We received over 2,200 responses to Monday’s ATL / Lateral Link survey, which asked you how many hours you billed last year.

In fact, we received more responses than most of you billed hours.

Although today’s Am Law Litigation Daily points out that litigation in federal courts actually rose by 9 percent last year, that doesn’t appear to have done much for your timesheets.

The table below compares your 2007 hours and predictions for 2008 (from our November survey) with the actual experience you reported on Monday.

Results: How many hours did you bill in 2007 and 2008?

Back in 2007, roughly 70% of respondents billed at least 2000 hours last year (not counting associates with stub years), with over a third billing at least 2200. And over 11% — almost one in eight associates — were in the 2400+ zone.

But by November, almost 20% of associates thought they would fall short of 1800 hours for 2008. Even so, less than 8% feared they would not make 1600. And roughly 56% of associates still expected to hit at least 2000 hours in 2008. More than a fifth of respondents thought they would even reach 2200.

Reality was a bit less kind:

• A crushing 14% of respondents fell short of 1600 hours, almost twice the number predicted back in November.
• More than a quarter of respondents, 27%, could not make 1800.
• And a little less than half of associates, 49.6%, broke 2000.

But even these numbers may paint too rosy an economic picture. As one commenter pointed out:

I billed over 2000 hours, but had over 300 pro bono this year.

Another suggested that this year’s performance will be much weaker than last year’s:

Hitting 2000 hours for 2008 was doable because the bulk of the slow-down didn’t occur until September/October. Only because I had very high hours before then was I able to just barely hit 2000 hours for the year. 2009 will be much worse. I’m worried.

Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.

You know, as long as you’re not billing anything today.

–

Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.

Back in November, we asked you to predict what your hours would look like for 2008, and we reported some worrisome results:

This year, the mighty have fallen, and so have their hours. While roughly 56% of associates still expect to hit at least 2000 hours in 2008, the number reaching 2200 is expected to fall from 35% to about 21%.

Meanwhile, the number of associates who won’t even make 1800 hours has roughly doubled, rising from 9.86% to 19.54%. Almost one in twelve associates don’t even expect to make 1600 hours, way up from 3.29% a year ago. (Remember, these numbers exclude stub years.)

But as gloomy as those results were, many commenters expected a much more dire view:

These reported hours seem WAAAAAAYYY high. People here are averaging maybe 80-110 hours per month. I myself would be happy to hit 1200 or 1300 by year-end.

These numbers are still too high. Everyone I talk to at my firm and others is super slow in corporate. The fact that only signle digits are below 1600 for almost all class years is suspicious. People hitting 1400 are having an above average year at many firms.

If I hit 1100, it’ll be a miracle (and a shitty Christmas).

Oh, and my small corporate group at a satellite office is looking at a range of approximately 700 – 1200. I think the group will likely be getting smaller…

Um, some of us are padding our hours and are still coming in at under 1600. There was literally no work for months, though things have picked up somewhat in the past couple of months.

And, let’s face it, you know last year’s billable hours must have been awful if the presiding partner of Cravath wants to scrap the system.

So, now that 2008 has come to an end, let’s see if last year’s predictions hold true. Today’s ATL / Lateral Link survey will focus on what your billable hours actually were.

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here to see the results.

–

Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.

We received roughly 1,527 responses to last week’s ATL / Lateral Link survey on whether you’re busy, which is up from the roughly 1,350 responses we received in June.

Overall, things are looking slower than they did in December or June, with 32% of associates afraid that they won’t make their hours this year, in contrast to 28% of associates in June and 18% in December. Worse yet, 3% of respondents said that they had already been laid off, an answer that wasn’t available in the earlier surveys.

Meanwhile, the number of respondents who still think their firms actually need to hire more people has dropped precipitously, from 25% in June to only 15% today.

Is business slow? December 2007 vs. June 2008 vs. September 2008

Find out what’s hot and what’s not, after the jump.

Continue reading “Associate Life Survey: Yikes”

Back in December, one of our ATL / Lateral Link surveys found that about 18% of associates were afraid they wouldn’t make their hours. By June, that number had risen to 28%.

In today’s survey, we’ll see if anything has changed now that a horde of new associates have started and a horde of financial institutions have, well, ended.

Many of you have sounded pretty worried lately. After Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch collapsed, transactional associates said they had a few simple concerns:

It’s the end of the world.

Litigators, however, had a slightly different reaction:

I’m in litigation!!

So, does the reality match the predictions? Are transactional associates even slower? Are litigators really getting busy?

Let’s find out.

Update: This survey is now closed. Click here for the results.

–

Justin Bernold is a Director at Lateral Link, the sponsor of this Associate Life Survey.