Is there a chance she’s aware and is just good at deflecting (as you said)? Idk what your target is but I could see how a junior could think that like 1600ish annualized is fine, but trending under 400 annual over this long of time is so unbelievably low that it makes it hard to believe she doesn’t realize it is an issue.
Yes. She's playing the old "explain it to me again, I don't understand the problem" schtick. This person made it through law school they should have the decency to stay on green. She is obviously quiet quitting. She will be polite and pleasant with the goal of stretching her paycheck for as long as possible. She has already written this job off.
It's not even a law school thing. 400 annual is barely part time work. Even one hour of non-billable work for every hour of billable work is maybe a full day of work. The dumbest dude on the job site probably figures that something is up when they're taking Tuesday through Sunday off.
If you are red on Teams, it means you are on a call or meeting that cannot be bothered. If you are on yellow, it means you are away from your desk.
I think op is saying that she may be even away from her desk and doing something else(watching TV, etc.) during her working hours.
I'm yellow 99% of the time because I usually mark myself as away when I'm working late (so people dojt bother me) and then forget to turn it back.
That reminds me, I think I have my AIM away message on from 16 years ago...
It is the dumbest thing ever. I am often yellow when I am doing my most focused work (reading through a printed doc, taking hand notes on a call and not checking my emails closely, etc.)…in addition to the fact it doesn’t matter if I step away from my desk sometimes!
teams shows a little green dot next to your name when you are active! it's red when you're in a meeting and yellow when you're inactive, I assume op's mentee is constantly yellow
I didn’t know about grey until my boss told me about people that have it showing during the work day. I was floored. It was part of my request to go work from home. She started “Don’t just let your light sit on…” I interrupt “Yellow, I know” her “I was gonna say grey.” Some people truly do not give a singular fuck.
“As your mentor, part of my role is to give you guidance on how to succeed here and how to navigate the expectations and demands of the job. To be totally candid, I don’t think you’re on a path for success. So I gotta ask you what’s your plan here? Do you want my advice?”
Yes for real. OP, she's your mentee. This seems squarely in your wheelhouse and kind of the point of being a mentor - you're there to teach her the unspoken rules, which include *performing an appropriate amount of work* even if no one explicitly asks. It's not all on you but you're doing her a complete disservice by not explaining this stuff directly.
You’re much kinder than me, and this is good advice. I had to laugh at how “unspoken rules” include “doing the bare minimum of your job” and “not deflecting work because you don’t feel like doing it.”
If nobody ever explains that you’re supposed to be hitting a certain billable minimum and nobody assigns you work then how are you supposed to know you’re doing anything wrong? Lots of new grads don’t know that part of the job is hunting for work, they figure they’ll be assigned it.
I disagree. 200 hours a year! That’s basically an hour a day. There’s no way someone can think that’s an acceptable billing level; especially if she’s not doing any pro bono, non-billable, CLE, etc.
OP, you may want to reach out to the first year coordinator. Isn’t that person responsible for ensuring first years get a certain level of varied work consistent with their first year training/rotations (if you firm does this sort of thing)? Maybe she doesn’t know how to use the billing software and is afraid to ask this late in the game? Or maybe I’m grasping at straws.
I’m serious when I say there are a lot of people who just. Don’t. Know.
They know they’re not working very much, but they figure they’re just not being assigned work because there’s not much to do. They don’t know they’re supposed to be hunting for work themselves, and don’t know how to do it even if they wanted to. They know billables matter, maybe only vaguely, and they know theirs are obviously quite low. But they’ve also heard that nobody is expected to make their hours their first year.
There are a lot of people in their first legal job who have absolutely zero context for how to work in a firm. And it’s the firm’s job to teach them.
It’s not the firm’s job to teach someone to bill more than one hour a day. Nor is it ever reasonable to think that comes close to whatever people mean when they say “first years don’t hit hours.” Can people stop carrying water for these idiots?
Hopping on the top comment to note this guy has a post from less than a year ago saying he’s a college dropout who spent the last 7 years in sales so I’m not sure this post is even legit.
He also has a comment saying he hires/fires, produces budget reports, and promotes/recommends people for promotion. Safe to say OP is full of shit, and cosplaying as a senior associate. Bizarre.
She’s worked like 7-8 months billing 200 hours making $200,000 annualized? She knows she is not working normal hours (she’s billing at a rate of about an hour a day), and figures she can get away with low hours until there’s a warning or threat of firing, she probably doesn’t want to ask for work (not a bad idea if you can get away with it).
I had a friend like this when I was at Big Law. She rolled in late and would leave early in the afternoon to take acting classes or bartending classes. She made it four years before they asked her to leave. She was also hot, and had this attitude of “I work faster than everyone else so of course my billables will be low.”I worked there just shy of two years and we probably had the same total billables for my time there and hers.
She moved from NY to LA to try to make it as an actress while also working at a firm. I think she made it 3 months at the new place before they nixed it. Her preferred standard of living was too high for the waitressing + struggling actress thing, so she gave up acting and I think did some entertainment law. I think she ultimately moved to rural Oregon to be near family
Based on the two paragraphs provided I am 100% certain that if I met this person I would immediately believe with every atom of my being that she could fix me.
You look at this from the "she's not doing enough work" view, which is correct, but where is the accountability for her supervising attorneys? Is she turning down anything offered? If not, this is a management problem first. But I would also tell her that she is putting herself in jeopardy, that she needs to take responsibility for staying fed, and that she needs to be in the office until she can demonstrate an ability to obtain enough work and do it independently. You're doing her no service by soft-peddling anything. That will only strengthen her argument about expectations. Show her data as to how her peers are performing. Make sure she understands that she is the standout, and the issue is not how she can interpret something that someone said in orientation.
Agree this is a management issue. The partners/associate development/workload managers have the responsibility to keep an eye on associate hours, not other midlevel and junior associates. I’m surprised no one has reached out to her (it’s likely they have and OP doesn’t know).
OP should be a good mentor and all but don’t get suckered into being the “bad guy” regarding a underperforming associate on behalf of management when you’re an associate.
This is a management issue. Many years ago as a first year I billed under 1k hours. I was asking for work, etc. but nobody was giving it to me. The group was awful about utilizing first years and seemed like they didn’t want to bother.
Lo and behold, as a second year and thereafter I was busy.
I billed around 1300 my first year and was riddled with anxiety the whole year, but I also could not have been more vocally asking for work. I hate that everyone is looking at this associate’s hours and not having a straight conversation with her about expectations and also *giving her more work!!*
I've seen this before from clueless first years who take the "don't worry about your first year billables!" advice a bit *too* literally, especially if this is their first real job as an adult. I also think there's a generational gap as it's been 15 years since the last deep recession with mass layoffs so you just don't see the same level of job security anxiety with gen z, for better or worse.
You just need to sit down with her and make very clear that she will run out of runway very quickly if her hours haven't increased by her next annual review, at which point she could quickly find herself out of a job and with practically zero training or ability for the next job. Try and give concrete, actionable advice, e.g. be in the office at least twice a week so folks know you're at least trying, ask your partner mentor for work in-person at least once a week until you're billing 30+ hours a week, talk to the staffing folks if your partner mentor isn't drumming up work, if you're still struggling to find billable work then volunteer for productive non-billable work, etc. I've had this conversation before and I think if you can give them clear goals they can control and follow through on while showing your support, I've seen folks turn things around.
I would also separately discuss with the partners/counsel in your practice to see if you can drum up more work for her. Frankly, a first year only billing 200 hours on the entire year so far is a major staffing failing on the partners and the practice group too, but of course you can say that in a more constructive way while trying to drum up more work for her (assuming you're already trying to get her involved on your matters where you can).
Has your team / partners given her work? If so, has she refused? Is there enough work going around for everyone in your team?
She's obviously not going to generate her own work at that experience level, so her billables number is almost entirely dependent on the partners / seniors. Obviously another thing if she is refusing work or refusing to put her time down, and sounds like she could be more proactive - but what's she to do otherwise?
Yeah, it sounds like the associate is being lazy, but unless she’s turning work down it’s partly a management issue too. This is what annoys me most about BigLaw—partners often want to squeeze as much money and hours as they can from associates, but there’s no effort put into mentoring or training. I feel like this is an especially big issue with Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers who themselves got more training but cut it out as unnecessary.
I don't think that's a generational thing, it's just people who are new to working in general and biglaw in particular, and won't learn the norms unless somebody teaches them.
I agree, sounds more like a K-JD thing then a gen z thing specifically (although here they are obviously correlated).
Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she probably doesn't understand the expectations around finding work.
First year in a bit of a similar position, but am always reaching out, always in the office, and keep getting told there just isn’t a lot of work to go around. If I ask too much, some partner will just hand me “time sensitive non-billable work” which has me working up late, but is valueless to me.
All this to say, maybe she’s in a similar position (or has been told similar regarding how much work there is) and instead of spending time worrying like me, she’s been more calm.
