Rules I Would Make If I Were Queen:

1. All brides who demand that their bridesmaids have standing tanning salon appointments for the month before their NOVEMBER wedding in order to maintain a "cappucino" tan are required to set up a "Skin Cancer Removal Fund" for said bridesmaids. Or have hot pokers stuck under their oval-shaped-with-crystal-decal-swarovski-crystal-only-please-french-manicured fingernails for the duration of said bridesmaids' lengthy tanning appointments. Either way.

2. All college best friends are required to live within a five-mile radius of each other at all times so that all weekends are as amusing and happy as the last one. No exceptions, no excuses.

3. All impossible-to-accomplish-because-no-court-ever-said-that research assignments that one has thrown across the room on Friday afternoon shall disappear, never to return, by Monday morning so as not to completely destroy the week ab initio (yes, as Queen, I do still plan to be a law geek.)

4. If you spend $20 on fresh flowers, which you never normally do but made an exception this once because you're having houseguests, and the florist swears that the flowers just came and will last for at least a week, and they die a horrible, floppy death two days later, it is permissible hex the florist.

5. If, at the end of a week, you have only kept track of a total of 25 billable hours, but you know you were busy every minute of the 55 hours you spent at work, with no lunches, that week, you may include an entry for "30 hours - running around like chicken without head re: all appellate briefs for Partner X." It's fine.

5a. If, by the end of two weeks,  you have only 32 billable hours tracked, but did in fact work all weekend and stay in the office until 8 every night, you may throw a tantrum to your senior partner in which you demand that the billable hour system be shot, hung, tarred and feathered, drawn and quartered, and otherwise put out of its misery.

Comments

[LAlawyer]

That's a pretty poor time in office/billable hours ratio. Two thoughts ocurr to me -- you either need to (1) get better at backtracking your billing records to include some of that chicken w/its head cut off time, or (2) include such time with creative descriptions.

[Legal Dodo]

Talking of billable hours, although the billable hour does not seem to be dead as yet, its days are definitely numbered. Clients are increasingly demanding reduced legal costs, forcing the law firms to innovate. One solution to the high legal fees problem is legal outsourcing.

With the advent of legal process outsourcing, legal work is now being done at a fraction of the cost in countries like India, without compromising in quality. Legal outsourcing providers are helping buyers of legal services in the U.S. reduce costs dramatically by providing cost effective legal solutions.