Overbilling
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Legal Ethics
Reminder: Billing More Than 24 Hours In A Day Is A Pretty Obvious Red Flag
There actually is a maximum number of hours you can bill. -
- Sponsored
How AI Is The Catalyst For Reshaping Every Aspect Of Legal Work
Findings from the "Future of Professionals Report," based on a survey of 1,200 professionals from North and South America and the UK. -
Biglaw
Biglaw Firm About To Write A $20 Million+ Check To Their Former Client
Dechert places the blame squarely on their former partner.
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Biglaw
Biglaw Partner Treated Client As 'Cash Cow,' Gets Benchslapped In Court Judgment
Oh, and words like 'negligent' and 'reckless' get thrown around too. -
Biglaw
Biglaw Partner's Suspension Quadrupled On Appeal Following Fraudulent Billing Scandal
The order says 'clients were intentionally, dishonestly, and excessively billed for the time.' -
Biglaw
New Lawsuit Dishes On Biglaw Firm's Alleged System For Overbilling
The complaint details the alleged overbilling practices. -
Biglaw
Biglaw Partner's Legal License Suspended For Overbilling
She billed clients 3,173 hours that year. -
Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw
After Wedding, Biglaw Associate Drastically Overbills Her Way To A 9-Month Suspension
Little did she know she was throwing her career away along with her bouquet. - Sponsored
Profit Powerhouse: Elevating Law Firm Financial Performance
In this CLE-eligible webinar on April 10th, we’ll explore the most common accounting pitfalls and how to avoid them for your firm. -
Biglaw
The Most Offensive Way To Refer To Biglaw Bills
Overall, this is just a bad look for the firm. -
Morning Docket
Morning Docket: 05.29.15
* It may have taken two years, but Lindsay Lohan finally completed her community service for her reckless driving conviction. In other news, for the first time in almost eight years, the Hollywood has-been is off probation. Yay! [Los Angeles Times]
* A former staff attorney at Drinker Biddle was suspended from practice after overbilling his time doing doc review work by just a tad — 418.5 hours, to be exact. He owes the firm $12,500 to be paid in monthly installments of $100. [Legal Intelligencer]
* An ex-assistant dean and a professor at Cleveland-Marshall Law filed suit against Dean Craig Boise, claiming he retaliated against them after they assisted the faculty in unionizing. This, after they were offered raises of $0 or $666. [Northeast Ohio Media]
* Someone’s allegedly been a very bad boy: Ex-House Speaker Dennis Hastert was indicted by a federal grand jury for lying to the FBI in an attempt to conceal payoffs to a third party to cover up his “prior bad acts.” We wonder what those “bad acts” were… [BuzzFeed News]
* We bet you didn’t know that if you get convicted for sex on the beach you’d have to serve jail time and register as a sex offender. Protip: Don’t let 3-year-olds catch you doing the dirty in public. You’ll regret it for life (or until you win an appeal). [Bradenton Herald]
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Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 04.24.15
*Yeah, this happened in real life, not in a Philip K. Dick short story. [Time]
*Oh burn! Cornel West responds (indirectly) to biting New Republic article. [The Root]
*Justice for sale in Texas? Sounds about right. [KCBD]
*Allegations of overbilling in Deepwater Horizon litigation. And — this may be a shock to some of our readers — turns out many of the firms involved made generous political contributions to the LA AG. [Louisiana Record]
*Eliminating salary negotiations to combat the wage gap? Who knew Biglaw’s lockstep approach to money would turn out to be progressive? [NPR]
*Columbia University’s rape problems deepen with new lawsuit about Emma Sulkowicz and her mattress “Carry that Weight” performance art. [Jezebel]
*Update in the Alan Dershowitz sex case. Now with 100% more David Boies. [American Lawyer]
*Attention New York: Prepare to swipe right. AG Eric Schneiderman is once again a bachelor. [Law and More]
*Idaho refuses to come in line with multinational treaty obligations. . . yay federalism? [Dorf on Law]
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Biglaw, Billable Hours, Boutique Law Firms, Duval & Stachenfeld, Midsize Firms / Regional Firms, Money, Real Estate, Small Law Firms
Reinventing The Law Business: In Defense Of The Billable Hour
Should the billable hour really be vilified as something that rewards inefficiency and incompetence, or is it a benchmark with which to judge performance, or is it both? -
Biglaw, Billable Hours, Money, Partner Issues, Partner Profits, Technology
Creative Billing: Biglaw’s Perennial Profit Engine
Anonymous Partner wonders: Is the Biglaw problem of padding bills getting worse, not better?