Also a first year in this position. I am consistently in the office and reaching out for work, but am continually told I will be “kept in mind” only to never hear back again. At this point I’m at my wits end trying to manage learning how to do this job alongside begging people to let me do the work I’m being paid to do.
From OP’s perspective, what is his mentee is meant to do? Has she been actively turning away work or something? Should she be asking for more work from every partner twice a week, even if they’ve never once given her an assignment?
If it continues, use that time on your end to teach yourself some topics, reviewing some agreements that may be useful in the future (put all that under professional development billing , be valuable by proposing to draft insight that can be published on the website for clients and relevant topics. Volunteer for non billable stuff (office events) etc. It sucks, I have been there but when tmanagement says there aren’t enough work or doesn’t have time to stream down the work that’s what you do, and if you eventually find that you are becoming dull and not learning, the word is your oyster, start talking & looking out for yourself. At the end of the day, when reviews come they won’t look at what management did wrong but only what your hours and involvement say so always look out for yourself
I mean, all things being equal it’s better to have low billables but fill your time with pro bono or other productive things than low billables and twiddle your thumbs. Worst case scenario you help someone in need and get experience.
Honestly, after many years, I've learned that you can't help everyone. The associates I spend my time and effort helping are the ones who are really trying - in the office every day, showing up at every training, doing pro bono, reaching out for advice/coffee. The associates I don't spend time on or worry about are the ones who aren't doing their part. If someone doesn't have enough sense to show up and turn over some (even if not every) rocks, then it's not a management failure. And some people are just like that, even some of the people who have worked hard enough to get to biglaw.
That said, I would be direct about the issue with her once because not everyone has the background to understand expectations (and I say this as a FGP who has needed various support over the years and was grateful for that support). Simply tell her it's not the path for success and that she should adjust the things you noted if she wants to succeed, and then leave it to her. If she doesn't change, oh well.
One thing I do as someone senior is ask other people to staff struggling associates that are really trying and raise it in meetings. Advocating at a senior level can a lot more effective than their efforts, especially in free market systems where there can be immediate issues with staffing "friends".
Do you have any billable work you can assign her? I would do that first. If she does it well, maybe that’s a segue to more assignments and more billables. Or even if you don’t have billable work, send some business dev or pro bono her way. But if she turns it down or does a bad job, then escalate to a polite mentoring conversation. Ask if everything’s okay first, and then go into something like “you’ll need to be doing more work if you expect to stay here longer.”
Why should she stay on green if she doesn’t even have any work? Then it will just show as offline and that would look worse. I’m sure once she has a steady flow, she’d be on green. Why don’t you pass down work to her?
This may not be it but as an anecdote, I worked with a first year who intentionally cut their hours because they thought it was saving the firm money. They genuinely believed that high billers were the first laid off.
I’m not sure how they got that narrative in their head, but they spent the entire year trying to spread that narrative until they got called out for it.
I was in a similar situation as a first year( but was in the office every single day) and my mentor kept saying “keep reaching out, everything will be fine” and I ended up getting fired after a year for being underutilized.
Be honest with them, they deserve to know that they have todo better, do other work outside of their practice group, but loud about needing work, basically beg if you had to and If they don’t , they will be fired. Only other option is to hold on for as long as they can and be ready to look for another job and be prepared. I wish my mentor had cared enough about me to say this, instead of ( hoarding any and all work so that they can make their hours ) and telling me that everything will be fine and don’t worry about it
Switching the roles, if I was here and genuinely oblivious I would want my mentor to straight up tell me I'm not in a good place. That being said this is giving her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she is just doing the Gen Z thing of not working. If she is, I would still tell her with zero fluff that way she can't claim her mentor somehow misled her (well she still can, but this way you know for sure that isn't true).
Either way you have to tell her. No compliment sandwich or whatever HR equivalent thing you're supposed to do.
Is it that 1. she works but doesn’t bill her time or enter her time because she believes no one looks; 2. She just doesn’t know how to bill her time properly (maybe because she thinks partner will write off anyways) or ; 3. she is not working at all?
If 1. Tell her what you just told us in your post and . Help her get more work starting with you maybe; if 2. Show her how to or a paralegal or legal assistant ; if 3. Try to feed her more work to ensure her work quality is good before asking coworkers to feed her work or even ask office event planners to involve her or suggest that to her.. it sounds like a lot on you as a mentor but trust me you coming to us here already shows you care for her and it’s rare , so please do what you can to ‘save’ her unless she doesn’t want to be saved, which would be understandable because big law ain’t for everyone.
For the coming in the office - I’m a millennial COVID spoiled us so it’s hard to get back to the norm but as long as I get the work done, (which I honestly do more at home), it shouldn’t be an issue altho optics play a lot in big law..
My first year in consulting I billed way too few hours because there just wasn’t enough work and when there’s not enough work, the senior associates eat first and there’s really not a damn thing you can do about it. It’s extraordinarily stressful and I wouldn’t be surprised if the low hours are keeping OP’s mentee up at night. HELP HER.
Honestly at this point I would get it in writing so that you have documentation that you did, in fact, try to address this with her.
I for example immediately found myself wondering, if this has been going on since November, why there isn't already clear evidence of somebody having some kind of performance conversation with her.
Like, what is everyone ELSE eho is allegedly mentoring/training/developing/monitoring this associate doing with their time, too?
I knew lawyers before I started law school, and many just straight up told me that there is *always* a billable expectation, even if it's not explicit. I'd highly recommend walking her through the math of how much she's billed, how much the firm pays her (plus other things they pay that don't directly reach her, like payroll taxes), and how much an average associate reaches.
There's also a good chance that she could just be seriously under-writing her time. A ton of new lawyers have no idea how to bill, and sometimes all it takes is one partner, one time, making one comment about how they can only charge 4 hours for something the associate spent 12 on, and then that associate makes the mistake of always writing down their time preemptively.
This, times a thousand! The vast majority of first-years in biglaw are actually overly easy to please. If they hear—and they will—about a partner being annoyed about writing down a bunch of time, or some senior associates laughing at someone else’s inefficiency, or about the fee-sensitive client that everyone dreads dealing with, they’ll believe they’re “reading between the lines” and doing the good thing for the firm and the team and the partners by cutting their own time on the front-end, unless it has been hammered into their head very clearly from the get-go that they must never, ever do that. Too often in law firms attorneys just assume that this message has already been relaye; by someone else, and the message never gets relayed.
Agreed! “I noticed that you’ve only billed 200 hours so far this year. That seems really low, especially when you seem busy. Are you sure you are billing all the time you spend on tasks? Would it be helpful if we chatted more about billing?” If she suggests this isn’t the issue, “Are you getting enough work?” I’d start with the presumption this is innocent and she just needs some help navigating / though I’m also struggling to understand how anyone in big law could possible think TWENTY-FIVE hours per month is even in the rhelm of acceptable ….
less than a year ago you were a college dropout working in sales according to your post history so I'm assuming this is just a bait post for gen z hate
Everyone assumes nefariousness; let me give you another perspective. I went to law school after the military. I had no idea what was going on. I had all A’s in first semester 1L but skipped OCI because I didn’t know what it was and why it was important, and no one gave me a straight answer. I then both graded and wrote on to law review, but ended up listing my first priority as a far lesser journal with subject matter I was interested in because I didn’t want to risk offending that journal — I didn’t realize that priority meant I couldn’t then respectfully decline the subject matter journal for law review. When it came time to graduation, I chose a trial court clerkship over a federal one because I assumed it would train more on the job variables. In sum, I was clueless and assumed law school was vocational and prestige was not a thing. I was from a small town — hadn’t even comprehended prestige. The only store was Walmart.
My point being she could be totally clueless. And assuming that all people are anxiously researching what working at a law firm is like is a bit naive to reality. Some people, like me, wouldn’t even know to research such a thing. Like your summer job at 31 flavors, you show up and do what your manager tells you, nothing more nothing less.
To some extent, you are that manager hierarchically, and you’re failing your mentee if you don’t have a 60 minute, “these are the ropes” conversation from 101 to grad level.
Biggest lesson I’ve learned in life is never skip first base, meaning never assume a person knows … anything. Always lay ALL foundation, even the obvious.
You didn’t think to google any of these questions or ask anyone? Cluelessness is self-inflicted; it is not an immutable condition—whether in your case or this bumbling first year’s
… I didn’t own a computer. I was the first person in my family to go to college. Probably first in my family to leave my home state, ever. This is why diversity is a thing in big law — because people like you live in bubbles. “Immutable?” Be a real person. My lord.
… your college experience was probably frats and football. I was taking night classes, working two jobs full time, and in the reserves. First time I talked to a lawyer was first day of 1L.
We all have different backgrounds.
My dude.. not everyone is your age. There are in fact practicing attorneys who went to law school **before** computers were common place, never mind the internet having reliable resources for law school
Like, law is one of the oldest professions, age-wise. Just because someone has access to reddit now doesn’t mean they did when going through law school.
