Back to Billables

• Author: John Roemer
• Pages: 34-35

Business of Law

34 || ABA JOURNAL MARCH 2019

PHOTO COURTESY OF FENNEMORE CRAIG, P.C.; MARK RASHID, SOUTHLAND TV

Four years ago, labor and employment fi rm

Jackson Lewis , one of the largest fi rms in the coun-

try in term s of both gross revenue and attorney

headcount, took a considera ble leap that would

strike at one of the pilla rs of the law fi rm world.

In November 2014, the fi rm a nnounced it would eliminate the

billable hour metric as a to ol for gauging associates’ perfor mance

and awarding bonuses. In stead, associates would be a ssessed on

their ability to work w ith a team, e ciency, respon siveness to cli-

ents, pro bono work and other subjective fa ctors instead of on the

cold analyt ic precision of fee statements that fract ured hours into

six-minute intervals.

A broader goal was to ab olish the problem of elevating quantity

over quality, which had produced t he paradox that associates were

paid to keep hours high even a s partners sold clients the notion of

lean, econom ical lawyering.

“Paying our people to bill more time doe s not align with our cli-

ents’ interest,” Chai rman Vincent Cino said in a 2015 interview

with the New Jersey B usiness Journal . “We want our associates

to work more e e ctively and work as a team, and so do our client s.”

Cino even talked ab out going even further and eliminat ing all bill-

able hours. In that same inter view, he mentioned that he had con-

sidered doing just that, only to enc ounter pushback from corporate

clients concerned that t he move would muddle their data-driven

legal servic es audits.

Instead, the bil lable hour has been reborn—phoenix-like. “After

receiving feedba ck from our clients and associate s regarding the

removal of billable hours as a n evaluative tool, we ultimately re ad-

justed our fi rmwide bonus policy to provide more cla rity to the pro-

gram and agai n include billable hours as an assessment fac tor,”

fi r m spokeswoman Lara Hamm stated via email on behalf of the

fi r m’s newly insta lled co-chairs Wil liam Anthony and Ke vin Lauri .

“Our paramount focu s continues to be on providing clients with

access to ex perienced, high-quality law yers who are knowledgeable

about their industry a nd the issues they face, while prov iding value

through creative a nd competitive rate structure s.” Hamm said the

fi r m readjusted its policy in Januar y 2017 and brought back billable

hours as an asse ssment factor.

That infuri ates outspoken critics of billable hours li ke lawyer

and Northwestern L aw School adjunct professor S teven Harper,

author of The Lawyer Bubble: A Profess ion in Crisis a nd a former

Kirkland & El lis partner. “For years, I ’ve been tilting at that wind-

mill,” he says of his jeremiad s against how fi r ms charge clients. For

instance, he w rote a 2013 New York Times op-ed arguing that the

billable hour “serves no one. Well, almost no one. It brings mos t

equity part ners in [big] fi rms g reat wealth. Law fi rm leaders call

Back to Billables

Jackson Lewis quietly ends a major policy

change that eliminated hours totals as a tool

for evaluating associates By John Roemer

Law Firms

Still, there are plent y of arguments for the positive

e ec ts of having a nonlawyer leader.

Since law schools don’t typica lly teach lawyers how

to run a company, it’s di cult for many lawyers to

run their business es. Some fi rms add ress this issue

by cultivating leader s through committees, tra in-

ing and education—but this isn’t the norm, Go odnow

says.

“NFL owners don’t gather the te am together and

make them elect one of themselve s to double as the

head coach,” Goodnow say s. “Being a coach is a full-

time job, as is being a player, and the team i s full of

people with dispar ate skills.”

Just because you’re good at one skill i s no guaran-

tee that you’ll be qua lifi ed to mana ge the team.

That’s why Gwendolyn Sterk, an attorney i n

Orland Park, Illinois, brought in a busines s develop-

ment and marketing mana ger as soon as she opened

Sterk Family Law in 2015.

The dedicated mana ger strategizes and execute s

a traditional ma rketing plan and is constantly doing

extensive outrea ch to connect with various profe s-

sionals so the fi rm can continue to develop and grow

its e ducational messaging, Sterk says. The duties a re

essentially div ided (the lawyers concentrate on the

law but do a little

continuing educa-

tion and marketing

on occasion).

There are also

some practicali-

ties to consider for

implementation.

Hickey says there

must be recognition

that strong leader-

ship is needed to keep

the partners at bay so

the C-level employees can do their job s.

“The investment wi ll pay returns, but it is a long-

term strateg y and must be approached as such,” she

says. “In many fi rms, a complete governance reor ga-

nization is warr anted to support this struc ture.” Q

“NFL owners don’t

gather the team

together and make

them elect one of

themselves to double

as the head coach.”

— James Goodnow

Gwendolyn Sterk