Sponsored
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How AI Is The Catalyst For Reshaping Every Aspect Of Legal Work
Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
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Profit Powerhouse: Elevating Law Firm Financial Performance
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Attorney Misconduct, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Crime, Fashion, Federal Judges, Law Schools, Legal Ethics, Morning Docket, Murder, Patton Boggs, Politics, Religion, Shoes, Texas, Trademarks
Morning Docket: 10.16.13
* Stop bullying the judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. They don’t cave to just any government data request — they make changes to about 25 percent of them. But uh… they don’t like to talk about the other 75 percent. [Bloomberg] * Everything’s bigger in Texas, including the number of Biglaw firms with […]
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Attorney Misconduct, Billable Hours, Legal Ethics
Lawyer Billed 29-Hour Day To The Same Client And Didn't Expect to Get Caught
A private lawyer working as a court-appointed attorney racked up massive fees by billing impossible hours. -
American Bar Association / ABA, Biglaw, Clerkships, Gay, Gay Marriage, Non-Sequiturs
Non-Sequiturs: 07.1.13
* J. Lo has apologized for singing Happy Birthday to a repressive dictator. Many are questioning the decision to serenade an alleged violator of international human rights law, but I’m just confused why J. Lo didn’t opt for the new, copyright-free birthday song? But people are being way too tough on the President of Turkmenistan. Don’t be fooled by the rocks that he got, he’s still Gurbanguly from the block. [Breaking Energy] * NYU Law Professor Barry Friedman and Dahlia Lithwick wonder if the progressives have another liberal agenda item to push after marriage equality. The authors cite issues like voting rights and opposition to the death penalty as traditionally liberal causes marginalized by progressives. It strikes me this article makes a lot more sense if you replace the word “progressive” with “Justice Kennedy.” [Slate] * DLA Piper’s decision to hire Lee Smolen has raised more than a few eyebrows given the firm’s commitment to ethical billing policies. [Hellerman Baretz] * Did the ABA just recommend an ethical violation? [New York Personal Injury Attorney Blog] * After a week of landmark rulings and Biglaw layoffs, the importance of clerking cannot be understated. [Judicial Clerk Review] * The Supreme Court Term feels like a distant memory, but now’s a good time to look back on it with added perspective. Courtesy of MoloLamken, here’s a great guide to the big business cases of the Supreme Court Term just ended. Download or print it, then read it at your leisure. [MoloLamken] * An attorney left the rat race to open a pea company. But these don’t look like the peas you tried to hide under your mashed potatoes, they look like serious snack food. [Kickstarter] -
Akin Gump, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Canada, Environment / Environmental Law, Federal Government, Guns / Firearms, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, Patton Boggs, Texas
Morning Docket: 04.18.13
* “[T]hese senators decided to do nothing. Shame on them” Yesterday, the Senate blocked gun-control legislation that could have saved lives, and Gabrielle Giffords, a victim of gun violence, wrote a powerful op-ed in reaction. [New York Times]
* DLA Piper won’t be churning that bill anymore because the firm managed to settle its fee dispute with Adam Victor, but it’s certain that the firm’s embarrassment over the overbilling incident will know no limits. [DealBook / New York Times]
* Ahh, best-laid plans: Kim Koopersmith, the first woman to serve as Akin Gump’s chair, never thought that she’d be working in a law firm. In law school, she wanted to work in public interest. [Bloomberg]
* You’ll never guess which firm has the best brand in Canada according to the latest Acritas survey, but that’s probably because you don’t care. Come on, it’s Canada. Fine, it’s Norton Rose. [Am Law Daily]
* Oopsie! Burford Capital claims that it would never have funded plaintiffs’ representation by Patton Boggs in the Chevron case if it weren’t for a partner’s “false and misleading” statements. [CNN Money]
* The wife of a former justice of the peace has been charged with capital murder after she confessed to her involvement in the slayings of Texas prosecutors Mike McLelland and Mark Hasse. [Reuters]
* Baltimore Law has a beautiful new building that cost $112 million. Just a thought: perhaps more of that money should’ve been spent putting the class of 2012 to work as lawyers. [National Law Journal]
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Adam Liptak, Biglaw, Billable Hours, Books, California, Crime, Deaths, Disability Law, Gay, Gay Marriage, In-House Counsel, Job Searches, Law Schools, Morning Docket, Murder, Sandra Day O'Connor, SCOTUS, Supreme Court, Texas
Morning Docket: 04.01.13
* Can you DIG it?! Well, SCOTUS can’t, at least when it comes to the Prop 8 case, but perhaps that’s what the conservative justices planned all along. You can probably expect a judicial punt on this one. [New York Times]
* The case for cameras at the high court became even more compelling last week, because people just now realized that having to “spend money to see a public institution do public business is offensive.” Damn straight. [National Law Journal]
* Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s new book, Out of Order (affiliate link), didn’t exactly get a glowing review from the NYT’s Supreme Court correspondent, Adam Liptak. It’s a “gift shop bauble”? Ouch. [New York Times]
* Oh, Lanny Breuer, you tried to be all coy by saying you were interviewing elsewhere, but we knew you’d return to Covington. That “vice-chairman” title is a pretty sweet new perk, too. [Legal Times]
* DLA Piper’s bills may “know no limits,” but in-house counsel claim that while the firm’s emails were “flippant,” they won’t have an impact their already meticulous billing review. [New York Law Journal]
* The true love’s kiss of litigation: Bingham McCutchen’s Sleeping Beauty may have found her prince in Judge Vincent O’Neill Jr., because he ruled that the firm won’t be able to compel arbitration. [Recorder]
* It’s really not a good time to be a prosecutor in Texas. Two months after the murder of ADA Mark Hasse, DA Mike McLelland and his wife were gunned down in their home. RIP. [Dallas Morning News]
* Good news, everyone! The class of 2012 — the largest on record, according to the ABA — was only slightly more unemployed than its predecessors. Cherish the little things, people. [National Law Journal]
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Abortion, Billable Hours, Gay Marriage, In-House Counsel, Politics, Practice Pointers, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
House Rules The Rates Are Too Damned High! (Part Two)
David Mowry examines the ACC's new initiative to protect companies from excessive billing. -
Billable Hours, Email Scandals, Ho-Love, Hogan & Hartson, Lateral Moves, Legal Ethics, Money, Partner Issues
Overbilling Gone Wild: Paying the (DLA) Piper
Can you believe the emails that went around internally at DLA Piper about this client's legal bill? Check them out -- along with news of lateral partner moves.