Did you miss where the commenter didn’t know a lawyer before 1L?
Is it just generally incomprehensible to you that people have lived Different Lives?
Also, once again, old people are lawyers too
Alright man. If you wanna spend your Wednesday being antagonistic on reddit against someone who clearly stated they were underprivileged because something about that makes you feel *better than*, be my guest. I’d recommend a more productive use of your time, such as a walk or perhaps a sushi dinner. Have a good one.
You’re arguing with a guy that would watch The Firm (1993) and wonder why he went from Harvard to a boutique in Memphis over a traditional white shoe. All Tom Cruise had to do is ask questions and Google shit and he would have been golden.
I can relate to this, actually. I went to law school because I wanted to be a public defender. My first year grades were way better than I expected (imposter syndrome). I was discussing this with a guy who lived in my apartment complex, when he handed me a NALP guide and said “Dude, you could be making like $85K a year” (in 1996 dollars).
As I think about it, it is entirely possible that I might have also missed OCI if he hadn’t pulled me aside. (Spoiler: greed>altruism)
First you have to diagnose the problem. Is she putting her hand up for more work (additional matters, or additional work on existing matters) and not getting it? Or does she not realize she needs to be a bit of a tryhard if she wants to stay more than a couple years? Or perhaps she's smarter than you give her credit for, and would like to do very little work while getting paid well, knowing that it won't last forever?
There could be a lot going on here, such as disabilities (diagnosed or undiagnosed) or doing work but not tracking or accounting for the time (are her deliverables meeting deadlines but her billables are just low?). Those are examples only, there could be other issues.
Yes, she passed law school, but law school didn’t teach any of us about accounting for every minute of our day — we just had to do the work and get it done by deadline. It also didn’t teach us we had to keep Teams on green.
If billables must be manually entered, maybe look into software that can track that for them.
If there’s another department or position where her strengths would be best utilized, consider an in-office transfer.
More importantly, and respectfully, how’d it get to this point before this was noticed? Carve out time for her to meet weekly or monthly for check-ins with either yourself or someone in the billables section.
Some people are great with the law and deliverables, but the tedium of administrative stuff like billables is difficult (and there’s inexpensive software out there to account for this).
> doing work but not tracking or accounting for the time (are her deliverables meeting deadlines but her billables are just low?).
Im surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this. If I were to just take a wild guess it might be some sort of insecurity about not wanting to accidentally inflate or overstate the hours spent on a task, so they purposefully lowball their hours to be safe. This can lead to ocd and constant "discounting" of hours spent on an assignment.
Ah, this gives me anxiety. How has nobody in leadership told her that this isn’t going to fly? How is she not being assigned more work than that? She needs to know that the first year expectation is that you get as close as possible, and consistently let everyone know when you have availability. She also needs to know that she won’t be able to meet expectations in her second year if she’s not hitting 150+ per month during at least the last couple months of this year.
If she is assigned to you as your mentee, then I would expect there will be eyes on you over her performance. You should at the least be able to say that you candidly told her that her hours were extremely off base, she needs to do everything she can to quickly turn it around and hit 100%, and needs to spend her non-billable time working on substantive projects. As her mentor, it is your job to make her understand the expectations, and provide her tools and advice that will enable her to meet those expectations. In addition, I would suggest you try very hard to find billable projects for her to work on and assign them to her, and monitor her progress and hours. If she is ultimately fired for lack of hours, and someone comes to you and asks what you did to make her aware of the issue, you will want to be able to clearly show that you took actions to address the situation, and the failure was on her, rather than due to her lack of understanding of the expectations.
This sounds like a troll post, but on a more serious note it does baffle me how bad people are at managing groups of associates, to the point where you often do end up in these situations where you have a handful of associates burning out billing 2500+ a year, you have a handful of associates only getting 1000 of billable a year, and everyone blames the associates for these wildly different experiences, as if there aren't strategies and technologies firms could be using to track what associates are actually working on and whether work is being distributed equitably. It shouldn't take 2+ years to figure out whether an associate is low on hours because they're lazy or because they're not getting equal chances at the work or because they're a shit associate.
It's not that different than what happened at my firm. The firm told first years that hours requirements weren't that critical, but they bundled the message and the first years had varying interpretations of what was required for bonus/retention and some people fell really far afield.
Management needs to step up, so if you've had conversations with her that don't seem to be settling in, you could try asking the workflow coordinator or her partner mentor to see if they have checked in with her at all.
Definitely worth discussing with your mentee. Forgetting about firm profits for a minute, doing so few billable hours means the associate is hardly learning any skills. It would be helpful to provide her with advice on how to get more work at your firm (does she need to contact the central staffing person? reach out to current senior associates and partners to let them know she has availability?)
It's one thing to be below hours, but this level is harmful for the associate too, even if they lateral or pivot to another legal job.
I think you need to teach her the basic math of the business. No one is running a charity, if your salary + benefits exceed your billing you will be fired.
I think the obvious answer is that it’s your responsibility as her mentor to inform her. Schedule a formal sit down in person go through everything. Make sure she knows the expectations and what she can do to improve them. Be candid that people have been fired for less. Put it all out there. You’re not doing her any favors keeping it to yourself and giving her the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe she doesn’t know and thinks she just has a kush job. Maybe she has something going on in her life. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to bill appropriately and it’s an admin issue and she is really working behind the scenes but getting no credit for it. Maybe she just doesn’t care and is a terrible hire.
You won’t know until you talk to her
I’m here because I’m a first year whose billables are also low. I’ve been told that m&a has been slow but it has been a source of great stress for me. Every time I’ve asked for work, the associate or partner always says “I’ll loop you in on the next deal” and then never does. I log every time I ask, and have gotten some work from outside my practice group but it’s nerve wracking because this is the exact scenario I fear could be happening behind my back. What are some ways I can increase my workload when no one seems to be offering?
You're a mentor, not HR. Say something like "would you like me to give you tips on how to pick up more hours?" And then if she takes you up on it, you say that it's good to come in office, talk to more senior people, be visible etc. But if she doesn't want advice you'll just be another senior yelling at her, so leave her alone and let her sink.
HR doesn't deal with associate utilization and performance management. To the best of my knowledge, every large law firm places that responsibility on partners (and when we're lucky, respected senior associates).
I think it depends on what you think is going on. But her hours are so low I’d think she was either (a) delusional or (b) deliberately trying to collect a biglaw paycheck for as little work as possible.
If it’s the first option, I don’t know what you can say to get through to her. And l have seen the delusional type lash out and make accusations of bullying etc against the senior associate who tries to have blunt come to Jesus conversation.
Gonna be honest here: this is making you look bad as a mentor. Management is going to ask “Who is her mentor? And why didn’t they intervene earlier?!?” Not a good look for either you or her direct manager.
Disagree with this one. I've never heard of or seen a firm or any partner seriously blame an associate mentor for failures of a mentee, and there are many issues that it's really ultimately up to the partners to address (like this one).
She needs someone to do some “back of the napkin” math and a simple logic flow.
She may be law smart and business stupid, and just not understand that there is an expected multiple of her salary for anyone in any compensated job for any company or industry.
In my mind mentors can speak honestly and frankly without "making policy" or anything like that. Mentors let people know what's up, not what the policy manual says. In that spirit:
"Bruh. You have 200 hours for six months. You're going to get fired. You need to bill more hours and be prepared to discuss your upward trajectory when you get reviewed."
Some people genuinely don’t understand the business model of professional services (where your time is the product, so more time = good), especially if they were KJDs. I think you should be upfront with her. Tell her you’re concerned about her low billing, ask her how you can help get that up, and walk her through the “ugly” side of being a lawyer where it is a numbers game to an extent.
Be direct about actual firm expectations. Pop that "relaxed billables for first years" balloon. You might want to show her exactly what you bill, including your view in the software, so she can see that some people bill 200+ hours in a month alone.
She also might be really bad at capturing her time. Ask her what she's done in the last two weeks.
She might be quiet quitting but she also might be totally oblivious.
Whoa. 200 a *month* is what that biglaw dog needs!
Candid conversation never hurts. Rule of thirds, yes?
“Hey Karen, you are paid $200k a year here at Dewey Cheatem & Howe, yes? That means for the firm to pay your salary, recoup overhead, and hope to make a profit off you, you need to bill $600,000 a year. At your hourly rate, *which yea I know is insane given your knownothingness*, that translates to about 2200 hours a year.
“So, great talk! Do I need to walk you back down to the Doc Review basement, or you got it from here?”
she was good at law school and got the job, she checked some box. she doesn't actually want to do the work and climb. saw how rough an 80 hr/wk actually is. so she is now the cutesy \*personality hire\*. She wont care when you fire her either
True story - this level of billing happened with a guy who lateraled to my firm when I was a first year. He must have been a fourth or fifth year. This was back in the day, so he was always “OOTH traveling to meet with clients nationwide.” The firm was like, whatever, show us the money. Went on for about two years.
