March 30, 2005
How does your utilization compare?
The median utilization for partners is about 1700 hours per year and associates come in just below 1900, for a combined average of 1785 hours per year per fee earner. How do you compare?
It has been my experience, that those off the mark condone after-the-fact estimating of how the fee earner’s day was spent. When you do, stuff falls through the cracks. Small slices of the day (interruptions, if you will) go unaccounted for¾including billable interruptions. In short, low utilization isn’t usually due to low work; it is more likely to be because all of that work isn’t getting reported for billing purposes. There are other factors that influence utilization, but the first step for getting on track is to require fee earners to track time as worked.
Give your fee earners the right tools to track and report billable time as worked and give them the ability to do so at any time from anywhere. The technology is there, you just have to use it¾the Internet, Blackberrys, Palms, etc.
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Filed under Law Firm Bus Model by Tom Collins