Why do Law firms work crazy hours?

[Nickbrapp]

Too much work for too little staff, partners are too tight to hire more staff so they expect staff to do unpaid overtime

My partner was a trainee solicitor and would be expected to do his 9_5 then work in the evening, frequalntly rang on the weekends with a case bundle on a Sunday night to be in court 9am Monday morning

A friend is a solicitor, she works 9/5 then goes home and works again from 7/11 in convyencing.

All solicitors are tight aholes and I would avoid it at all costs

[Europa1]

kowalski655 said:

I'm sure things like conveyancing and wills are a nice 9-5

They weren't when I was a trainee - they were seen as a commodity, so done for fixed fees that were not a reflection of the hours required to do it properly x hourly rate, so volume (and therefore hours) was the driver.

[Europa1]

Breadvan72 said:

That culture has changed. I was on the phone yesterday to someone in our Guernsey office at 8pm BST.

Agreed, and not recently either - I remember working on a deal in the early 2000s which had a Jersey angle to it, and the lawyers in the firm we were working with were being beasted pretty much as badly as we were.

[loafer123]

I must have been using the wrong firms because it was a lot more recent than that

[anonymous-user]

[Commercial Break] Wanna biz card? [/Commercial Break]

[Terminator X]

10pm in the UK is 4pm somewhere else in the World, perhaps just a global firm?

TX.

[theguvernor15]

My OH is an accountant & she's 'expected' to work long hours to get work completed.
Currently she's probably doing an extra 1-2 hours a day, whilst i appreciate that's not necessarily a lot to some, to her it is, as she believes in a work/life balance, which is very much why she is leaving the accountancy world & time sheets behind.
The main reason in her practice was because the partners were offering fixed fee work at un-realistic budgets, meaning if she actually did the work at billable time, it would put the job over-budget, thus-meaning, the partner was then writing off her time & on her changeability statistics it made her changeability rate look pants.

[RDMcG]

I was doing a transaction the other day ( July 4) and the lawyers and bankers were in Canada, the meeting attendees were in Australia, California, UK and Western Canada. We eventually settled on a 7pm conference call, and regardless of it being a US holiday, everyone was on the call. This happens a lot and there is a necessity for people fo be available to get things done. I do not think its some kind of plot by legal firms, but client demands that drive the schedule.

[Rude-boy]

RDMcG said:

I was doing a transaction the other day ( July 4) and the lawyers and bankers were in Canada, the meeting attendees were in Australia, California, UK and Western Canada. We eventually settled on a 7pm conference call, and regardless of it being a US holiday, everyone was on the call. This happens a lot and there is a necessity for people fo be available to get things done. I do not think its some kind of plot by legal firms, but client demands that drive the schedule.

Exactly.

There are circumstances which demand unusual working hours. Daily 9-5 can mean up to 4 or 5 hours more when very busy. But. When a deal could so easily have been done in good time it can lead to unnecessary risk and additional cost on many levels and for all parties.

[anonymous-user]

Global business means global lawyering. Today I have interacted with lawyers, insurers, and clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, Moscow, Nicosia, London, and Dublin, on three distinct matters. Today is not an especially busy day. It is currently 3.30 in the afternoon in the Eastern Caribbean, and I expect to be at my desk until 7pm ish, assuming that nothing bonkers happens. But first I have to go and collect my motorbike, which I lent to a copper last weekend. It's parked up at the local nick.

[Countdown]

theguvernor15 said:

My OH is an accountant & she's 'expected' to work long hours to get work completed.
Currently she's probably doing an extra 1-2 hours a day, whilst i appreciate that's not necessarily a lot to some, to her it is, as she believes in a work/life balance, which is very much why she is leaving the accountancy world & time sheets behind.
The main reason in her practice was because the partners were offering fixed fee work at un-realistic budgets, meaning if she actually did the work at billable time, it would put the job over-budget, thus-meaning, the partner was then writing off her time & on her changeability statistics it made her changeability rate look pants.

That’s not unusual for working in a practice. If you want to make partner 50/60 hours a week is the norm. When I was doing my training quite a few of the senior managers were ex-Big 6 who had got to Director level and just fancied a better work-life balance.

[theguvernor15]

Countdown said:

That’s not unusual for working in a practice. If you want to make partner 50/60 hours a week is the norm. When I was doing my training quite a few of the senior managers were ex-Big 6 who had got to Director level and just fancied a better work-life balance.

Our FD also said the main reason he jumped from practice to industry was time-sheet decided!

[hyphen]

Nickbrapp said:

Too much work for too little staff, partners are too tight to hire more staff so they expect staff to do unpaid overtime

Nail, Head.

It's all bullst, only some will make partner, the rest will get put in the hours for nothing.