Bill padding, and lots of it

by Walter Olson on May 2, 2007

Two-thirds of lawyers queried in a new survey say they’ve seen specific instances of bill padding, a figure that hasn’t changed much since 1995. On two related questions, the numbers are actually getting worse, as Nathan Koppel notes at the WSJ Law Blog (May 1): “54.6% of the respondents (as compared with 40.3% in 1995) admitted that they had sometimes performed unnecessary tasks just to bump up their billable output”, and “the percentage of attorneys who admitted that they had double billed rose from 23% in 1996 to 34.7% in 2007. And only 51.8% regarded the practice as unethical in 2007, as compared with 64.7% in 1995,” although most ethical authorities not surprisingly frown on that practice. Ted has some further thoughts at Point of Law; the study data, gathered by Cumberland/Sanford lawprof William Ross, is here (PDF). More: Jun. 24.

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{ 3 comments }

1 jhs 05.02.07 at 1:42 am

I’m guessing Overlawyered.com won’t catch that the lawyers who bill by the hour are defense lawyers, not those dread “trial lawyers” who work on a contingent fee while spending every waking minute figuring ways to destroy Free Enterprise.

2 Ted 05.02.07 at 7:43 am

I’m guessing that Mr. Schultz didn’t read the linked Point of Law article that demonstrates his kneejerk personal attack was utterly baseless.

(And a good thirty to forty percent or so of the hours I billed in my legal career were on behalf of plaintiffs or counterplaintiffs, and that doesn’t include another ten percent or so on behalf of intervenors or petitioners who weren’t defendants.)

3 Dick 05.02.07 at 9:45 am

The funniest part of publishing the survey results is it assumes those who said they didn’t double bill … were telling the truth!!

Also, what percentage of them were corp/gov lawyers that are paid a salary, instead of by the hour?

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