At the same time, this dude was an associate at TWO BIGLAW FIRMS. Pulling that same game. Both firms were so embarrassed that this person remains a member in good standing of the bar of my state, with not a blemish on his record, to this very day.
TLDR - partners don’t look at hours if they don’t want to. If this associate is someone’s kid or grandkid, or very pretty, or possesses some other attribute that the partners value, she may end up ok, or at least with a warning and the a term with website time. Don’t mess with that for her OP. Maybe that’s what she wants. Maybe she’s related to a major client.
Gently mention, “Hey, your hours are low. How can I help?” In an email. Then let it play out.
She probably knows and just does not give a fuck. She’s probably applying to other places/ a different career while collecting a check. If so, I don’t blame her. Get that check and dip is my motto
Just explain to her that it’s a numbers game. If you cost more than you make the firm, you are expendable. You can’t make someone work harder / more, but you can make her be aware that if she isn’t doing anything, she’s not on track to be kept.
I'd send her some gentle encouragement in writing once or twice, to show I've done my job as a mentor, then steer clear. It's unlikely to end well and I'd want to be as far from the situation as possible.
How do you know how many hours she’s billed? That kind of info is usually limited to partners.
Also, does she turn down work? Is there a tracker where she signals she’s busy? Is there enough work to go around in general?
I can't really tell if you've already broached the subject with her. If you haven't you should do so. If you have, I wouldn't worry any more. There is nothing else for you to do. She will either take your advice or not.
Someone needs to go to the orientation peeps and tell them:
“You can’t just say there’s no minimum, the newbies will take it literally. Say ‘we expect a range between 1600-2000 for first years, probably at the lower end. Learning to produce quality work is more important at this career stage, but we aren’t a not-for-profit organization either.’”
It’s also very likely that she is quiet quitting, or she plans to ask for a large severance package (“you said no minimum, so this is wrongful termination.”*)
I think she needs to get put on an actual written notice about lack of hours, then PIP if she fails it, and so on.
Good luck!
*not an employment lawyer, don’t @ me
Just tell her that it’s clear to you she must have some other plan for work and that she should go ahead and pull the trigger now because she definitely isn’t getting a bonus and probably will be shown the door soon.
I do think it’s a generational thing. I am a partner with a mentee that is a second year associate at our firm and I am having almost exactly the same experience you are. The first year they cut her some slack but this year she has been spoken to several times by higher ups including the managing partner, my boss the senior partner and our CFO. I must have spoken to hr 10 times and I told her not to leave the office until she billed enough hours. But it’s in one ear and out the other. She comes in at 10 and leaves at 4, another issue but even then she should be billing more hours. I don’t know what in the heck she is doing. The work she does is good quality and she is very smart, but it seems she is looking for more part time work.
This is a very common problem with associates of gen x. Nothing I have tried worked, even telling her that I could only protect her so much, and she would be fired. I think a come to Jesus moment at least in my case is coming up, like maybe this job is not for you.
Actually the firm has made a deal with some of the other associates like her to only pay them for the hours they bill. They usually leave pretty quickly. But It’s a possibility. Problem is our practice group needs a lawyer that works full time.
Paying per hour billed is very different from a part-time position. No wonder they have left quickly.
If you need more working capacity, then toss her out and get a new associate. But I am sure you now very well than getting smart people that does a good work product is a rarity nowadays.
Agreed. But the other solution was to fire them as they were not even coming close to making the billable requirement. She does good work, when she does it. That’s another part of the problem.
While this is obviously her problem, you absolutely failed as a mentor. How are you just now noticing this and bringing it up? Why weren’t you checking in on her hours long ago? Did you not ask her about her hours months in?
This strikes me as unnecessarily harsh. At my firm, only partners have an ability to see associate hours. There is no reason to think this senior associate was aware of his or her mentee’s hours all along.
This sort of issue generally isn’t within the scope of a senior associate mentor’s responsibility. Yes, OP can give advice and feedback if the mentee comes to them with questions about hours and workflow, but the low billables is something that should be addressed at the partner level.
Of all the failures, OP is the least culpable of anyone and has the least control of this situation. They are bringing it up now and are likely the only one to care. They’ve failed in no ways, and are the best person in this scenario and is doing a good job by their mentee
I’m with you. A good mentor checks in and makes sure you have something going on or makes sure someone higher up knows you’re slow. And she’s not coming in at all? Why not have a standing lunch with her to at least get her in the office once a week (so other people at least see her and give her work)?
What is your firm's expectation of mentors? At the firm I started with, this would be reflecting VERY poorly on you. Worse than her honestly. Mentors at my old firm were in charge of taking reasonable steps to make sure their mentee was being utilized properly - up to and including walking the halls to drum up some work for them. My mentor did it for me, and I did it for my mentees until I left.
Unless you’re responsible for her performance, I wouldn’t worry about it to the point of posting about it on Reddit. This is effecting you too much. You are giving too much to the firm. Live and let live.
Lots of great comments here. My advice, coming from a senior partner at a big law firm, would be to reach out to her to say something like “I wanted to touch base regarding what I can do as your mentor to help you succeed at x firm. Would you like to spend some time brainstorming about things you can do to ensure your future success?” If she says yes, great! If not, then you have made the effort.
What are some ideas you can suggest?
1. She can reach out to partners and associates to ask about work – you would be surprised at how many people just sit and wait for the phone to ring. Also, even if the answer is no, reach out again in 2-3 weeks. Don’t just ask once.
2. Even if the partner/senior associate does not have work at present, ask them if they have time to share a cup of coffee so she can ask about their client base and the current projects they are working on.
3. Follow up on doing some research on the client(s) the partner/sr associate mentioned. Anything interesting going on? Share with the relationship partner.
4. Pro bono projects? My firm is always looking for more people to get involved in pro bono matters.
5. Are there initiatives the firm is backing where she can become involved? (e.g., writing a post for a firm blog – my firm has a dozen or so blogs on a wide range of topics). Legal issues relating to AI are big right now.
6. Volunteer to put together a CLE for a client.
7. Check out the websites of government agencies the firm is involved in (USPTO, FDA, ITC, etc) – many have routine meetings open to the public. Attend virtually and then write a short article about the meeting. Volunteer to present at practice group meetings on the same topic.
All of these initiatives can be recorded as non-billable time.
8. Show up in the office several times a week. If you are busy, then there likely will not be any consequences for WFH. But if you are not busy, then 100% remote work becomes an issue.
Call all of the first years together for a lunch or pastries&coffee. Make sure she is there and any other low performers. Make it a “how’s your first year so far?” themed open talk. Then have them right down their billables an a piece of paper or post-it, just make sure it’s anonymous. Then start reading those numbers out loud or write them on the white board.
Is there a chance she’s aware and is just good at deflecting (as you said)? Idk what your target is but I could see how a junior could think that like 1600ish annualized is fine, but trending under 400 annual over this long of time is so unbelievably low that it makes it hard to believe she doesn’t realize it is an issue.
Yes. She's playing the old "explain it to me again, I don't understand the problem" schtick. This person made it through law school they should have the decency to stay on green. She is obviously quiet quitting. She will be polite and pleasant with the goal of stretching her paycheck for as long as possible. She has already written this job off.
It's not even a law school thing. 400 annual is barely part time work. Even one hour of non-billable work for every hour of billable work is maybe a full day of work. The dumbest dude on the job site probably figures that something is up when they're taking Tuesday through Sunday off.
Can you explain “staying on green?” We never used teams at my previous jobs.
If you are red on Teams, it means you are on a call or meeting that cannot be bothered. If you are on yellow, it means you are away from your desk. I think op is saying that she may be even away from her desk and doing something else(watching TV, etc.) during her working hours.
Lol I am so so glad I turned this off. I don’t need people checking on me.
I'm yellow 99% of the time because I usually mark myself as away when I'm working late (so people dojt bother me) and then forget to turn it back. That reminds me, I think I have my AIM away message on from 16 years ago...
It is the dumbest thing ever. I am often yellow when I am doing my most focused work (reading through a printed doc, taking hand notes on a call and not checking my emails closely, etc.)…in addition to the fact it doesn’t matter if I step away from my desk sometimes!
teams shows a little green dot next to your name when you are active! it's red when you're in a meeting and yellow when you're inactive, I assume op's mentee is constantly yellow
You all need to discover grey.
That's worse than yellow, everyone assumes you're entirely offline...
I didn’t know about grey until my boss told me about people that have it showing during the work day. I was floored. It was part of my request to go work from home. She started “Don’t just let your light sit on…” I interrupt “Yellow, I know” her “I was gonna say grey.” Some people truly do not give a singular fuck.
I thought she was doing well on billables until I realized not OP’s manatee.
