[blindlaw] Billable hours and reasonable accommodation

[Farber, Randy]

Elizabeth - 

	When  it comes to billables, there are two places that the statistics are important.  First, they show-up on the invoice to your client.  I always review the invoices and bill based on what I believe is competitive.  Therefore, I often write off some of the time I bill.  Not because I am blind, but because I do not believe that the invoice is competitive in the market.

		The second place where billables are important is in your compensation as an associate (as opposed to a partner where it is the cash that is important).  My recommendation is to write down all the hours you work, and let the billing attorney decide what should be billed.  If you are solo or in a small firm, you may be both the working attorney and the billing attorney.  In which case, I still have the same advise.  You will want to be able to keep track of how many hours you are spending on a task, even if you are not billing the entire time.

Feel free to contact me off list if you would like to discuss this issue in a lawfirm setting.

Randy

-----Original Message-----
From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Elizabeth Rene
Sent: Saturday, July 14, 2012 5:29 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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