JD Classics, what have they been up to?
Discussion
bristolracer said:
Some years ago I was doing some telecoms work on a barristers office.
He used to have a sheet on his desk with his day divided up into 6 minute (I think) intervals which would then be used to record and bill his time.
I wondered who paid for his daily dropping the kids at the pool, and the time he spent perusing his extensive porno mag collection that he had stashed under his desk.
Six minute blocks is the norm, AFAIK. My solicitor (He used to have a sheet on his desk with his day divided up into 6 minute (I think) intervals which would then be used to record and bill his time.
I wondered who paid for his daily dropping the kids at the pool, and the time he spent perusing his extensive porno mag collection that he had stashed under his desk.
)certainly does that, as did my missus.Generally, I think many solicitors have a chargeable hours target every day, and if that means they need to be in the office for 12 hours in order to hit their 7 hours chargeable, then so be it.
Edited by Doofus on Sunday 26th April 11:51
Doofus said:
bristolracer said:
Some years ago I was doing some telecoms work on a barristers office.
He used to have a sheet on his desk with his day divided up into 6 minute (I think) intervals which would then be used to record and bill his time.
I wondered who paid for his daily dropping the kids at the pool, and the time he spent perusing his extensive porno mag collection that he had stashed under his desk.
Six minute blocks is the norm, AFAIK. My solicitor (He used to have a sheet on his desk with his day divided up into 6 minute (I think) intervals which would then be used to record and bill his time.
I wondered who paid for his daily dropping the kids at the pool, and the time he spent perusing his extensive porno mag collection that he had stashed under his desk.
)certainly does that, as did my missus.Generally, I think many solicitors have a chargeable hours target every day, and if that means they need to be in the office for 12 hours in order to hit their 7 hours chargeable, then so be it.
Edited by Doofus on Sunday 26th April 11:51
In law firms, not every unit recorded is billed - the partners make judgments on what is billable and what isn't. I am a barrister, but I have also been a partner in a law firm, so I've seen how the systems work in practice.
Clients, especially wealthy clients, wheeler deal and negotiate on fees, so some jobs are done on fixed fees, or on a fee cap, etc. Similarly, solicitors wheeler deal and negotiate with barristers on fees. It's all very markety.
Keeping this OT - back in about 1984 I was recommended and made an appointment to see a solicitor in the West End.
I asked him how much he charged.
He replied that he was charged out at £100.00 per hour.
I immediately looked at my watch, rose from the chair and ran towards his office door
.
He called me back and said that most of the work would be carried out by his clerk whose rate was much cheaper.
I replied that despite that assurance, I would need an estimate.
He gave me an estimate that was dependent on the case not getting as far as court.
It seemed fair to me, I agreed and he got a result without going to court, and kept exactly to his estimate.
He was well worth what I thought what an outrageous fee (36 years ago - what was the average wage?).
I asked him how much he charged.
He replied that he was charged out at £100.00 per hour.
I immediately looked at my watch, rose from the chair and ran towards his office door
.He called me back and said that most of the work would be carried out by his clerk whose rate was much cheaper.
I replied that despite that assurance, I would need an estimate.
He gave me an estimate that was dependent on the case not getting as far as court.
It seemed fair to me, I agreed and he got a result without going to court, and kept exactly to his estimate.
He was well worth what I thought what an outrageous fee (36 years ago - what was the average wage?)
.Breadvan72 said:
havoc said:
(Appreciate it's too late, but...) Wasn't the defence of 'fair comment' going to be enough? If you're not publishing anything knowingly incorrect (i.e. the only info has come from prior owners), then any threat is just bluster.
There is now no such thing as a defence of fair comment. Your knowledge of the law of defamation is several years out of date. In any event, passing on what was said by others would not have amounted to fair comment under the old law. 
Always happy to learn.
Breadvan72 said:
Clients, especially wealthy clients, wheeler deal and negotiate on fees, so some jobs are done on fixed fees, or on a fee cap, etc. Similarly, solicitors wheeler deal and negotiate with barristers on fees. It's all very markety.
Same with any trade in the real world with a mixture of fixed hourly rate, day rate or full project rates with the decision maker not always charging the full hours consumed.Targets for recorded and billable hours vary from firm to firm, but it's not uncommon for firms to expect staff to record seven hours a day, although usually not all of that has to be billable. There may be an annual target for billable hours, and performance review, bonuses, and promotions depend on performance against that target. The most aggressive targets tend to be set by US law firms.
The culture of the billable hour has many weaknesses, and can encourage bad habits in some lawyers, but it remains the model used by many if not most professional service firms in the legal and accountancy/insolvency sectors.
Self employed barristers have more flexibility on how they charge, and don't have any targets other than those they set themselves (similar to taxi drivers - some of whom set themselves a daily cash target, others of whom work a set number of hours, and others of whom just go with how they feel on any given day.).
The culture of the billable hour has many weaknesses, and can encourage bad habits in some lawyers, but it remains the model used by many if not most professional service firms in the legal and accountancy/insolvency sectors.
Self employed barristers have more flexibility on how they charge, and don't have any targets other than those they set themselves (similar to taxi drivers - some of whom set themselves a daily cash target, others of whom work a set number of hours, and others of whom just go with how they feel on any given day.).
Breadvan72 said:
The culture of the billable hour has many weaknesses, and can encourage bad habits in some lawyers, but it remains the model used by many if not most professional service firms in the legal and accountancy/insolvency sectors.
It's one of the key reasons I left practice...endless pressure to bill more. I was billing >>40 hours a week consistently but I was being badgered as a colleague who lived 15 mins from the office was putting in 4-5 hours more a week. Except I lived about an hour from the office...the maths isn't difficult to work out...
havoc said:
Breadvan72 said:
The culture of the billable hour has many weaknesses, and can encourage bad habits in some lawyers, but it remains the model used by many if not most professional service firms in the legal and accountancy/insolvency sectors.