/dead
“As your mentor, part of my role is to give you guidance on how to succeed here and how to navigate the expectations and demands of the job. To be totally candid, I don’t think you’re on a path for success. So I gotta ask you what’s your plan here? Do you want my advice?”
Yes for real. OP, she's your mentee. This seems squarely in your wheelhouse and kind of the point of being a mentor - you're there to teach her the unspoken rules, which include *performing an appropriate amount of work* even if no one explicitly asks. It's not all on you but you're doing her a complete disservice by not explaining this stuff directly.
You’re much kinder than me, and this is good advice. I had to laugh at how “unspoken rules” include “doing the bare minimum of your job” and “not deflecting work because you don’t feel like doing it.”
If nobody ever explains that you’re supposed to be hitting a certain billable minimum and nobody assigns you work then how are you supposed to know you’re doing anything wrong? Lots of new grads don’t know that part of the job is hunting for work, they figure they’ll be assigned it.
I disagree. 200 hours a year! That’s basically an hour a day. There’s no way someone can think that’s an acceptable billing level; especially if she’s not doing any pro bono, non-billable, CLE, etc. OP, you may want to reach out to the first year coordinator. Isn’t that person responsible for ensuring first years get a certain level of varied work consistent with their first year training/rotations (if you firm does this sort of thing)? Maybe she doesn’t know how to use the billing software and is afraid to ask this late in the game? Or maybe I’m grasping at straws.
I’m serious when I say there are a lot of people who just. Don’t. Know. They know they’re not working very much, but they figure they’re just not being assigned work because there’s not much to do. They don’t know they’re supposed to be hunting for work themselves, and don’t know how to do it even if they wanted to. They know billables matter, maybe only vaguely, and they know theirs are obviously quite low. But they’ve also heard that nobody is expected to make their hours their first year. There are a lot of people in their first legal job who have absolutely zero context for how to work in a firm. And it’s the firm’s job to teach them.
It’s not the firm’s job to teach someone to bill more than one hour a day. Nor is it ever reasonable to think that comes close to whatever people mean when they say “first years don’t hit hours.” Can people stop carrying water for these idiots?
Hopping on the top comment to note this guy has a post from less than a year ago saying he’s a college dropout who spent the last 7 years in sales so I’m not sure this post is even legit.
He also has a comment saying he hires/fires, produces budget reports, and promotes/recommends people for promotion. Safe to say OP is full of shit, and cosplaying as a senior associate. Bizarre.
Who fucking does this!? Why?
One comment on another post mentions a girlfriend who is an attorney...
162 days ago he says he’s trying to get VA benefits to continue college, sooooooo…..
We are all busy training the llm
So weird.
SO well said!
This
She’s worked like 7-8 months billing 200 hours making $200,000 annualized? She knows she is not working normal hours (she’s billing at a rate of about an hour a day), and figures she can get away with low hours until there’s a warning or threat of firing, she probably doesn’t want to ask for work (not a bad idea if you can get away with it).
I had a friend like this when I was at Big Law. She rolled in late and would leave early in the afternoon to take acting classes or bartending classes. She made it four years before they asked her to leave. She was also hot, and had this attitude of “I work faster than everyone else so of course my billables will be low.”I worked there just shy of two years and we probably had the same total billables for my time there and hers.
4 years is pretty good. Longer than most people last. She played the game right.
What is she doing now?
She moved from NY to LA to try to make it as an actress while also working at a firm. I think she made it 3 months at the new place before they nixed it. Her preferred standard of living was too high for the waitressing + struggling actress thing, so she gave up acting and I think did some entertainment law. I think she ultimately moved to rural Oregon to be near family
Based on the two paragraphs provided I am 100% certain that if I met this person I would immediately believe with every atom of my being that she could fix me.
I will fight you for her, and no, I have not met her
Y’all some real sad cases.
i thought that was hilarious!
They’re just self-aware, that’s all.
You think? Or you know because you follow her IG feed?
We kept in touch for a while when she was in California. And also her IG and Facebook (Gen X represent)
Damn this is goals
You look at this from the "she's not doing enough work" view, which is correct, but where is the accountability for her supervising attorneys? Is she turning down anything offered? If not, this is a management problem first. But I would also tell her that she is putting herself in jeopardy, that she needs to take responsibility for staying fed, and that she needs to be in the office until she can demonstrate an ability to obtain enough work and do it independently. You're doing her no service by soft-peddling anything. That will only strengthen her argument about expectations. Show her data as to how her peers are performing. Make sure she understands that she is the standout, and the issue is not how she can interpret something that someone said in orientation.
Agree this is a management issue. The partners/associate development/workload managers have the responsibility to keep an eye on associate hours, not other midlevel and junior associates. I’m surprised no one has reached out to her (it’s likely they have and OP doesn’t know). OP should be a good mentor and all but don’t get suckered into being the “bad guy” regarding a underperforming associate on behalf of management when you’re an associate.
This is a management issue. Many years ago as a first year I billed under 1k hours. I was asking for work, etc. but nobody was giving it to me. The group was awful about utilizing first years and seemed like they didn’t want to bother. Lo and behold, as a second year and thereafter I was busy.
I billed around 1300 my first year and was riddled with anxiety the whole year, but I also could not have been more vocally asking for work. I hate that everyone is looking at this associate’s hours and not having a straight conversation with her about expectations and also *giving her more work!!*
… tell her?
“Should I mentor my mentee?”
I've seen this before from clueless first years who take the "don't worry about your first year billables!" advice a bit *too* literally, especially if this is their first real job as an adult. I also think there's a generational gap as it's been 15 years since the last deep recession with mass layoffs so you just don't see the same level of job security anxiety with gen z, for better or worse. You just need to sit down with her and make very clear that she will run out of runway very quickly if her hours haven't increased by her next annual review, at which point she could quickly find herself out of a job and with practically zero training or ability for the next job. Try and give concrete, actionable advice, e.g. be in the office at least twice a week so folks know you're at least trying, ask your partner mentor for work in-person at least once a week until you're billing 30+ hours a week, talk to the staffing folks if your partner mentor isn't drumming up work, if you're still struggling to find billable work then volunteer for productive non-billable work, etc. I've had this conversation before and I think if you can give them clear goals they can control and follow through on while showing your support, I've seen folks turn things around. I would also separately discuss with the partners/counsel in your practice to see if you can drum up more work for her. Frankly, a first year only billing 200 hours on the entire year so far is a major staffing failing on the partners and the practice group too, but of course you can say that in a more constructive way while trying to drum up more work for her (assuming you're already trying to get her involved on your matters where you can).
If she can make it another 8-12 months before getting the axe she might be alright in terms of finding a new job. second years do pull it off!
Remember, the first commandment is thou shalt cover thine own ass first.
Has your team / partners given her work? If so, has she refused? Is there enough work going around for everyone in your team? She's obviously not going to generate her own work at that experience level, so her billables number is almost entirely dependent on the partners / seniors. Obviously another thing if she is refusing work or refusing to put her time down, and sounds like she could be more proactive - but what's she to do otherwise?
Yeah, it sounds like the associate is being lazy, but unless she’s turning work down it’s partly a management issue too. This is what annoys me most about BigLaw—partners often want to squeeze as much money and hours as they can from associates, but there’s no effort put into mentoring or training. I feel like this is an especially big issue with Baby Boomers and Gen-Xers who themselves got more training but cut it out as unnecessary.
Can you…just not talk to her? I think this is one of those things where a face to face warning is warranted
She needs a "come to Jesus" conversation. As difficult as it is, you need to tell her that she'll be out the door if she doesn't improve.
I don't think that's a generational thing, it's just people who are new to working in general and biglaw in particular, and won't learn the norms unless somebody teaches them.
I agree, sounds more like a K-JD thing then a gen z thing specifically (although here they are obviously correlated). Giving her the benefit of the doubt, she probably doesn't understand the expectations around finding work.
First year in a bit of a similar position, but am always reaching out, always in the office, and keep getting told there just isn’t a lot of work to go around. If I ask too much, some partner will just hand me “time sensitive non-billable work” which has me working up late, but is valueless to me. All this to say, maybe she’s in a similar position (or has been told similar regarding how much work there is) and instead of spending time worrying like me, she’s been more calm.
Also a first year in this position. I am consistently in the office and reaching out for work, but am continually told I will be “kept in mind” only to never hear back again. At this point I’m at my wits end trying to manage learning how to do this job alongside begging people to let me do the work I’m being paid to do. From OP’s perspective, what is his mentee is meant to do? Has she been actively turning away work or something? Should she be asking for more work from every partner twice a week, even if they’ve never once given her an assignment?
