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The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

timharford.com

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Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#91

Post by leetcrew »

Ekaros wrote: post #71
cogman10 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's, frankly, pretty easy for a law firm to pump up their billable hours. "Document review" is something law firms can dump thousands of manhours into with no real appreciable change in outcome. It ends up being more a question of what a company/individual is willing to pay. The reason big lawfirms stay in business isn't because they generally get much better results, but rather it's because they have the time and m…

The finalizing Depp vs. Herd trial is good example what happens when both sides have stupid amounts of money to burn... 6 weeks in court for civil matter, and it probably would have been even longer. With seemingly hours and hours of depositions, stupid numbers of evidence and transcripts...

you have to wonder how much of that content is actually retained by the jurors. I always make a good faith effort to pay attention when I am selected, but I have a hard time remembering exactly what was said after a mere three days, let alone six weeks. in a criminal case, I suppose that works in favor of the defense (at least ideally). I have no idea what it does in a civil case.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#92

Post by postcynical »

kache_ wrote: post #67

The high rolling software contractors I know use "billable hours" as a random meter stick to charge whatever they feel like. I know a guy who has more billable hours than waking hours across the week across three contracts. The customers know and don't care, because he gets things done. I've even heard people complain about clients over beers and say "because they were being so stupid I added 8 billable hours" charge…

More positively framed: this is essentially charging for value added, not time spent. A contractor who saved/made the company a lot of $$$ can overcharge, knowing that his rate pales in comparison with savings/profits he made, so no one cares. However if he does not deliver enough value add, that sort of behaviour won't fly and he most likely will under-charge to avoid embarrassment.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#93

Post by MisterBastahrd »

hnuser847 wrote: post #86
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My side gig is that I have a few clients who pay me $1K a month for 10 hours of retainer. Most months, I barely put in 3 hours. A few, I might work 12 and I don't charge them because everyone's happy. They realize I have a day job and as such, I'm not going to be immediately available unless I can take a lunch break. A win for everyone.

This sounds like a sweet deal. If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of side work do you do that only takes a few hours a week?

Software dev. One client is a former employer, another is a company in an adjacent industry who would have to pay substantially more for the agency who built their sites to look into things for them. The price is not super high, but on average I probably end up making about $350 an hour when it's all said and done because I get paid on retainer and not hourly.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#94

Post by beeboop »

l33t2328 wrote: post #66
analog31 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oddly enough I've been on the other side of this: Multiple IC's brought together in a meeting, to prepare for the meeting with the contractor, "to avoid wasting the contractor's expensive time." Writing and reviewing a statement of work for the contractor in excruciating detail, when an IC doing the same work would just figure out what was needed. I made a mental note of what skills were so much more valuable than mi…

What skills were they?

Presumably finding high paying employers and convincing them to hire you

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#95

Post by micromacrofoot »

leetcrew wrote: post #91
Ekaros wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The finalizing Depp vs. Herd trial is good example what happens when both sides have stupid amounts of money to burn... 6 weeks in court for civil matter, and it probably would have been even longer. With seemingly hours and hours of depositions, stupid numbers of evidence and transcripts...

you have to wonder how much of that content is actually retained by the jurors. I always make a good faith effort to pay attention when I am selected, but I have a hard time remembering exactly what was said after a mere three days, let alone six weeks. in a criminal case, I suppose that works in favor of the defense (at least ideally). I have no idea what it does in a civil case.

Being on a jury was one of the few times in life when taking notes paid off for me, mostly to correct the memory of other jurors! oddly some judges don’t allow it.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#96

Post by gnicholas »

gomox wrote: post #84
gnicholas wrote: post #27

Another downside of the billable hour: it encourages perverse incentives. I was recently talking with a potential customer in the legal field, and he was interested in my startup's software, which helps people read on screen more quickly/easily. But at one point he turned to me and said "I know one of the senior lawyers is going to ask me if using your software is going to cause the billable volume to go down for the…

This is actually an amazingly perfect example of the old B2B sales mantra "the buyer is not the user". I might steal it! How long have you been selling your software? If it's new-ish this honest question from the prospect can be life changing for your product positioning and marketing strategy.

Good point! We've been selling for several years, but legal isn't our only/primary market. We've made much more headway in the higher education market, since students have to read so much on screen (and don't have these perverse incentives related to billable hours!).

But we actually run into the same buyer/not user problem on the licensing side of our business. Textbook publishers don't really care about the student's user experience, for example. This is because the textbooks are assigned by the professor, so students don't have a choice about which textbook to purchase.

Fortunately, we're finally going to launch an integration with a digital textbook platform. Not surprisingly it's a reseller platform, not a publisher. Unlike publishers, their product differentiation is more about the UI, so they're looking to provide additional value by adding our reading enhancement tech. [1]

1: https://www.beelinereader.com

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#97

Post by InefficientRed »

invalidOrTaken wrote: post #31
InefficientRed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of the sabbath in Christianity really puts a limelight on the dark side of grace. Rest is for eternity; clock back in.

As a Christian who observes the Sabbath---is this not common among Christians? (I am genuinely asking, somewhat disconnected from the wider world of Christianity)

Not at all, at least in the USA.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#98

Post by InefficientRed »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #65
InefficientRed wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The loss of the sabbath in Christianity really puts a limelight on the dark side of grace. Rest is for eternity; clock back in.

Christianity hasn’t lost the sabbath, the idea of the sabbath got steamrolled by a consumerist culture.

That's either a silly tautology or false. Jews live in the exact same "consumerist society", but did not lose the sabbath. Even the most progressive Jews I know rest on the sabbath in some form or another.

Re: The billable hour is a trap into which more and more of us are falling

#99

Post by BitwiseFool »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #33
gnicholas wrote: post #27

Another downside of the billable hour: it encourages perverse incentives. I was recently talking with a potential customer in the legal field, and he was interested in my startup's software, which helps people read on screen more quickly/easily. But at one point he turned to me and said "I know one of the senior lawyers is going to ask me if using your software is going to cause the billable volume to go down for the…

From the other side of the table, efficiency is encouraged when dollars are on the line too. A buyer is going to prefer a law firm that minimizes expenses. It is not like the law firm has a choice to keep using pen and paper to bill 100x the number of hours as others. They have to compete with other law firms.

>"A buyer is going to prefer a law firm that minimizes expenses."

Yes, but I feel like this only works up to a certain point. There is absolutely a sense that high caliber attorneys charge more and getting a "cheap lawyer" instinctively sounds like you're setting yourself up to fail - despite the fact that the lower price firm is probably just as apt as the firm with the brand recognition.

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