We really want you to do this - in the most painful way possible.

It seems that the post Use My Invoice As a Project Update struck a chord with some people. Therefore, I must tell you about its even more troubling sibling. It still exists because law firms refuse to learn this.

Firms are, as we all know (far too well), sticklers about timekeeping. Because apparently it tells them something. But that’s wrong. It tells them nothing. It just makes bills, which then get paid (fingers crossed) and that’s how firms survive and thrive. Or so they think.

Now, working on a client matter, and recording time, is the most important thing (hint: it’s not, see here: Paying Clients Come First. But Should They?) What’s the next most important thing? Getting new clients and matters where you can record more time.

And what do we call that? Correct: business development. Although, mind you, law firms have such a scanty understanding of business development that they mix everything into that: marketing, sales, account management, client entertainment, speaking at conferences, writing scholarly articles, etc. But that will be for a future post.

At some point, firms - more precisely their leadership - invariably feel that they need to lead the horse to water and “encourage” their lawyers to do more business development. Yes, some lawyers are bad at it and won’t do it naturally. Surprise!! (Hint: because you made them partner based on their billable hours, not because they could develop business) But instead of helping them get better, firms follow the adage of “what gets measured, gets done” (big mistake in believing that - also a future post).

And then they come up with the craziest idea of all: let’s make our lawyers record the time they spend on business development.

Digest that for a moment. Let it sink in. Seriously.

I honestly cannot believe it is still happening 20+ years after I joined this lot. It made no sense then and it makes no sense now.

So, firms are actually asking lawyers to do the ONE thing they uniformly all despise - which is recording time - for stuff that they want them to do more of.

Hello? Come on. If you have kids you know that won’t work. So what makes you believe it will work with adults, professionals, extremely well-paid lawyers?

No law firm (or their leaders) I have ever seen has the patience to look through the prose that lawyers put down when they are supposed to record time for business development.

So, there are no consequences. Back to kids: why bother? The rule will fail. It gets “followed” only by letter, not by spirit.

Eventually this practice becomes so ridiculous that it is just ignored and then more or less dies. Some partners don’t get the (telepathically transmitted) memo and still record time for business development years later.

You can get to better, more collaborative, effective and efficient business development. But it’s not by asking lawyers to record their time. That is also for a future post.

Sorry, lots of future posts promised. But I had to get this one out. It’s another ugly monster created by the billable hour defining the culture of a law firm (and that also will be a future post).