Lawyer Question

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, it takes a certain amount of time to do dockets (that is, translate my chicken-scratchings during the day into coherent sounding docket entries, and either dictate these or enter them).

I'd not dream of charging anyone for it, though. That's part of the administrative duties that make up unbillable time.

You need to get more efficient.

[Ed Anger]

Do Lawyers have souls?

[crazy canuck]

I don't know where CC gets his "seconds" estimate - I wasted far too much time putting together bills in private practice.

Good thing you are notin private practice then.

I have no idea why it is taking you guys so long.

I just enter time into my system with the appropriate description everytime a finish working on that particular thing.

Ulmont, if you are waiting till the end of the month to read your chicken scratches, you should definitely think about using a different system.

[Malthus]

Yeah, it takes a certain amount of time to do dockets (that is, translate my chicken-scratchings during the day into coherent sounding docket entries, and either dictate these or enter them).

I'd not dream of charging anyone for it, though. That's part of the administrative duties that make up unbillable time.

You need to get more efficient.

How does "it takes a certain amount of time" lead to that conclusion? 

No one on earth can do dockets *instantly*. 

[Scipio]

To the lawyers here, if you were working on two or more simlar cases in which much of the research you did applied to both cases would you bill them each for the full amount, or split it. ie if it took you 20 hours of work would you charge each client 10 hours or 20?

Depends on how my billing agreement works.  I've had contracts that allowed me to double-bill clients on research, because my overall rates were so much lower than competitors.

[The Minsky Moment]

Do Lawyers have souls?

Of course.  You can't go to hell if you don't have a soul and Lucifer has a very active legal department.