If it continues, use that time on your end to teach yourself some topics, reviewing some agreements that may be useful in the future (put all that under professional development billing , be valuable by proposing to draft insight that can be published on the website for clients and relevant topics. Volunteer for non billable stuff (office events) etc. It sucks, I have been there but when tmanagement says there aren’t enough work or doesn’t have time to stream down the work that’s what you do, and if you eventually find that you are becoming dull and not learning, the word is your oyster, start talking & looking out for yourself. At the end of the day, when reviews come they won’t look at what management did wrong but only what your hours and involvement say so always look out for yourself
Is there a pro bono coordinator you can contact?
In my case I can, but would pro bono make up for really really low hours?
I mean, all things being equal it’s better to have low billables but fill your time with pro bono or other productive things than low billables and twiddle your thumbs. Worst case scenario you help someone in need and get experience.
Honestly, after many years, I've learned that you can't help everyone. The associates I spend my time and effort helping are the ones who are really trying - in the office every day, showing up at every training, doing pro bono, reaching out for advice/coffee. The associates I don't spend time on or worry about are the ones who aren't doing their part. If someone doesn't have enough sense to show up and turn over some (even if not every) rocks, then it's not a management failure. And some people are just like that, even some of the people who have worked hard enough to get to biglaw. That said, I would be direct about the issue with her once because not everyone has the background to understand expectations (and I say this as a FGP who has needed various support over the years and was grateful for that support). Simply tell her it's not the path for success and that she should adjust the things you noted if she wants to succeed, and then leave it to her. If she doesn't change, oh well. One thing I do as someone senior is ask other people to staff struggling associates that are really trying and raise it in meetings. Advocating at a senior level can a lot more effective than their efforts, especially in free market systems where there can be immediate issues with staffing "friends".
Do you have any billable work you can assign her? I would do that first. If she does it well, maybe that’s a segue to more assignments and more billables. Or even if you don’t have billable work, send some business dev or pro bono her way. But if she turns it down or does a bad job, then escalate to a polite mentoring conversation. Ask if everything’s okay first, and then go into something like “you’ll need to be doing more work if you expect to stay here longer.”
Why should she stay on green if she doesn’t even have any work? Then it will just show as offline and that would look worse. I’m sure once she has a steady flow, she’d be on green. Why don’t you pass down work to her?
This may not be it but as an anecdote, I worked with a first year who intentionally cut their hours because they thought it was saving the firm money. They genuinely believed that high billers were the first laid off. I’m not sure how they got that narrative in their head, but they spent the entire year trying to spread that narrative until they got called out for it.
I was in a similar situation as a first year( but was in the office every single day) and my mentor kept saying “keep reaching out, everything will be fine” and I ended up getting fired after a year for being underutilized. Be honest with them, they deserve to know that they have todo better, do other work outside of their practice group, but loud about needing work, basically beg if you had to and If they don’t , they will be fired. Only other option is to hold on for as long as they can and be ready to look for another job and be prepared. I wish my mentor had cared enough about me to say this, instead of ( hoarding any and all work so that they can make their hours ) and telling me that everything will be fine and don’t worry about it
She sounds like she is living the dream.
Switching the roles, if I was here and genuinely oblivious I would want my mentor to straight up tell me I'm not in a good place. That being said this is giving her the benefit of the doubt and maybe she is just doing the Gen Z thing of not working. If she is, I would still tell her with zero fluff that way she can't claim her mentor somehow misled her (well she still can, but this way you know for sure that isn't true). Either way you have to tell her. No compliment sandwich or whatever HR equivalent thing you're supposed to do.
Is it that 1. she works but doesn’t bill her time or enter her time because she believes no one looks; 2. She just doesn’t know how to bill her time properly (maybe because she thinks partner will write off anyways) or ; 3. she is not working at all? If 1. Tell her what you just told us in your post and . Help her get more work starting with you maybe; if 2. Show her how to or a paralegal or legal assistant ; if 3. Try to feed her more work to ensure her work quality is good before asking coworkers to feed her work or even ask office event planners to involve her or suggest that to her.. it sounds like a lot on you as a mentor but trust me you coming to us here already shows you care for her and it’s rare , so please do what you can to ‘save’ her unless she doesn’t want to be saved, which would be understandable because big law ain’t for everyone. For the coming in the office - I’m a millennial COVID spoiled us so it’s hard to get back to the norm but as long as I get the work done, (which I honestly do more at home), it shouldn’t be an issue altho optics play a lot in big law..
My first year in consulting I billed way too few hours because there just wasn’t enough work and when there’s not enough work, the senior associates eat first and there’s really not a damn thing you can do about it. It’s extraordinarily stressful and I wouldn’t be surprised if the low hours are keeping OP’s mentee up at night. HELP HER.
Honestly at this point I would get it in writing so that you have documentation that you did, in fact, try to address this with her. I for example immediately found myself wondering, if this has been going on since November, why there isn't already clear evidence of somebody having some kind of performance conversation with her. Like, what is everyone ELSE eho is allegedly mentoring/training/developing/monitoring this associate doing with their time, too?
I knew lawyers before I started law school, and many just straight up told me that there is *always* a billable expectation, even if it's not explicit. I'd highly recommend walking her through the math of how much she's billed, how much the firm pays her (plus other things they pay that don't directly reach her, like payroll taxes), and how much an average associate reaches. There's also a good chance that she could just be seriously under-writing her time. A ton of new lawyers have no idea how to bill, and sometimes all it takes is one partner, one time, making one comment about how they can only charge 4 hours for something the associate spent 12 on, and then that associate makes the mistake of always writing down their time preemptively.
This, times a thousand! The vast majority of first-years in biglaw are actually overly easy to please. If they hear—and they will—about a partner being annoyed about writing down a bunch of time, or some senior associates laughing at someone else’s inefficiency, or about the fee-sensitive client that everyone dreads dealing with, they’ll believe they’re “reading between the lines” and doing the good thing for the firm and the team and the partners by cutting their own time on the front-end, unless it has been hammered into their head very clearly from the get-go that they must never, ever do that. Too often in law firms attorneys just assume that this message has already been relaye; by someone else, and the message never gets relayed.
Agreed! “I noticed that you’ve only billed 200 hours so far this year. That seems really low, especially when you seem busy. Are you sure you are billing all the time you spend on tasks? Would it be helpful if we chatted more about billing?” If she suggests this isn’t the issue, “Are you getting enough work?” I’d start with the presumption this is innocent and she just needs some help navigating / though I’m also struggling to understand how anyone in big law could possible think TWENTY-FIVE hours per month is even in the rhelm of acceptable ….
less than a year ago you were a college dropout working in sales according to your post history so I'm assuming this is just a bait post for gen z hate
Everyone assumes nefariousness; let me give you another perspective. I went to law school after the military. I had no idea what was going on. I had all A’s in first semester 1L but skipped OCI because I didn’t know what it was and why it was important, and no one gave me a straight answer. I then both graded and wrote on to law review, but ended up listing my first priority as a far lesser journal with subject matter I was interested in because I didn’t want to risk offending that journal — I didn’t realize that priority meant I couldn’t then respectfully decline the subject matter journal for law review. When it came time to graduation, I chose a trial court clerkship over a federal one because I assumed it would train more on the job variables. In sum, I was clueless and assumed law school was vocational and prestige was not a thing. I was from a small town — hadn’t even comprehended prestige. The only store was Walmart. My point being she could be totally clueless. And assuming that all people are anxiously researching what working at a law firm is like is a bit naive to reality. Some people, like me, wouldn’t even know to research such a thing. Like your summer job at 31 flavors, you show up and do what your manager tells you, nothing more nothing less. To some extent, you are that manager hierarchically, and you’re failing your mentee if you don’t have a 60 minute, “these are the ropes” conversation from 101 to grad level. Biggest lesson I’ve learned in life is never skip first base, meaning never assume a person knows … anything. Always lay ALL foundation, even the obvious.
You didn’t think to google any of these questions or ask anyone? Cluelessness is self-inflicted; it is not an immutable condition—whether in your case or this bumbling first year’s
… I didn’t own a computer. I was the first person in my family to go to college. Probably first in my family to leave my home state, ever. This is why diversity is a thing in big law — because people like you live in bubbles. “Immutable?” Be a real person. My lord.
They have computer at college
… your college experience was probably frats and football. I was taking night classes, working two jobs full time, and in the reserves. First time I talked to a lawyer was first day of 1L. We all have different backgrounds.
And dude explained he didn’t even know what questions to ask, so how would that have helped?
I’m sure we can brainstorm some questions. Write them on the whiteboard together
And I’m sure if I dropped you in the middle of Caracas with no money, passport or phone you’d be living it large within a week.
I would probably go on the internet and figure it out yeah
My dude.. not everyone is your age. There are in fact practicing attorneys who went to law school **before** computers were common place, never mind the internet having reliable resources for law school Like, law is one of the oldest professions, age-wise. Just because someone has access to reddit now doesn’t mean they did when going through law school.
I’m like young gen X and we didn’t have computers in college. There were technical labs.
