[00:00:00]
Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I am the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from a law school student into your professional career as an attorney and where we make the practices of law fun. Now today we’re going to take a look at how supervising attorneys, generally those are senior attorneys, but supervising attorneys review your billing entries.
[00:01:00]
Scott Benton: Today, in order to help assist your overall use of the success cycle as far as the log your time portion goes, we’re going to look at how supervising attorneys review your billing entries.
Now, when you begin working as an attorney and start writing billing entries, which is the third and final step in the success cycle model. At the end of the week, the supervising attorney will generally go through all of the billing entries before they’re included on the billing statements that are then sent out to the clients.
Now this is one way that you’ll be able to get better at writing your billing entries, something that you’ll recognize when you first start working with a firm, because you’ll likely get a lot of feedback. But then, as time goes by, and as you learn to write clear, accurate, and effective billing entries, you’re going to start [00:02:00] to notice that the supervising attorney will make fewer and fewer changes to your time entries.
That tells you that you’ve able to absorb many of the lessons and that you’ve learned from the process of correcting those time entries.
But it’s important to know that this is all just a part of the billing entry learning process, regardless of what stage you are in your career, and that you’ll be working with your supervising attorney to get really, really good at this part of the success cycle.
So we want to take a look at your billing entries through the eyes of the supervising attorney to better understand why they make the changes that they make, especially when you’re first getting started in your job. Now keep in mind that Supervising attorneys are ethically responsible for reviewing and approving all the billing entries from associates and junior attorneys.
They must ensure that billing aligns with both firm policies and legal ethical standards. Accurate billing fosters truth with clients. Supervisors must verify that [00:03:00] time entries are detailed and clearly reflect the work that was performed, which in turn helps the clients to understand the work that has been completed on their case. Sometimes the supervising attorney will either reduce or discount the amount of time that a particular billing entry reported for really any variety of reasons. Sometimes it takes a newer attorney longer to complete a task than it really should, so the supervising attorney might make that correction and discount the time that was taken. As another example, let’s say an attorney was talking to their client on the phone for 24 minutes, but only the first 12 minutes were really used to discuss the case. The second 12 minutes were used to talk about the recent Super Bowl that took place. So even though the call lasted for 24 minutes, if the billing entry is written for the full 24 minutes, there’s going to be a 0.
2 discount included on the billing statement. And you want your clients to see that discount so they know that you’re being transparent and that you’re being fair with them. Reductions or discounts on billing [00:04:00] statements should always be communicated clearly and ethically. You want your clients to understand that they’ve received a benefit on their billing which will make them feel good about working with you.
Transparency like this avoids misunderstandings and it ensures that the client feels they’re getting fair value for your services. When writing discounts, instead of saying reduced, Use positive phrasing like discounted from and then put in whatever it was discounted from. That helps frame the reduction as a client benefit.
That makes it feel like they got something extra for their money, which hopefully they did.
This approach conveys value and goodwill, reinforcing the client’s sense of trust and appreciation for your services. Supervisors should consistently review time entries to ensure that they’re detailed, clear and ethically sound, and they look at these entries through the eyes of the client base.
Now, in their reviews of time entries, they’re going to look for block billing, they’re going to look for vague descriptions or inaccurate time reports [00:05:00] that could potentially raise red flags, either with the clients or if it happens to make it to a fee arbitration hearing to the bar. Overall, billing practices should adhere to firm specific guidelines, including the use of specific terminology when it comes to writing reductions and discounts.
So it’s critical to standardize the vocabulary for the sake of consistency and professionalism. Make sure you learn and adopt the specific vocabulary that’s used in the firm that you work for to express reductions and discounts.
Supervising attorneys must also monitor for any potential overbilling issues. That’s where the time is inflated for the services. They should also monitor for underbilling issues, which is where time is left. Unrecorded altogether by the junior attorneys and believe it or not both of these are issues that can come up with newer attorneys
Because they’re new to the legal field, sometimes newer attorneys just don’t have a feel for performing the legal services and knowing how long each of those legal [00:06:00] services should really take. The supervising attorneys, however, will know, and they’re going to correct any time deficiencies or overages that they see in their review.
Honest communication with junior attorneys about the firm’s expectations for time entries and billing practices is key, and it’s something that you can pay attention to and master. The supervising attorneys will want to educate the junior attorneys on ethical billing standards so that they can understand the importance of transparency in client communication.
Constructive feedback on improving their time entry descriptions and consistency tends to go a long way when it comes to newer attorneys learning all of the little many details that they’re going to need to know when it comes to writing effective billing entries. So I hope you can see that ethical billing is highly fundamental to maintaining trust and professionalism with clients, and it needs to be consistently exercised.
Your supervising attorneys will play a vital role in ensuring that your billing practices, as you’re getting up to speed, as well as the billing practices [00:07:00] of everyone else in the firm, not only adhere to rigorous ethical standards, but also that they foster strong, transparent relationships with your clients.
Trust is everything, and it’s a top priority that you really don’t want to lose ever.
Maintaining trust between you and your clients is one of the highest priorities that you can focus on because unbroken trust allows you to work as an effective team and to accomplish your goals together from a strong collaborative position. I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for tuning into our program and listening to this episode. If you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom 2 courtroom dot com.
That’s classroom. The number two courtroom dot com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch with us. You can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs you have available for law school students. You can come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe to stay on top of all of our newest episodes.
And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place. One client [00:08:00] at a time.
