The coronavirus crisis has wreaked havoc upon the legal profession and brought about changes that made working environments chaotic at best. From the the rapid transition from working in offices to working at home to the austerity measures that brought salary cuts, furloughs, and even layoffs to some law firms, associates have been put through the wringer. Now, associates are facing off against the very partners they work for in a battle for billable hours.
It seems that thanks to the pandemic, there’s been a downturn in work, and partners are taking on a lot of the work that associates and paralegals used to do. According to Bill Josten, manager of enterprise content for Thomson Reuters, there’s now a 2.7 percentage point difference between the hours partners and associates are working. “There has consistently been a gap,” he said, “but it got really wide, really quickly in conjunction with the pandemic.” The American Lawyer has some additional details on the new phenomenon that’s making associates cringe:
While hours are down across the board, Josten said the hourly dip for associates in Q2 of 2020 was significantly higher than that of partners. During Q2 of 2018, associates worked an average of 139 hours per month; in Q2 2019, it was 138 hours; and in Q2 2020, that number dropped to 126, a 10% drop from 2018.
Partners also saw a drop in hours, according to Josten. Q2 of 2018 saw partners work 124 hours per month; Q2 of 2019 was at 123; and Q2 of 2020 was 118, a 5% drop from 2018.
Whether this is due to client demand or partners simply hoarding the work that they do have, associates will be the ones who suffer in the long run. Never mind the fact that they’re not getting the professional development through challenging work that they would have in normal times, but when the holiday season comes, many associates won’t have been able to meet their minimum requirements for bonus eligibility.
Some firms are offering bonuses for extraordinary performance during the pandemic based on hours billed, but when there are fewer billable hours to be had overall, how are associates supposed to rise to the occasion (or attempt to do so)? It’s yet another unfair situation that’s been thrust upon associates during these turbulent times.
What’s the hours situation like at your firm? Are you on track to bill your usual number of hours in 2020? Please let us know in the poll below.
Loading …Partners’ Gain Is Associates’ Pain as Hours Move Upstream [American Lawyer]
When Billable Hours Are Scarce, Partners Get to Work First [Big Law Business]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.