Scheherazade posts about billable hours at Stay of Execution.

Okay, let's unpack these numbers a little bit. Let's use 2000 hours for THEM and 1600 hours for my life now. That's a difference of 400 hours. Billable hours. Okay. What's that mean? Well, remember, my average is about 35 billable hours per week. And I'm here about 50. 8 to 6 daily, or maybe 8:30 until 7ish, give or take, in the office, M - F. That means a BIGLAW lawyer needs to work the equivalent of more than 11 weeks more than me, just to get to 2000. Or they could make it up with every single Saturday, billing 8 hours. I haven't been tuned into BIGLAW enough to know where 2000 hours falls in the heirarchy, but I have a hunch it's not considered that high

A Harvard 2L, at Waddling Thunder, mach 2.0 responds:

Obviously, I'm not a lawyer yet, so I defer entirely to her sharp observations. However, unless we're going to assume that billable hours were created by the American Law division of what I like to call France's secret Committee on Economic Illogic (responsible for their 35 hour work week, for example), there must be some reason that managing partners of law firms use the system. Whatever we might think, I don't really believe they enjoy torturing their associates. Torture isn't all that profitable in the long run.

Read the full posts for some interesting insights into the billable hour dilemma from someone who is there (Scheherazade), and someone who hasn't gotten there yet.

Some more billable hour stuff:

Yale Law School's The Truth About the Billable Hour

The ABA Commission on Billable Hours Report

The Billable Hour:  Putting a Wedge Between Client and Counsel from the ABA's Law Practice Today.