Claimant solicitors work 36/8

I’ve just come across a bill of costs where a total of 28 hours 24 minutes (including 25 hours on one task) is claimed by the same fee earner for work undertaken on 4 March 2010.  The fee earner is to be congratulated for his industriousness if not for the accuracy of his time sheets or basic arithmetic.

Chris’ suggestion on the comments section of a previous post for one of our Legal Costs Blog t-shirts to carry the slogan: "Team Claimant: helping solicitors work 36/8!" doesn’t sound so silly after all.  


3 thoughts on “Claimant solicitors work 36/8

  1. You not heard of Time Dilation Theory, maybe you missed when it was explained at the Costs Lawyer course, as you had nipped out to the loo (good job there was not an exam or you could have been in trouble). This process allows fee earners to increase billing hours, without the constraints of working in linear time. This process can also be utilised by costs draftsmen when claiming their costs for preparing bills. Before this theory they had to use boring old percentages of profit costs(ave 5%-7%) with this new process they can at times get their fees up to 10-12% of profit costs.

  2. reminds me of a “competition” certain fee-earners had in a NW firm many years ago, using “standard time claims”, to see which of them could rack up the most time.
    The winner was the one who had been storing up Instructions to Counsel – all word processed standard documents and times – and his time-sheet total for one day topped 29 hours!
    still doent top the works of fiction I still see for time claims for drawing bills though !

  3. Yes, there’s the old joke about one well known PI firm with roots not all that far from Sheffield – when you retire after 25 years loyal service the grateful partners give you your carriage clock – your 48 hour carriage clock…

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