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Is the BlackBerry cutting into billable time?

MARZENA CZARNECKA

Globe and Mail Update

Latest comment posted at 10:36 AM EST 01/10/08

The BlackBerry is the ultimate client service tool - today's law firms can't imagine how their lawyers could function without them. But the revenue-relevant question is: Are they billing that airport time? ...Read the full article

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  1. Allan Ross from Toronto, Canada writes: This issue is no different than all the other articles about employees using their Blackberries to connect while not actually at their workplace during normal working hours. What I'm more concerned about is the desire of the legal profession to bill every possible fraction of an hour. While I don't begrudge the lawyers I have hired in the past for their time and work on my behalf, the fact that Mr Turnbull seems to believe that the accessibility and efficiency gained by using a Blackberry should also result in additional billable hours speaks to an attitude in the legal profession that demeans the lawyer and the profession of law. Mr Weir's lament that six, 10, or 15 minutes don't get billed is astounding. It seems to me that professions who spend their time lamenting this loss of income need to step back and take a look at the real world.
  2. John smith from Canada writes: What a scam!

    How long do you think it takes a lawyer to respond to an e-mail by a blackberry? I would bet based on personal experience both as a lawyer/partner at a seven sister firm and as a general counsel at a financial services firm that it is significantly less than 15 minutes. Yet Ms. Whyte Nowak says almost gleefully. "We're trained to capture our time in 0.25, 0.5 increments" meaning that the minimum billable time is one quarter of an hour. Yet she indicates when she does something "substantive", she dockets it. Let us hope that a substantive response to a client querie that takes all of a couple of minutes to generate doesn't get miraculously rounded up into up a 15 minute increment. I believe that was the point of the article. Small amounts of work are not getting docketed. Of course, the flip side is that small amounts of work are made out tobe bigger than they actually are so they can get docketed.
  3. Katalin I. from Whitby, Canada writes: It used to be the green that was the root of all evil... welcome to BlackBerrys! Good luck to all of you out there with spouses and children.
  4. Marcus Leja from Calgary, Canada writes: And you wonder why nobody calls a lawyer unless they absolutely have to? :)
  5. Dave Hermans from Canada writes: Uh, doesn't this mean that RIM should be making a billing / docket option for their machines? Lawyers, consultants, etc would eat it up for dinner.
    I still remember my Dad saying you need to know three good people - a good lawyer, a good accountant and a good doctor. Don't knock an entire profession for an article highlighting blackberry stealing billing time.
  6. Katalin I. from Whitby, Canada writes: Hey Dave, don't forget a good woman! Noone is knocking lawyers on the Law Page, we are just having fun. Can't live with them, can't live without them. Cheer up!
    By the way, RIM should definitely incorporate your docketing idea.
  7. Back 40 ISH from Mennonite, Canada writes: Well I've now been blessed with hearing EVERYTHING... Blood sucking vampires now want to add a Blackberry email to billable hours??

    I'm NOT a lawyer but if I billed MY company the way a lawyer does... I'd be FLITHY RICH!! Phone call, paper, ink charge for the pen, per second use of the hydro in the office, air conditioning surchage for summer and heat for the winter. Note pad per piece of paper charge (sur charge for a whole piece) on and on and on it goes.

    Yet I need to be available to my clients 24/7 and I can't bill them for it? Why should they bill US... This is insane....

    I have a Blackberry so I can be available 24/7. If something goes wrong... I know within seconds... YOU CAN'T PUT A PRICE TAG ON THAT!!!
  8. bilbo baggins from Canada writes: This article should be printed to kids considering law as a career. Seems like you are a slave to the clock. Cant make money unless you are billing. Sounds pretty stressful to me.
  9. Michael Short from Canada writes: Dave Hermans from Canada writes: Uh, doesn't this mean that RIM should be making a billing / docket option for their machines? Lawyers, consultants, etc would eat it up for dinner.

    Dave, the software is already out there and will tract every email and every phone call and more....A Calgary based company has developed this.
  10. Andrew S from Canada writes: I have a Blackberry to be informed. Once I involve myself in conversations, it's billable. i.e. 0.25 hours for a short email conversation, but I'm not a lawyer.
  11. John smith from Canada writes: I agree there is no free lunch. The question is how long does a typical e-mail exchange take. In my opinion there is no way that a short e-mail exchange takes anywhere near 15 minutes. Based on this message, it took all of two minutes to come up with a reply and yet because some law firms bill in minimum 15 minute increments I could be billed $125 plus GST = 0.25 hours @ $500 per hour for a senior associate's time.
  12. Cassandra . from Mississauga, Canada writes: Re the guy who lost the file because he took 3 hours on a Saturday morning - maybe not as sweet as you think. If that's just the first contact, be prepared to WORK on this file 24/7 - this client is probably totally demanding and will accept nothing less that. Otherwise he will move the file anyway, as soon as he doesn't receive it. No loss, buddy. Every Saturday morning for the rest of your life would be gone. Sundays too.
  13. Albin Forone from Canada writes: Lawyers properly bill travel time to a client they are traveling for - if they are spending time bbing on, or for that matter reading or writing on, another client's file while in transit, that work should be billed separately. Don't see the big deal, most lawyers deal with emails, phone calls, chats with others, and paper on many files in a given hour at their desks in their offices, and have to keep it properly recorded.
  14. norman jesin from Toronto, Canada writes: This kind of story distresses me. Clients who demand immediate service may get it but at great cost. I think clients need to be educated that they may have to wait a reasonable time because lawyers are working on another file or are regenerating their energy and cannot be interrupted. But at the same time - when that client's file is being worked on the lawyer can assure the client that full attention is being paid to that client and the lawyer will not allow interruptions to his/her focus on that file. The client who accepts such an arrangement (if he/she can find a lawyer willing to provide it in this blackberry world) will in the end receive a far superior service to what can generally be provided in a constantly interrupted world.

    all this can be acheived with discipline - even with blackberrys

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