[blindlaw] Billable hours and reasonable accommodation

joshjsmith at charter.net joshjsmith at charter.net
Thu Jul 19 16:03:19 UTC 2012 

Ross we have a similar situation in North Georgia.  Many medical 
professionals are simply packing up and leaving because the cost of 
doing business is so high given that several insurers will not cover 
this area and because the carpet industry, which built this part of the 
state, is virtually gone and no one has a job. I am lucky in that at 
least for now I have two contracts with the circuit to provide indigent 
services to families in juvenile court.  I think at some point the 
counties in this circuit will begin to trim their budget and the only 
thing that may save my contracts is the fact that I have been doing this 
longer than the other attorneys who have the other contracts the 
contracts.  My judge wants to hang on to my services.
I do have one client who has been billed well for a case that just 
completed litigation after four years.  I know I did twice as much work 
on the case as a billed for but this is a loyal client who came to me 
from a friend who became ill and closed his practice.  The client knows 
it takes me longer to sift through discovery and he knows I don't bill 
him for all that time.  I did however include all my time in my motion 
for attorneys fees against the other side.


On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 2:02 PM, Ross Doerr wrote:

> Hi Josh:
> I couldn't agree more.  When I made the determination of what the case 
> is
> worth, I always did it from the viewpoint of the client, and billed 
> fairly,
> or what I thought was fair, from that point on. That almost always 
> involved
> a decrease in the bill, and the client did not miss seeing that.
> You can't buy that kind of good will for a practice. Like you, it 
> almost always took me longer to go through things than a
> sighted attorney would take owing to blindness, but whether you are
> well-versed in that particular field of law, or are just getting 
> started in
> it, ethics opinions come down on the side of spending what ever time 
> is
> necessary to properly represent ;your client. Hence my fallback of 
> billing
> according to what the case is worth in my area, and what the client's 
> real
> world means are. A $500 case here would almost certainly be billed out 
> much
> higher in a place like Boston, Phoenix Los Angeles or San Francisco. 
> Maine
> rates #50  in recovery from this economic depression, and our 
> population is
> decreasing as those with good educations flee to areas where jobs are 
> more
> plentiful and pay rates are higher. What that really means is that the 
> pool
> of business clients or private clients is getting smaller while the 
> number
> of attorneys remains the same. The level of employment is just so low 
> that
> pay and billing must react to stay open.  For example, I've been 
> amazed at how many members of the medical profession
> are closing up their practices here and going down to Texas. The
> availability of medical care is sufferring for it.
> I'm sure Texas is a wonderful place, but having seen the heat 
> temperatures
> down there lately, I think I'll stick to the ice and snow up here for 
> a
> while yet.
>   Ross
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindlaw-bounces at nfbnet.org] 
> On
> Behalf Of joshjsmith at charter.net
> Sent: Monday, July 16, 2012 1:18 PM
> To: Blind Law Mailing List
> Cc: Blind Law Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [blindlaw] Billable hours and reasonable accommodation
>
> I do tend to write down my bills.  Probably because I don't want to 
> over
> bill for the area but also because I realize it does take me longer to 
> read
> through thick files and I don't want to pass that cost on to my 
> clients.  I
> will say that many clients to understand that it takes me longer and I 
> have
> even had some tell me to bill for whatever time I spend on their case. 
> I
> still write some time off however.
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 15, 2012 at 2:35 PM, Gerard Sadlier wrote:
>
>> as a trainee we are told to account for all the time we work.
>> Most of that will be written off, not just for me but for everyonE.
>> This is a good question.
>> Do you find yourselves working longer hours as blind lawyers?
>> Ger
>>
>> On 7/15/12, Farber, Randy <rfarber at jw.com> wrote:
>>> 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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>>
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