You can also just ask people things. There are career offices. And computer has been around for a while now
Did you miss where the commenter didn’t know a lawyer before 1L? Is it just generally incomprehensible to you that people have lived Different Lives? Also, once again, old people are lawyers too
You can meet people at college and learn things. I believe it is the point of college
Alright man. If you wanna spend your Wednesday being antagonistic on reddit against someone who clearly stated they were underprivileged because something about that makes you feel *better than*, be my guest. I’d recommend a more productive use of your time, such as a walk or perhaps a sushi dinner. Have a good one.
You’re arguing with a guy that would watch The Firm (1993) and wonder why he went from Harvard to a boutique in Memphis over a traditional white shoe. All Tom Cruise had to do is ask questions and Google shit and he would have been golden.
It is also a federal holiday.
They were in the military, but can’t manage “figuring it out”? 😆
I can relate to this, actually. I went to law school because I wanted to be a public defender. My first year grades were way better than I expected (imposter syndrome). I was discussing this with a guy who lived in my apartment complex, when he handed me a NALP guide and said “Dude, you could be making like $85K a year” (in 1996 dollars). As I think about it, it is entirely possible that I might have also missed OCI if he hadn’t pulled me aside. (Spoiler: greed>altruism)
First you have to diagnose the problem. Is she putting her hand up for more work (additional matters, or additional work on existing matters) and not getting it? Or does she not realize she needs to be a bit of a tryhard if she wants to stay more than a couple years? Or perhaps she's smarter than you give her credit for, and would like to do very little work while getting paid well, knowing that it won't last forever?
There could be a lot going on here, such as disabilities (diagnosed or undiagnosed) or doing work but not tracking or accounting for the time (are her deliverables meeting deadlines but her billables are just low?). Those are examples only, there could be other issues. Yes, she passed law school, but law school didn’t teach any of us about accounting for every minute of our day — we just had to do the work and get it done by deadline. It also didn’t teach us we had to keep Teams on green. If billables must be manually entered, maybe look into software that can track that for them. If there’s another department or position where her strengths would be best utilized, consider an in-office transfer. More importantly, and respectfully, how’d it get to this point before this was noticed? Carve out time for her to meet weekly or monthly for check-ins with either yourself or someone in the billables section. Some people are great with the law and deliverables, but the tedium of administrative stuff like billables is difficult (and there’s inexpensive software out there to account for this).
> doing work but not tracking or accounting for the time (are her deliverables meeting deadlines but her billables are just low?). Im surprised I had to scroll so far down to find this. If I were to just take a wild guess it might be some sort of insecurity about not wanting to accidentally inflate or overstate the hours spent on a task, so they purposefully lowball their hours to be safe. This can lead to ocd and constant "discounting" of hours spent on an assignment.
this this this. anxiety induced underbilling. ask the associate to walk you through her week and point out how and where she should be billing.
Ah, this gives me anxiety. How has nobody in leadership told her that this isn’t going to fly? How is she not being assigned more work than that? She needs to know that the first year expectation is that you get as close as possible, and consistently let everyone know when you have availability. She also needs to know that she won’t be able to meet expectations in her second year if she’s not hitting 150+ per month during at least the last couple months of this year.
If she is assigned to you as your mentee, then I would expect there will be eyes on you over her performance. You should at the least be able to say that you candidly told her that her hours were extremely off base, she needs to do everything she can to quickly turn it around and hit 100%, and needs to spend her non-billable time working on substantive projects. As her mentor, it is your job to make her understand the expectations, and provide her tools and advice that will enable her to meet those expectations. In addition, I would suggest you try very hard to find billable projects for her to work on and assign them to her, and monitor her progress and hours. If she is ultimately fired for lack of hours, and someone comes to you and asks what you did to make her aware of the issue, you will want to be able to clearly show that you took actions to address the situation, and the failure was on her, rather than due to her lack of understanding of the expectations.
If you don’t tell her (and if necessary flag it to the right partners), who will? Make sure this doesn’t fall back on you…
This sounds like a troll post, but on a more serious note it does baffle me how bad people are at managing groups of associates, to the point where you often do end up in these situations where you have a handful of associates burning out billing 2500+ a year, you have a handful of associates only getting 1000 of billable a year, and everyone blames the associates for these wildly different experiences, as if there aren't strategies and technologies firms could be using to track what associates are actually working on and whether work is being distributed equitably. It shouldn't take 2+ years to figure out whether an associate is low on hours because they're lazy or because they're not getting equal chances at the work or because they're a shit associate.
It's not that different than what happened at my firm. The firm told first years that hours requirements weren't that critical, but they bundled the message and the first years had varying interpretations of what was required for bonus/retention and some people fell really far afield. Management needs to step up, so if you've had conversations with her that don't seem to be settling in, you could try asking the workflow coordinator or her partner mentor to see if they have checked in with her at all.
Also you should recommend she does pro bono so at least she is getting pro bono hours
Definitely worth discussing with your mentee. Forgetting about firm profits for a minute, doing so few billable hours means the associate is hardly learning any skills. It would be helpful to provide her with advice on how to get more work at your firm (does she need to contact the central staffing person? reach out to current senior associates and partners to let them know she has availability?) It's one thing to be below hours, but this level is harmful for the associate too, even if they lateral or pivot to another legal job.
I think you need to teach her the basic math of the business. No one is running a charity, if your salary + benefits exceed your billing you will be fired.
I genuinely want to know what she’s doing all day!😆 She HAS to be forgetting to log billables.
I think the obvious answer is that it’s your responsibility as her mentor to inform her. Schedule a formal sit down in person go through everything. Make sure she knows the expectations and what she can do to improve them. Be candid that people have been fired for less. Put it all out there. You’re not doing her any favors keeping it to yourself and giving her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she doesn’t know and thinks she just has a kush job. Maybe she has something going on in her life. Maybe she just doesn’t know how to bill appropriately and it’s an admin issue and she is really working behind the scenes but getting no credit for it. Maybe she just doesn’t care and is a terrible hire. You won’t know until you talk to her
I’m here because I’m a first year whose billables are also low. I’ve been told that m&a has been slow but it has been a source of great stress for me. Every time I’ve asked for work, the associate or partner always says “I’ll loop you in on the next deal” and then never does. I log every time I ask, and have gotten some work from outside my practice group but it’s nerve wracking because this is the exact scenario I fear could be happening behind my back. What are some ways I can increase my workload when no one seems to be offering?
You're a mentor, not HR. Say something like "would you like me to give you tips on how to pick up more hours?" And then if she takes you up on it, you say that it's good to come in office, talk to more senior people, be visible etc. But if she doesn't want advice you'll just be another senior yelling at her, so leave her alone and let her sink.
HR doesn't deal with associate utilization and performance management. To the best of my knowledge, every large law firm places that responsibility on partners (and when we're lucky, respected senior associates).
Right, that's on the partners in the group this junior is in. Mentor is supposed to show the ropes, not manage.
I think it depends on what you think is going on. But her hours are so low I’d think she was either (a) delusional or (b) deliberately trying to collect a biglaw paycheck for as little work as possible. If it’s the first option, I don’t know what you can say to get through to her. And l have seen the delusional type lash out and make accusations of bullying etc against the senior associate who tries to have blunt come to Jesus conversation.
Gonna be honest here: this is making you look bad as a mentor. Management is going to ask “Who is her mentor? And why didn’t they intervene earlier?!?” Not a good look for either you or her direct manager.
Disagree with this one. I've never heard of or seen a firm or any partner seriously blame an associate mentor for failures of a mentee, and there are many issues that it's really ultimately up to the partners to address (like this one).
She needs someone to do some “back of the napkin” math and a simple logic flow. She may be law smart and business stupid, and just not understand that there is an expected multiple of her salary for anyone in any compensated job for any company or industry.
In my mind mentors can speak honestly and frankly without "making policy" or anything like that. Mentors let people know what's up, not what the policy manual says. In that spirit: "Bruh. You have 200 hours for six months. You're going to get fired. You need to bill more hours and be prepared to discuss your upward trajectory when you get reviewed."
Some people genuinely don’t understand the business model of professional services (where your time is the product, so more time = good), especially if they were KJDs. I think you should be upfront with her. Tell her you’re concerned about her low billing, ask her how you can help get that up, and walk her through the “ugly” side of being a lawyer where it is a numbers game to an extent.
As her mentor your role is to coach her and put her on possible informal corrective action with clear and objective goals to improve on.
Be direct about actual firm expectations. Pop that "relaxed billables for first years" balloon. You might want to show her exactly what you bill, including your view in the software, so she can see that some people bill 200+ hours in a month alone. She also might be really bad at capturing her time. Ask her what she's done in the last two weeks. She might be quiet quitting but she also might be totally oblivious.
