Monday, October 15, 2007

a billable bind

I started this week with my new motto, 'I'm a lawyer, I can do anything'; I had embraced my decision to man-up and fight harder. I was prepared to stand up for myself and try to get some good work going again post the 'Niffen incident'.

I'd done everything right, I had come in on the weekend to sort my emails and clear my desk of administrative rubbish so that I would be ready to go, firing on all cylinders when Uncle started allocating work my way.

Unfortunately, Uncle is still in hospital, so no Partner allocating work to me. This placed me in the unenviable position of needing to generate work for myself.

My billables over the last couple of months have been shocking. Of course, since the 'Niffen incident' I was placed under the full supervision of a more senior Senior Associate. This meant that I was relegated to discovery tasks, drafting hearing certificates and organising witness availability.

Essentially, I was doing the same work as a vaguely competent mid-level solicitor. The difficulty is that Uncle has been the one funnelling that work in my direction and now he's out of action, I'll quite possibly be out of a job unless I can find some billable work, and fast.

This leads to one of the eternal BCF etiquette questions... if your Partner is out of action (or even, as is sometimes the case, just out of work) is it OK to seek work from the other Partners? Does it make your Partner look bad? Does it amount to theft (in the sense that you are 'stealing' work and billable hours from your colleagues)?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Don't be absurd lawyertrix. It's not exactly going to impress next July when you're asked about the lack of billables and you reply "I didn't want to appear rude".

Go steal that juicy work!

Alternatively, you can always visit Uncle in hospital and put it down as "Practice Development - providing firm update and assisting communication development".

Anonymous said...

ah creative narratives, such an art...

Running pug said...

My first blog experience. Quite amusing really.