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Assessing Attorney Productivity

There are quite a few ways by which law firms may determine the productivity of attorneys, paralegals and other timekeepers. After each option we've included a simple relevant Legalmaster report. All of these reports were created with MIRC, Legalmaster's report writer. Although any of these reports can reflect each matter or client, in the interest of conserving space we've opted for summaries.

  1. The simplest analysis is the number of hours worked and the value of that time.

      Transaction date                 I 03/01/03 - 03/31/03
    

    Act Actual Actual Emp Actual employee name Hours Dollars

    JSR Jacob S. L. Rubin 131.00 41,550.00 PHR Phillip H. Rubin 155.40 30,039.00 ------------- --------------- 286.40 71,589.00 ============= ===============

    Here we see that Jacob worked 131 hours in March, while Phillip worked 155.4 hours.

  2. If you have attorneys who spend a significant amount of non-billable time on administrative or pro-bono matters, you may wish to find a way to include that time for comparison purposes with attorneys whose time is all or mostly billable.

                Transaction date                 I 03/01/03 - 03/31/03
    

    Act Actual Actual Non-Billable Non-Billable Emp Actual employee name Hours Dollars Hours Dollars

    JSR Jacob S. L. Rubin 131.40 41,674.00 0.40 124.00 LL Laurie Leiber 145.50 27,645.00 42.00 7,980.00 PHR Phillip H. Rubin 159.20 30,628.00 3.80 589.00 ------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- 436.10 99,947.00 46.20 8,693.00 ============= =============== ============= ===============

    Laurie worked as many hours as did Jacob, but a significant portion of hers were non-billable.

  3. Many firms distinguish the "actual" value of time worked from its ultimate "billable" value. For example, you may work on a matter for two hours at, let's say, $200 per hour, but whoever is responsible for making billing decisions on that matter may choose to bill only $300 for your efforts. As a result, your "effective" billing rate is not $200 per hour, but $150, since you billed $300 for two hours work. Another way to consider this is that you have "written down" your time by $100.

                          Transaction date                 I 03/01/03 - 03/31/03
    

    Act Actual Actual Billable Billable Write Down Non-Billable Non-Billable Effective Emp Hours Dollars Hours Dollars Dollars Hours Dollars Bill Rate

    JSR 131.40 41,674.00 107.00 33,150.00 8,524.00 0.40 124.00 252.28 LL 145.50 27,645.00 101.00 19,190.00 8,455.00 42.00 7,980.00 131.89 PHR 159.20 30,628.00 139.10 27,023.50 3,604.50 3.80 589.00 169.75 ------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- --------------- ------------- --------------- 436.10 99,947.00 347.10 79,363.50 20,583.50 46.20 8,693.00 ============= =============== ============= =============== =============== ============= ===============

    Here we see how much each of our timekeepers "wrote down" (i.e., elected not to bill). Notice that the actual dollars minus the write-down dollars equals the billable dollars.

  4. Some firms make a distinction between billed and unbilled time. If you bill many matters quarterly, for example, your "billable time" for a month may be quite different from what you actually bill, since much of what's billed at the end of a month may be two or three months old.

  5. Some firms are concerned with what is actually received from clients on work performed by a particular attorney. In this case, of course, the receipt may take place months after the work is billed.

    Here's March's fee receipts broken down by who performed the original service.

                                                  03/01/03-
                                                   03/31/03
    WA   Working atty name                      Fee Payment
    

    CJOC Carl J. Ornstein 1,997.39 DLB Duane Louise Berman 2,213.20 DLR Doris L. Roxnolds 425.50 HJ Harry Jolson 3,564.07 JSR Jacob S. L. Rubin 33,609.79

    LL Laurie Leiber 4,365.37 PHR Phillip H. Rubin 12,485.16 SLC Sarah L. Church 869.23 -------------- 59,529.71 ==============

  6. An interesting corollary of the later calculation is how long it takes to collect fees based upon who performed the work.

    This report distributes March's fee payments based upon when the invoices were originally billed. We even added a percentage column (at the far right) for the totals. We can see here which attorneys' work takes longer to be paid.

            b 01/01/02-     b 11/01/02-     b 12/01/02-     b 01/01/03-     b 02/01/03-     b 01/01/02-   b 01/01/02-
               10/30/02        11/30/02        12/31/02        01/31/03        02/28/03        02/28/03      02/28/03
    WA      Fee Payment     Fee Payment     Fee Payment     Fee Payment     Fee Payment     Fee Payment     Fee Pmt %
    

    CJOC 402.20 0.00 148.50 1,446.69 0.00 1,997.39 3.36 DLB 887.43 0.00 210.00 1,115.77 0.00 2,213.20 3.72 DLR 0.00 0.00 0.00 425.50 0.00 425.50 0.71 HJ 0.00 1,674.07 1,040.00 850.00 0.00 3,564.07 5.99 JSR 1,340.66 1,573.66 1,283.03 29,412.44 0.00 33,609.79 56.46

    LL 0.00 462.34 741.45 3,161.58 0.00 4,365.37 7.33 PHR 268.13 449.93 829.52 10,530.58 407.00 12,485.16 20.97 SLC 0.00 0.00 0.00 869.23 0.00 869.23 1.46 -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- 2,898.42 4,160.00 4,252.50 47,811.79 407.00 59,529.71 100.00 ============== ============== ============== ============== ============== ==============

  7. While all of the above reports look at data based upon who did the work, the same analyses may be made based upon who is responsible for each matter (the billing attorney) or who brought the client to the firm (the originating attorney).

Return me to the list of Frequently Asked Questions.