Today in the American Lawyer, a frank and insightful open letter from Dentons senior partner Jana Cohen Barbe was published. The message was directed primarily toward the devastating toll the billable hour model is taking on our mental health and our profession.

 

 

The pressure to work seven days a week, to miss family events, to forgo vacations, to miss needed doctor’s appointments—can not be overstated

Says Barbe “… billable hours and revenue generation are the two key metrics in how law firms compensate attorneys…. Partners, including the most senior, …have billable-hour targets and their compensation may rise or fall with the achievement or missing of those targets. Barbe goes on to slam the model and correctly notes: “The pressure then—to work seven days a week, to miss family events, to forgo vacations, to miss needed doctor’s appointments—can not be overstated. If you are like me, you feel guilty taking a Saturday or Sunday off, and it takes several days to let go of the guilt and begin to feel the relaxing effects of a vacation.”

Seriously, is this any way to live? To have a meaningful life?

Seriously, is this any way to live? To have a meaningful life?

I’ve thought for a long time that our profession’s emphasis on billable hours is horrendous to personal and even professional relationships and professional opportunities. It forces us to make too many time/value judgments based purely on whether an activity is billable. It forces people away from real life and into a world where everything is billable (important), or not (not important). If it’s not billable, it better be very important.

But how many real-life (nonbillable) conversations start without little apparent importance but rapidly turn into or lead to the very important?

And how many professional and personal opportunities do we miss by making value judgments from the start based on a billable v. nonbillable analysis. How many times do we fail to take advantage of business development or personal enriching opportunities because to do so requires the investment of time that’s not billable?

Beyond that, let’s face it, the billable hour model leads us to often overdo our work resulting in our clients being charged too much compared to the problems they have asked us to solve. We inherently and consciously or unconsciously resist technologies and processes that would bring greater efficiency since that generally means we can’t bill as many hours. We resist taking the time to do things most very other business routinely does because we can’t charge for it. Things like long term planning, training and mentoring, research, and development. It’s not surprising as a business and profession we lag in such things as innovation and efficiency.

We like to think of ourselves as engaging in a “profession,” a noble calling. However, despite this exercise in self-aggrandizement, us noble lawyers have only a vague notion of any obligation to the profession or society. Because we focus exclusively on the billable hour, our system deprives the public of needed services: that shit’s not billable, man.

It’s no wonder we rank the highest of any profession in substance abuse and suicide

It’s no wonder we rank the highest of any profession in substance abuse and suicide. It’s no wonder we have the highest rate of dissatisfaction of any profession.

Says Barbe, “I am tired of seeing good partners, talented associates, and top-notch staff fight each other and fight their own worst impulses—because that is, most fundamentally, what our industry is motivating them to do.”

Why’s Barbe’s letter important? It’s an honest statement and assessment from a senior partner in one of the world’s largest law firms, a firm that makes a lot of money billing by the hour. Not just any senior partner: Barbe was Dentons first global vice chair appointed from the United States. She represents some of the world’s leading financial institutions and insurance companies.

Her letter is a manifesto by a big law leader that our business model is not only bad business, it is not worth it terms of the human and professional costs.

Her letter is a manifesto by a big law leader that our business model is not only bad business, it is not worth it terms of the human and professional costs. It’s a public declaration that the model is flawed, and we desperately need change.

Moreover, it should escape no one’s attention that it comes from a woman leader. Which is precisely why, as a profession, we need more women and diverse people in law leadership positions.

The time has come: let’s drive a stake once and for all in the billable hour. For our own sake.