[blindlaw] Billable hours and reasonable accommodation

[Ross Doerr]

Hello Elizabeth:
Your question will probably get a wide variety of responses on this list,
and that is a good thing.
During my time in a law office, my first hurdle was the billing software
program. There are a lot of different kinds out there, some work "okay" with
speech software, some don't, and some "work" as long as you have time to
club them into submission.
 That is hedging your question just a bit, but I thought I'd mention that up
front. It is an issue that a lot of us face in law offices.
My office had been using a billing package that was somehow rooted in MS
Access, and every time I used it, the system crashed. I asked for an
accommodation of using an Excel spread sheet to do my billing, and they
agreed to do it. That solved one problem. Also, if you'd like to see the
excel spread sheet billing sheet I used, contact me off list and I'll be
happy to email a blank one to you.
But to address your question directly, when you get into a firm that is more
or less predatory billing (you eat what you kill), your billables are your
lifeline. And that is pretty much what I think you are driving at with your
question.
  At the outset, if the work you are doing is a new field, your time will
stretch out to be more than what your sighted colleagues bill, and that can
turn into a problem.
Your research will take longer if, for no other reason, because it takes
longer for a reader or for your software to read something aloud than a
sighted person takes to read the same thing to themselves.
That is a simple law of physics for most blind lawyers. Now, before someone
on this list howls that they can read faster than their sighted colleagues
do at their law office, in addition to reading two novels a week as they
write two novels a week during the breaks that they take while writing their
Bar publication submissions, you need to understand that some people can do
that. They crank up the speech rate for Window Eyes or JAWS to the point
where it resembles audio telemetry more than understandable speech.
If you can read at that rate, you will have no trouble turning in realistic
billables. If you are but a mere human, like I am, you'll need to understand
a few things.
Once you get used to whatever field of practice you are doing in a private
office, your billables will get to be more in line with your office mates.
You'll just know the material in your field, so you will experience anxiety
for only a short period of time while you get "up to speed".
If you are going into a more general practice area, where the
learning/research curve is going to be high, then your billables will
suffer, and that is in no way unique to you. Sighted attorneys experience
the same thing, but they have the sighted advantage over you.
I endede up practicing in three fields of law, so the materials I used had
built-in history. The work never got to be "knee-jerk" practice, but kowing
the field was a distinct advantage for me. Most blind lawyers tend to have a
better memory than do our sighted colleagues.
It also took me a while to get to that point.
I got to be good at it because I made the concious decision to stay in that
3-field practice area. 3 fields were enoughf ro me. I regularly said "no" to
taking cases that I could see up front would be an entirely new field for
me, and that I just didn't have the time to put into learning it.
My advice to you would be to  network with two target groups. First, speak
with other blind/impaired practitioners in private practice dooing the work
YOU want to do. And then network with sighted private practitioners in the
field.
This is where you'd sit down over food or a drink and put things on the
table, and ask them how they do it, or how they will deal with it.
That is a wealth of input that will be invaluable to you.  
 Then I'd set myself up accordingly.
It really is attorney-specific, so how I do thinghs will be different from
how others do it. Take what you can use from each of us and use it
accordingly.
My private practice rule was always "What is this worth to the client" and
"what is the case really worth".
What I billed them was usualy somewhere in the middle, because my clients
were almost always middle class folks who didn't have a lot of money. But
the good will and client base I built up was quick and moderately
successful. Business clients are a different animal, and I was always
vigilant to what class of work I wold get from that type of client. Some
only wanted me to do collections work for them. The work that had decent pay
attached to it was usually being done by another law office that had told
them they won't do collections work any more. Collections work in this
economy? 
I then shifted to a public interest office that was grant funded, and my
billables had to justify our office retaining the grant, so the billable
focus shifted accordingly. So when the grants from Washington dried up, so
did my job.
I hope this bit of information helps you out some.
As I said, you will get a lot of advice from a lot of people. I suggest that
you read all of it. I learn something all the time from those on this list.
I even  got a recipe for the best darn strawberry-rubarb pie that I've ever
had here, but that is a bit off topic.
Good luck.
Ross
"Wisdom comes from these 4 phrases/sentences: "I'm Sorry." I don't
understand." "I need help." and "Please".
Ross A. Doerr Attorney at Law
Admitted to practice law in
Maine and New Hampshire
Federal Court Admissions
ME. & N.H.

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Elizabeth Rene
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 6:29 PM
To: blindlaw at nfbnet.org
Subject: [blindlaw] Billable hours and reasonable accommodation

I am very impressed to read that several lawyers on this list are working
for private firms.  I have always worked in the public sector.  Could you
please tell me your experience of logging billable hours for your firms? 
While consistently productive, I have always taken a bit longer to do
research and write briefs than my sighted colleagues (time and a half, at
least(, but maybe some new technology would improve that.  How have your
firms rated the productivity of blind lawyers, and how--generally--are blind
lawyers in the private sector calculating their billable hours if they take
longer than sighted colleagues to do specific tasks?

Thanks,

Elizabeth Rene


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