New York Lawyer
September 8, 2008
By Peter Page and Meredith Hobbs
Daily Report
ATLANTA - One year after labor law firm Ford & Harrison dropped its billable-hour requirement, the program is immensely popular with associates and partners who find that young attorneys are becoming more productive faster.
The program, announced in September 2007 and known as “YearOne,” dropped the requirement for 1,900 billable hours in the first year. New associates are instead required to compile 1,900 hours combined of billable time and nonbillable hours working with senior partners on depositions, witness and trial preparation, client meetings and similar key tasks they unlikely would be given if the firm was billing for their time.
Six first-year associates have been involved in the program; another seven who are starting at the firm will participate beginning in September.
“This is souped-up mentoring that allows the associates to practice law and interact with other lawyers—not just sit in the offices doing research, never knowing how it fits into the big picture,'' said Meg Holman, a partner and director of professional development at Ford & Harrison.
Working with clients
Simply by dropping the billable-hour requirement, the firm has gotten first-year associates working directly with clients, who typically are happy to see a second attorney working the case—so long as they are not billed.
“Clients don't want to see on their bill junior associates they don't know, so when we are billing for hours there is a real disincentive to having the partner bring an associate,'' Holman said. “With the clinical hours, the partners can tell the client not to worry about the bill. It is an effective client development tool.''
“A great benefit of the program has been that it allows younger lawyers to deal with clients earlier and get their confidence,” said C. Lash Harrison, the firm's managing partner.
“The delivery of professional services is by and large a personal relationship deal,” he said.
The program makes it easier for a partner to take a young associate along to meet a client. Clients feel more comfortable in using the associate then, making it more likely that they'll request their services down the road, said Harrison. “We all like to deal with people we know,” he said.
Jessica Walberg, a first-year associate in the firm's Orlando, Fla., office, said that she has had the opportunity to sit in on depositions, arbitrations, negotiations and mediations while law school friends at other firms are toiling on research projects and document review.
“Usually, the client gives a weird look when I walk into the room, but when we explain the program, they like that the firm is picking up the cost of us learning to practice [law] just like their favorite partner,'' Walberg said. “This is great—[doing this] instead of working on this or that research project and never seeing the big picture, like my buddies working at other firms. I would say they are generally unhappy and I am generally happy.''
Valeria Cometto, a first-year associate in the firm's Atlanta office, its oldest, also compared her experience favorably with lawyer friends starting at other firms. She has attended one trial and is preparing for another, has written a response to a summary judgment motion and has defended a deposition.
“A lot of my friends at other big firms do document review all day and into the night. I am already on cases, and they are not going to have a chance to do that for a couple of years," she said. “What is expected of most second-, third-, fourth-year associates is what I am learning to do now, on the firm's dollar, so I can end up doing it a lot sooner on my own.''
Write-offs drop
Harrison said he didn't expect first-year associates to charge for any time when the program started last year. The firm had expected to lose about $2 million in billings from this, he said—with the hope that it would pay off with better-trained associates who'd be more productive in subsequent years.
He said Ford & Harrison previously charged between $200 and $250 an hour for first-year time.
“What's happened is, because they have progressed faster, they've been able to get some billable work,” he said. He said the firm's first-years are so far billing about half the previously required 1,900 hours.
One unexpected benefit of the program has been the sharp drop in billed time that the firm must write off—for all associates, not just first-years, said Harrison. The total time booked but not billed has been about half of what it was last year, he said. “We're not writing off any learning time as we may have done in the past. That's just gone from the system.”
“By the end of the year the difference is going to be a couple of million dollars,” he predicted.
“I'm thinking the way people view associate utilization has changed,” he said. “There's the sense that the time [associates] devote to things is going to be more efficient and more effective.”
Holman said the firm has been surprised at how fast first-year associates begin to produce work that is billable once they are no longer under pressure to do so. She called the 1,900 billable-hour requirement “an unreasonable expectation'' for first-year associates.
“First-year associates, even really good ones, turn out about 1,500 hours you can sell to the client, and the rest is learning. That causes a lot of anxiety for people who mostly are overachievers," Holman said. “We have been very pleasantly surprised at how proficient the associates have become in so short a time. Around month six or seven, across the board, you could see they were turning a corner. Their billables went up."
Second- and third-year associates can file proposals for up to 200 clinical hours that will count toward their 1,900-hour requirement.
“A number of more senior associates have proposed attending trials when they have done a lot of the support work and want to be second chair next time around," Holman said. “Because of the program, we have second- and third-year associates who are more capable, have client relationships and like their jobs, which is what we are going for.''
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