals. It makes no sense to me why some firms are adopting such a stingy meal policy.
I've had to deal with a bunch of clients on the bill complaints but it's never been over stuff like copy costs and meals/cars. Assuming $50 for car/dinner, that gets me 9 days worth of them for 1 HOUR of my billable time (which is ~450). Those expenses are usually a very small portion of the bill -- a $50K bill might have $1000 worth of meals/cabs on it. The client's not going to call up and complain that it should be $500 instead of $1000. They're going to call up and ask why there there are so many timekeepers on a matter or why it cost $5000 to do a document production.
Most likely, they are getting tough on the expenses because they are only tax deductible if they meet the requirements.
Abigail: “I got laid off from Bingham and now I don’t know what to do.”
Britanny: “YOU don’t know what to do? What about ME? I still work at Bingham, because I billed 2800 last year - and now I have to carry your unemployed ass around with me at the office 24/7 while you listen to your I-pod, play online card games and don’t do shit!”
FF will do more stealth layoffs in months to come. Mark my warning. There are too many people literally have nothing to do.
60: I think you mean performance based firings ... of course. Which groups there are actually busy: m&a: can't be. barshay's p'vt equity: not anymore. cap markets or finance: no way.
what groups are busy??
@60/61, agreed.
FF had about 520 attorneys in 2004/05, which was pre-boom (particulary the PE boom, a large part of their corporate practice). Look for the firm to shrink back to that size. Last I checked, they had about 650 worldwide. Assuming the firm will need to shrink, at a minimum, to to its pre-boom size (as will other firms) look for more signficant cuts, particularly in M&A, which was likely staffed for large deals the likes of which will not be seen again for a long time, if ever.
haha, fried frank is biggest joke law firm i have ever seen. their management is the biggest bunch of dopes.
Conjoined twin character = NOT FUNNY. try again.
Former friends frequently fried franks for Fried Frank before Fried Frank fired them for not frying enough franks, it was no big deal.
FRIED STUD
Well, at least, they are not withholding your paycheck if you time entry is not up to date (like WSGR does). (At WSGR, you have to pick up your check from the CEO if your time is not entered by the time payroll cuts.)
The real story here is that you can no longer order food on seamless, only go to the inhouse cafeteria.
Fried Frank did stealth layoffs ("performance based") in M&A last Friday. I know one, dont know how many more
Fried Frank did stealth layoffs ("performance based") in M&A last Friday. I know one, dont know how many more
Me things FF is TTT.
BTW - Where all the white women at?
Coinjoined twins = pain in the ass. You're not funny, just ridiculous, seriously. Just kill each other.
@68, Are you sure this was a new round? Were the people affected first notified on Friday?
What really stood out to me was that they only have to bill 7 hours a day, not that they have to record the time daily.
7 hours? Really?
Fried Frank, now that's my type of firm...
68, what class year? please divulge that
73- you do realize that's just a minimum to even get your time entered?
68/75- weren't layoffs last Friday just the last day for the people that were laid off in November/December.
private equity is busy ......for now. so are other pockets of corporate (incl. some m and a and private equity).
73 has entirely misread the policy on 7 hours. Try comprehending what you read rather than just reacting to it.
wh attys have to attend a seminar on time-keeping when they join the firm... the turnaround policy (every 2 days) is drilled home every couple weeks.
It is inexcusable for any professional not to record their time on a daily basis. How on earth can you recall with semi-precision what and how long you worked on something if you wait until the end of the week or end of the month to record time. My firm regional firm demands that time be recorded on a daily basis, and I happen to agree completely with the policy. If I were a client I would also demand this as well in the name of getting accurately reflected bills from my outside counsel.
80, feel better now?
mass layoff announcement at FF tomorrow. gonna be huge.
mass layoff announcement at FF tomorrow. gonna be huge.
mass layoff announcement at FF tomorrow. gonna be huge.
82-84: So - did that layoff announcement ever come to pass?
85
It was a mass layoff of franks in a hot dog eating contest.