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  • Who's Online   38 Members, 1 Anonymous, 74 Guests (See full list)

    • ggg
    • StephenToast
    • BlockedQuebecois
    • mpbmgk
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    • frankconners
    • am0229
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    • Diplock
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    • myth000
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    • Dinsdale


  • Recent Posts

    • BlockedQuebecois
      The reason folks are reacting negatively to you demanding evidence is because: (i) you absurdly stated that nothing but objective accounting evidence from law firms would settle this internet debate, not even sworn affidavits from lawyers; and (ii) you keep making statements of fact without supporting evidence, notwithstanding your statement summarized above.  If you want us to take “a hard look at the numbers and mak[e] data-driven decisions”, feel free to share the data on which you’re basing your statements. If you’re not going to do that, perhaps objecting to everyone else’s statements on the basis they’re anecdotes rather than spreadsheets is not the most persuasive approach? 
    • sunnysunshine
      I would additionally be up for some accountability partners if anyone is looking to form a group! I'm also planning on writing the ON Bar in the Summer sitting in June.
    • secunda
      I would also be interested in study accountability buddies!
    • myth000
      Thank you for a providing scenario that can be logically analyzed.  It's pretty ridiculous that a straightforward discussion about the financial viability of hiring law students has somehow turned into a bunch of personal attacks and accusations of "sealioning".   The bottom line is that law firms are businesses. Analyzing whether a student's work brings in more money than it costs to hire and train them is a totally legitimate question.  What's with the idea that asking for evidence is inappropriate or shows a lack of understanding? In court, when a family judge asks for evidence to prove a spousal support claim is it met with accusations of sealioning?  That the judge doesn't understand the "realities of family life"? But apparently, when it comes to discussing the business side of law, we're supposed to just accept anecdotal stories and vague references to the "realities" of practice? The fact is, there's nothing wrong with taking a hard look at the numbers and making data-driven decisions.
    • Dinsdale
      Agree with above.  Another factor could be: how important is the client to which you are going to be seconded?  Does the responsible partner at the firm know about you and support the secondment?
    • Dinsdale
      OK, just for fun, let's assume that your highly questionable proposition that any student legal work you care to add to an invoice will be recovered at 80% is accurate.  Let's also make the generous assumption that the student creates 1,000 billable hours in his or her eight months of articles.  We bill the student at $250/hour, so the gross revenue is (0.80)(250)(1,000), or $200,000.  We pay the student $100,000.  By any reasonable metric (at a firm large enough to be paying students $100K at least), the student's overhead amount is at least $150,000 (a very conservative estimate).  So we're still $50,000 in the hole on this top-performing student.  God knows where we are on the slackers.
    • Diplock
      Just to add to my points above, I don't want to engage with @myth000 any more because whether he realizes it or not (and I don't think he does) he's sucking us all into sealion territory. And thank you to this forum for teaching me about that lately. Great term to have available. Because what we're talking about here is something that lawyers in real practice know and feel on a day-to-day level, but proving it somehow is damn near impossible. I want to step away from proving it for a moment and bring this back to reality. Talking about legal billings as though it's a topic divorced from the delivery of legal services is a mistake only a law student or perhaps a very green associate could ever make. Clients are paying to get work done - they don't care very much how it gets done as long as it gets done well. We can talk about marketing and the stupid things that clients care about that they shouldn't some other time, but the real task is simply getting the job done at a reasonable price. If a firm can do that, anything else is solvable. So, let's stop talking about what a student can be billed at completely, okay? Because that is genuinely a distraction. If three hours of a student's time billed at $150/hour can add significantly more value to a file than one hour of a mid-tier associate's time billed at $450/hour then absolutely that student is contributing value. Which means that the bill should be paid willingly by a client (because the work is getting done) and the student should be compensated well for their work (because the firm is generating value). The question was never "is a client going to pay this bill when practice management software spits it out at them?" The question is "can the student actually deliver meaningful value on the file by working those hours?" If the answer is "yes" we're in the territory just mentioned. If the answer is "no" we're in fantasy land, as advocated by @myth000 where the value is irrelevant if you just bill the time. That's why any time someone asks what students should be paid, knowledgeable lawyers want to talk about what that student can contribute in terms of meaningful value with their work - not how a bill gets generated. And the reality is, almost all of the time, a completely green summer student takes more time to supervise than their work is actually worth. In a practice where that isn't true, we can absolutely be talking about what that student deserves to earn. In a practice where it is true, the student is a net loss and more an investment in the future than an income-generating asset. I mean, honestly, if you've ever done HR work you know that onboarding a new employee at all - even a fully trained professional - takes significant time and investment. That's why unnecessary churn in a workforce is detrimental to any business. It strains credibility to imagine bringing on a student for just the summer is going to generate profit. That would have to be one star student, with significant related skills, ready to hit the ground running. Just saying. Anyway. I'm not unwilling to have a conversation about this. But let's talk reality. The marketplace pays for actual work. Billings reflect reality. If students generate meaningfully valuable work for their employers during the summers they are employed, significantly in excess of the costs of having them in the first place, then that is the argument for paying them well. And that's true, btw, even if their time never appears on a bill. What they are billed at, or even if they are billed at all, is a complete distraction from the meaningful question at hand.  
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