Billable Hours, Job Survey

Associate Life Survey: So, about your hours . . .

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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.

 

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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.

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

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

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