The question.

• Author: Hirsch, Stewart
• Position: Ask the Authorities

One of our senior lawyers bills lots of hours. His assistant recently mentioned to me that she is uncomfortable doing his time entries because the lawyer seems to be billing more hours then he's working. There is no firm administrator, and I'm concerned about whether and to whom I can raise this issue, and I want to keep my job as marketing director.

David Gebler

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The first question you are probably asking yourself is whether you need to get involved. The answer is yes. You already are involved. No conscientious person can ignore this situation. At one end of the spectrum, a fraud may be being committed. At the other of the spectrum, what kind of workplace allows this to happen and then go unreported because people are too scared to speak up?

But should you make the first move? The first step is to go back to the assistant. Is a fraud really being committed or perhaps she is not seeing all of the facts. If the fraud is real, the matter must be reported.

The assistant needs to know that she cannot remain anonymous. A senior stakeholder in the firm needs to be aware of the issue. That senior leader can then decide how he or she would like to proceed. If the assistant is not comfortable speaking to the senior person, you could offer to tell the senior person that the assistant has something to tell him or her that is important and confidential, and put the ball in their court.

Are you really afraid of being fired for caring enough about the firm that you don't want a fraud to go unreported?

David Gebler, JD, is the president of Skout Group, an advisory firm helping global companies use their culture and values to clear the roadblocks to performance.

Peter Johnson

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"Churning," "padding" and "heavy pencil" are just a few of the pejorative phrases used to describe aggressive timekeeping by lawyers. Lawyers bear the brunt of many jokes that poke fun at the inescapable and immediate conflict in the lawyer client relationship--the clients want their lawyers to limit their time involved in the representation while the lawyer's income, in many cases, is directly affected by the number of hours devoted to the representation.

It is not unusual (and becoming more frequent) for clients to question the appropriateness of time charges and to look for an adjustment from bills that they think may be unreasonable. In my experience, however, it is unusual for law firm personnel to question the integrity of a lawyer's...