The learning curve for writing billing entries

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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 like to make the practice of law fun and today we’re going to take a look at the learning curve for writing billing entries.

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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 the learning curve for writing billing entries.

Now, the last third of the success cycle is log time, which means you’re going to be writing billing entries after completing a task, and it’s something that, surprisingly, can be difficult to do at first, and it may take some trial and error before you actually get good at it. Remember that when you create a billing entry, generally speaking, unless it’s changed by your senior attorney later on, which is something that they do, that’s what’s going to show up on the billing statement that the client is going to receive and that they’re going to be looking at and reading.

If it’s unclear, or if it’s confusing, or let’s say it uses some legal jargon that most people just wouldn’t understand, then you will have not written an [00:02:00] effective billing entry. billing entry. And there could be a breakdown of trust between you and the client. So that’s something you want to be careful about.

They might even pick up the phone and they might ask you what that charge is for. So you really want your billing entries to be as concise and clearly written and easy to understand as you can possibly make them. The better you get at writing billing entries, the easier that you’re going to make the overall billing process and why we want to consider the learning curve.

for you when you’re starting out as an attorney for writing billing entries. Now, first, you want to understand the process. New attorneys need to understand that billing isn’t just about tracking time. It’s really about communicating the value of the work that you’re providing to your clients because clients are always going to be asking themselves, was this a good investment or not?

Was this a good investment or not? So when they open up those bills that they’re going to get that they have to pay or replenish their accounts, they’re going to be asking themselves, Is this a good investment? When you’re [00:03:00] first writing billing entries, generally, there are going to be some common mistakes that you as a new attorney are probably going to make.

Now, there can be vague descriptions of the tasks that can often leave the clients confused. The entries could be overly technical, they could use language that clients may not understand, which you want to avoid. One entry could contain multiple tasks, which creates ambiguity.

Incidentally, this is also called block billing, and it’s definitely something that you don’t want to do, and it’s why you want to create a separate billing entry each and every time that you complete a legal task. So you don’t want to wait to do all of them at the end of the day, let’s say, or even at the end of the week.

I can promise you that that’s going to be an instant headache that you really don’t want to create for yourself. So you need to figure out how to get good at writing your billing entries, and fortunately you can do that by converting mistakes you make along the way into learning opportunities, and by listening to the feedback that you’re getting.

Feedback is [00:04:00] really a growth opportunity. And you need to recognize it as such. So clients can call with questions about unclear billing entries, which can lead to frustration or even distrust if it happens enough times.

Now, how you handle those calls when they come in and how you field those questions is what’s going to either preserve the trust or maybe even set it back another step, so you want to be careful and aware of your response to those calls.

You want to use those questions as opportunities to learn what wasn’t communicated effectively in your billing entry. You want to listen to your client’s concerns and you want to take note about which types of entries cause that particular confusion. Now, this is where you want to focus on improving your writing so in this kind of conversation, you definitely want to do a lot more listening than you do talking.

You want to listen to your client as closely as possible.

Also keep in mind that senior attorneys are going to review your billing entries and they’ll make corrections where corrections are needed. Now they may [00:05:00] also ask you to rewrite some of the entries to make them more clear and more accurate. So you want to treat that kind of feedback as an invaluable opportunity for improvement.

These are teaching moments that are going to help you refine your billing skills. Let your supervising attorney teach you the important nuances that they know because chances are that they’ve learned their own valuable lessons from writing hundreds of billing entries themselves.

So you really want to absorb their expertise as much as you can and as quickly as possible. You also want to lean into the feedback. So instead of letting yourself get defensive, or angry, or hostile, I know you’re not going to do any of those things, and I use those words just for emphasis, you want to embrace these corrections so that you understand how they make your billing clear and more professional.

If you lean into that feedback, then you’re going to get very, very good at writing billing entries very quickly. So you want to be specific with your writing. You want to break tasks into discrete and [00:06:00] understandable actions. As an example, you might write drafted motion for summary judgment one hour. You want to use client friendly language and you want to avoid technical terms of jargon.

That’s just going to confuse everybody. Also, you want to provide context, so don’t Simply say, research or meeting, you want to explain what the research or what the meeting was for and how it advances the client’s case. So over time, you’re going to develop a strong sense for what makes an effective billing entry.

You want to really aim for the day when your clients no longer call you up and question your charges because they can clearly see the value in each and every entry that they’re reading on their billing statement. Also, as you improve, your supervising attorney is probably going to make Fewer and fewer corrections to your billing entries, which demonstrates your growing skillset and your growing confidence.

With this area, the goal is to write clear and accurate billing entries that really don’t need any further review or clarification. Each billing [00:07:00] entry that you write should be an opportunity to improve your communication skills and to convey your value of the work that you’re doing to the client. Remember that you’re always selling, and what I mean by that is that you’re always selling your skills and your services to your clients. And by writing clear and understandable billing entries, selling your skills and the firm’s expertise is exactly what you’re doing. When you begin working as an attorney and you’re just starting out and writing your first billing entries for the legal services that you’re providing, you want to embrace the feedback that you’re getting, good or bad, from clients, from the senior attorneys, and you want to continually refine your writing skills.

Push yourself to become truly excellent in this area because billing not only gets you and the firm paid, but it also builds client trust and it leads to success in both client relationships and firm operations. You want your clients to trust you and you definitely want your firm to trust you.

I’m Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast. Thanks so much for dropping by and checking out this episode. [00:08:00] Now, if you like this podcast and you’d like to get more information about us, you can always go to our website at classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two courtroom.

com, where you can send us a message to keep in touch with us. You can even inquire about our seasonal associate programs that we have available for law school students. You can come and work with us. And as always, don’t forget to share, like, 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 at a time.