It's one of the key reasons I left practice...endless pressure to bill more. I was billing >>40 hours a week consistently but I was being badgered as a colleague who lived 15 mins from the office was putting in 4-5 hours more a week. Except I lived about an hour from the office...the maths isn't difficult to work out...
jsf said:
Burwood said:
It still cracks me up that back in the early 2000’s we had a time sheet charge code, ‘available but unused’. It was all charged to our biggest clients
So you worked for a fraudster.When I worked for one of the Big Four, I had a Director colleague (so senior and expensive) who was something like 120 per cent utilised (in the parlance) for some six weeks on a specific client's work.
This involved him sitting in an ante-room waiting for a lackadaisical FD to find time to deal with him/brief him but who nonetheless demanded his physical presence onsite. My colleague offered several times to go away and come back.
In the event, I think my colleague's billable hours were considerably better even than the 120% because he was able to do other work while sitting on that very expensive leather sofa. The firm in question is still trading BTW.
Such episodes are rare however, although I was on a retainer from an overseas client for several years, who only called me to meet him for dinner when passed through London. I can only recall doing one minor piece of work for him. (And, no, I didn't charge him for the privilege of dining with me
). Getting back to classic cars. It is ironic that the legal profession bill as they do when Jim Stokes classic cars lost a case due to (contributory to) billing deficiencies.
https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
Unsorted said:
Getting back to classic cars. It is ironic that the legal profession bill as they do when Jim Stokes classic cars lost a case due to (contributory to) billing deficiencies.
https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
"It is unrealistic of restorers to expect anyone to accept that their employees work 9 – 9 ½ hour days with every minute of that time being worked on a specific project. Most solicitors, for instance, work on the basis that from an 8 hour working day about 5 ½ hours is spent on client’s matters."https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
It's not unrealistic at all to spend full days like that on a historic race car restoration, especially if the project is up against it time wise. Using an office based role as reference is stupid. One thing you can guarantee if you restore these cars is long days, they take huge man hours compared to modern kit, you can't buy a lot of parts, you have to make them from scratch and often have to reverse engineer from first principles. Even parts made by specialist as bought in to fit a known model need modifications to fit as these type of cars were hand built and every single one is different. It's one of the reasons why the hourly rate for this kind of work is much lower than a main dealer.
jsf said:
Unsorted said:
Getting back to classic cars. It is ironic that the legal profession bill as they do when Jim Stokes classic cars lost a case due to (contributory to) billing deficiencies.
https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
"It is unrealistic of restorers to expect anyone to accept that their employees work 9 – 9 ½ hour days with every minute of that time being worked on a specific project. Most solicitors, for instance, work on the basis that from an 8 hour working day about 5 ½ hours is spent on client’s matters."https://www.wilmotslitigation.co.uk/blog/2014/11/1...
It's not unrealistic at all to spend full days like that on a historic race car restoration, especially if the project is up against it time wise. Using an office based role as reference is stupid. One thing you can guarantee if you restore these cars is long days, they take huge man hours compared to modern kit, you can't buy a lot of parts, you have to make them from scratch and often have to reverse engineer from first principles. Even parts made by specialist as bought in to fit a known model need modifications to fit as these type of cars were hand built and every single one is different. It's one of the reasons why the hourly rate for this kind of work is much lower than a main dealer.
I work in aircraft maintenance and at various times over the years we've been subjected to the lean process and things like 5 or 6 S's. We also at times have had to use time sheets to account for our daily hours instead or we have to book on the job directly.
It's widely accepted that if you work an 8 hour day you will lose a certain amount of time not actually hands on (I think the lean blokes call it tack time). You have things like tea breaks,toilet breaks, training, we for instance have to unlock, and physically check that our tool kit is complete at the start and end of the day. Then you add things like sweeping up at the end of shift. All these tasks are to do with work and not directly on the customers job.
I believe there is a fairly standard percentage number that you can apply to any working day for time not spent actually hands on. We used to book 6.45 hours for a 7 1/2 hour day.
Just like your race car business, when you get into sheet metal and structures most aircraft parts don't fit out of the box and need fettling or trimming to fit, if you can't get them you end up making them etc. All of that is perfectly fine to bill the customer, as it's directly related to the job, but why should they pay for your tea or lunch breaks, or Nobby's fag breaks.
Burwood said:
It still cracks me up that back in the early 2000’s we had a time sheet charge code, ‘available but unused’. It was all charged to our biggest clients
I still recall that back then if a dealing issue cropped up shortly after 11am you had to still send a runner down to the pub to bring a senior dealer back to fix and that pub was full of the legal profession with just enough paperwork in tow to allow for billing. And when we went out for our lunchtime pint the legal profession were already well represented, then when our market shut at 4.30pm and we went to the pub before getting in the tube the bar was already two deep with them.
Back then the legal profession gave all the appearances of wandering out of Chancery Lane Stn at 10am, nipping to the office for some reason before taking up lodgings at the Sam Smiths at 11am.
I guess that’s why I had to have the humour of Rowell Burkin QC explained as it looked more like a documentary to me.
The seeming ability of the legal profession to remain consistently pissed all day every day was very impressive when you worked in an industry that had specialised shifting the same amount of booze down into the 4.30-6.30pm slot unpaid.
DonkeyApple said:
I guess that’s why I had to have the humour of Rowell Burkin QC explained as it looked more like a documentary to me.
The late Andrew Rollo.https://twitter.com/thefastshow1/status/1023115995...
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