Billable hours

A lawyer dies and goes to Heaven. 

"There must be some mistake," the lawyer argues. "I’m too young to die. I’m only fifty five." 

"Fifty five?" says Saint Peter. "No, according to our calculations, you’re eighty two." 

"How’d you get that?" the lawyer asks. 

Answers St. Peter: "We added up your time sheets."

Two points:

1) The first joke, the mistake, of course, is that a lawyer went to heaven. Many people start to laugh after the first sentence.

2) Lawyers generally charge billable hours. In the first law firm where I worked, we charged in increments of 6 minutes, ten increments to an hour, or 1/10th of the full charge for an hour of work on a case. The full charge was $350. If my assistant brought in the mail, opened and sorted, I would glance at each piece, set some aside and tell him what to do with the others. These last transactions might each take 30 seconds of my time: "Call and see if  she can come in next week. If so, make an appointment. And bill 1/10 hour."

So that 30 seconds or less was billed on my behalf as six minutes. I could process ten such letters in five minutes, charge each person 1/10 of an hour -- the minimum we would charge -- and get a full billable hour ($350) for that five minutes of my work. The assistant, of course, would spend much more time making calls, writing letters and so on. But his time did not count in this system, although some firms did charge similar though much smaller fees for their paralegals' time.

At the end of a 60-hour week (not unusual!), a lawyer can easily submit hundreds of billable hours in this way.

I'm not saying lawyers can't forcefully argue the justification for this. I'm just saying at the Pearly Gates, we may all be in for a shock!