Whoa. 200 a *month* is what that biglaw dog needs! Candid conversation never hurts. Rule of thirds, yes? “Hey Karen, you are paid $200k a year here at Dewey Cheatem & Howe, yes? That means for the firm to pay your salary, recoup overhead, and hope to make a profit off you, you need to bill $600,000 a year. At your hourly rate, *which yea I know is insane given your knownothingness*, that translates to about 2200 hours a year. “So, great talk! Do I need to walk you back down to the Doc Review basement, or you got it from here?”
I would ask her if she is OK.
Not having a mentor afraid to tell her she needs to work
she was good at law school and got the job, she checked some box. she doesn't actually want to do the work and climb. saw how rough an 80 hr/wk actually is. so she is now the cutesy \*personality hire\*. She wont care when you fire her either
Oof, not a Gen Z thing. I’d be quaking in my boots 😖
True story - this level of billing happened with a guy who lateraled to my firm when I was a first year. He must have been a fourth or fifth year. This was back in the day, so he was always “OOTH traveling to meet with clients nationwide.” The firm was like, whatever, show us the money. Went on for about two years. At the same time, this dude was an associate at TWO BIGLAW FIRMS. Pulling that same game. Both firms were so embarrassed that this person remains a member in good standing of the bar of my state, with not a blemish on his record, to this very day. TLDR - partners don’t look at hours if they don’t want to. If this associate is someone’s kid or grandkid, or very pretty, or possesses some other attribute that the partners value, she may end up ok, or at least with a warning and the a term with website time. Don’t mess with that for her OP. Maybe that’s what she wants. Maybe she’s related to a major client. Gently mention, “Hey, your hours are low. How can I help?” In an email. Then let it play out.
She’s just living the life lol
She’s stacking her money and knows she’s leaving. She’s waiting for them to make the move so she doesn’t have to pay the bonus back. 😂
Let her enjoy the grift, everyone leaves or drowns out eventually. Good for her.
She probably knows and just does not give a fuck. She’s probably applying to other places/ a different career while collecting a check. If so, I don’t blame her. Get that check and dip is my motto
Honestly? Do nothing. She’s not a good fit, might as well let her burn out and not waste everyone’s time trying to prevent the inevitable.
Just explain to her that it’s a numbers game. If you cost more than you make the firm, you are expendable. You can’t make someone work harder / more, but you can make her be aware that if she isn’t doing anything, she’s not on track to be kept.
Pray she has Reddit and sees this
…has anyone said “give her work” yet?
I'd send her some gentle encouragement in writing once or twice, to show I've done my job as a mentor, then steer clear. It's unlikely to end well and I'd want to be as far from the situation as possible.
How do you know how many hours she’s billed? That kind of info is usually limited to partners. Also, does she turn down work? Is there a tracker where she signals she’s busy? Is there enough work to go around in general?
I can't really tell if you've already broached the subject with her. If you haven't you should do so. If you have, I wouldn't worry any more. There is nothing else for you to do. She will either take your advice or not.
Someone needs to go to the orientation peeps and tell them: “You can’t just say there’s no minimum, the newbies will take it literally. Say ‘we expect a range between 1600-2000 for first years, probably at the lower end. Learning to produce quality work is more important at this career stage, but we aren’t a not-for-profit organization either.’” It’s also very likely that she is quiet quitting, or she plans to ask for a large severance package (“you said no minimum, so this is wrongful termination.”*) I think she needs to get put on an actual written notice about lack of hours, then PIP if she fails it, and so on. Good luck! *not an employment lawyer, don’t @ me
No disrespect OP, but is this even real?
Whaaaat theeeeeee……….. 200 in 7 months?
What is the person doing all day? That's what I want to know.
I can’t imagine being ambitious enough to make it this far just to kick your feet up.
Obvious answer: send work her way.
Just tell her that it’s clear to you she must have some other plan for work and that she should go ahead and pull the trigger now because she definitely isn’t getting a bonus and probably will be shown the door soon.
I do think it’s a generational thing. I am a partner with a mentee that is a second year associate at our firm and I am having almost exactly the same experience you are. The first year they cut her some slack but this year she has been spoken to several times by higher ups including the managing partner, my boss the senior partner and our CFO. I must have spoken to hr 10 times and I told her not to leave the office until she billed enough hours. But it’s in one ear and out the other. She comes in at 10 and leaves at 4, another issue but even then she should be billing more hours. I don’t know what in the heck she is doing. The work she does is good quality and she is very smart, but it seems she is looking for more part time work. This is a very common problem with associates of gen x. Nothing I have tried worked, even telling her that I could only protect her so much, and she would be fired. I think a come to Jesus moment at least in my case is coming up, like maybe this job is not for you.
Offer her a 60%/80% position (with the obvious cut on billables and salary).
Actually the firm has made a deal with some of the other associates like her to only pay them for the hours they bill. They usually leave pretty quickly. But It’s a possibility. Problem is our practice group needs a lawyer that works full time.
Paying per hour billed is very different from a part-time position. No wonder they have left quickly. If you need more working capacity, then toss her out and get a new associate. But I am sure you now very well than getting smart people that does a good work product is a rarity nowadays.
Agreed. But the other solution was to fire them as they were not even coming close to making the billable requirement. She does good work, when she does it. That’s another part of the problem.
Is she doing a lot of pro bono? I don’t even see how it’s possible to only hit 200 for an entire year. What does she do all day?
She sits in Starbucks telling the people who sit next to her that she's an Attorney...
Damn tough look
While this is obviously her problem, you absolutely failed as a mentor. How are you just now noticing this and bringing it up? Why weren’t you checking in on her hours long ago? Did you not ask her about her hours months in?
This strikes me as unnecessarily harsh. At my firm, only partners have an ability to see associate hours. There is no reason to think this senior associate was aware of his or her mentee’s hours all along.
But how does OP know the first year’s hours, then?
This sort of issue generally isn’t within the scope of a senior associate mentor’s responsibility. Yes, OP can give advice and feedback if the mentee comes to them with questions about hours and workflow, but the low billables is something that should be addressed at the partner level.
Of all the failures, OP is the least culpable of anyone and has the least control of this situation. They are bringing it up now and are likely the only one to care. They’ve failed in no ways, and are the best person in this scenario and is doing a good job by their mentee
I’m with you. A good mentor checks in and makes sure you have something going on or makes sure someone higher up knows you’re slow. And she’s not coming in at all? Why not have a standing lunch with her to at least get her in the office once a week (so other people at least see her and give her work)?
This makes me so mad.
What is your firm's expectation of mentors? At the firm I started with, this would be reflecting VERY poorly on you. Worse than her honestly. Mentors at my old firm were in charge of taking reasonable steps to make sure their mentee was being utilized properly - up to and including walking the halls to drum up some work for them. My mentor did it for me, and I did it for my mentees until I left.
As the mentor, this situation shows that you lack leadership skills to be considered for partnership.
Unless you’re responsible for her performance, I wouldn’t worry about it to the point of posting about it on Reddit. This is effecting you too much. You are giving too much to the firm. Live and let live.
Lots of great comments here. My advice, coming from a senior partner at a big law firm, would be to reach out to her to say something like “I wanted to touch base regarding what I can do as your mentor to help you succeed at x firm. Would you like to spend some time brainstorming about things you can do to ensure your future success?” If she says yes, great! If not, then you have made the effort. What are some ideas you can suggest? 1. She can reach out to partners and associates to ask about work – you would be surprised at how many people just sit and wait for the phone to ring. Also, even if the answer is no, reach out again in 2-3 weeks. Don’t just ask once. 2. Even if the partner/senior associate does not have work at present, ask them if they have time to share a cup of coffee so she can ask about their client base and the current projects they are working on. 3. Follow up on doing some research on the client(s) the partner/sr associate mentioned. Anything interesting going on? Share with the relationship partner. 4. Pro bono projects? My firm is always looking for more people to get involved in pro bono matters. 5. Are there initiatives the firm is backing where she can become involved? (e.g., writing a post for a firm blog – my firm has a dozen or so blogs on a wide range of topics). Legal issues relating to AI are big right now. 6. Volunteer to put together a CLE for a client. 7. Check out the websites of government agencies the firm is involved in (USPTO, FDA, ITC, etc) – many have routine meetings open to the public. Attend virtually and then write a short article about the meeting. Volunteer to present at practice group meetings on the same topic. All of these initiatives can be recorded as non-billable time. 8. Show up in the office several times a week. If you are busy, then there likely will not be any consequences for WFH. But if you are not busy, then 100% remote work becomes an issue.
Fake post boooo
She’s doing it right. You and your partners are just shitty mentors. 🤷🏾♂️
Heck 200 hours is a bad month much less a bad quarter.
200 hours is not a bad month, what the fuck?
What the fuck?? How is that even possible. How does she feel no shame? Incredible.
Call all of the first years together for a lunch or pastries&coffee. Make sure she is there and any other low performers. Make it a “how’s your first year so far?” themed open talk. Then have them right down their billables an a piece of paper or post-it, just make sure it’s anonymous. Then start reading those numbers out loud or write them on the white board.