#215: You’re Losing Billable Hours (How To Recapture Them)

Hello. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Life & Law. This is your host, Heather Moulder, and today we have a guest I want to introduce you to Molly Kramer. She is a former big law litigator turned certified life coach who practiced for over 16 years. Despite her litigation successes, Molly struggled, like all of us, to master her billing habits for much of her career, often procrastinating time entries (which, of course, forced her to guesstimate entries and underbill), failing to record billable tasks (because it was too much time spent), and losing productive hours to online distractions.

This vicious cycle inevitably led to exhaustion, resentment, and ultimately burnout towards the end of her legal career. While pursuing her life coaching certification, Molly started to understand the real reasons behind her unhelpful billing practices and retrained herself to bill more consistently and contemporaneously.

Now known as the billing Coach, Molly is on a mission to help attorneys keep track of their hours and earn more money while reducing stress and anxiety so that they can actually love the law again. Welcome, Molly.

[00:02:15] Molly: Thank you, Heather. I appreciate you having me on.

Heather: Well, I'm really excited to have you on. Anybody who is listening who has followed me on LinkedIn for a while will probably recognize you because we interact a lot on LinkedIn, and there are times when I actually refer people to you like, okay, if you have this problem, go here, go here, go here.

And it occurred to me, like, why have I not had her on my podcast yet? This is ridiculous. She needs to get on. So we're remedying that, finally. I'm really excited that you are here with me today.
[00:02:45] Molly: Yes, me too. Super excited.

An Introduction to Molly Kremer

[00:02:47] Heather: So. Okay, so before we get into the bulk of the conversation all about billing, why don't you give me a little bit of background as to, you know, why you even went to law school. What was the pull? Did you love practicing? I know you had some burnout, but, you know, what was that experience of going into the law? And then what. What was the transition of. Okay, maybe not.
I'm really curious about that one.

[00:03:13] Molly: Okay.

So I was a philosophy major in undergrad, and so bas, basically, I had two choices. Either go to law school, or, like, my mom would say, what are you gonna do? Sit on the corner and give out philosophical advice? Because who is hiring philosophers?
So I went to law school. That was the obvious choice at that time.

And I did love. I loved reading. I loved all the analytical thinking. I love studying. I loved all of it. So I really enjoyed law school. And then when I got out, it was 2008, right when the recession hit, did I actually worked for free?
I volunteered at the district city attorney's office in San Diego. I had to move back home. I was in San Francisco, moved back home to San Diego, lived with my mom, worked for free. It was a struggle from the beginning. And then I did finally get a job at a defense firm in downtown San Diego.

The Negative Billing Mindset (Most Attorneys Have)

And that's when I was introduced to billing because I didn't have to bill my time when I worked for the district attorney's office. It was just show up to court, right? Be a lawyer, do it. And then all of a sudden, I was introduced to it.

And this, my first introduction was actually when I was working for a partner and he had a name on the building, and he said to me about billing. Billing is a ball and chain that you literally have to drag with you every single day of your career. So just get used to the wait. No, I said, oh, wow, horrible. Oh, yes. And everybody at the firm, every lawyer, would confirm this kind of narrative. Over the 16 years I practice, that's all I heard. You know, people were hating billing, struggling with billing, didn't want to bill. Right.

We were, you know, in each other's offices, co workers offices, and it's like, oh, got to get back to billing. Can't sit here and chit chat. So it was always this weight, this, like, heaviness, this thing we had to do that we didn't want to do.

So the. My entire career.

But going back to your initial question, and we can get into that later, most of the reason why is I definitely went into law with not many options, to be honest.

I loved philosophy. I loved the wisdom and all of it. And then I just went into law thinking that this was just the next logical step. And I did enjoy practicing for most of my career. I was a defense litigator for most of my career. I hopped around a lot to different firms.

I did end up in a really great big law firm at the very end.

And then we'll get into why I, why I decided to leave. But I did enjoy most aspects of it. I definitely felt burnt out because I didn't have great billing habits. I didn't have any time management habits, any great ones.

So I definitely struggled throughout my career to be a great litigator. I was an okay litigator, but I just didn't have the tools right back then. There weren't coaches.

A Big Issue Behind Bad Billing Practices: Time Management

[00:06:11] Heather: I want to note something here that I don't think I've ever said.

And you, you just raised it.

I wasn't a very good time manager. I think most attorneys think they are when they're not.

[00:06:24] Molly: Yes.

[00:06:24] Heather: And I think that's part of the problem with the whole billable hour issues that they have. So, like, we think because we are focusing on, quote, unquote, efficiency, we like to use that word. We like to focus on being efficient, we like to focus on being productive.

We think that means we automatically manage our time well. And I will say a lot of people, when I talk to attorneys who say they're struggling with burnout, who say they're struggling with too much going on, there's, you know, they're not very good time managers yet they say they are and that's why they're so lost as to now. And I would also note that it is impossible to be a time manager, a good time manager, if you are not doing some foundational things that you probably don't think of as related to time management.

Things like proper prioritization and understanding what real priorities are. Saying no to things you need to say no to, not saying yes to everything, actually focusing on self care and saying yes to you. Sometimes those things go hand in hand and it's a mindset thing at the end of the day, at least that's what I've seen for most people. It starts foundationally with your mentality around how you even perceive yourself, your role. The billable hour is a big piece of that, which is why I wanted you on so badly. Because I don't think people realize that a lot of the stress relates to Our mentality around the billable hour, which then creates this ripple effect of how we treat it, which then creates a bigger ripple effect of stress, anxiety, overwhelm, et cetera.

[00:08:00] Molly: Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. That's exactly it.

[00:08:03] Heather: Yeah. I mean, so, okay, so when did you. We're not going to get into when you left yet, and. Well, actually, maybe we will, because you in your bio says as you were pursuing your life coaching certification, you started to understand the billing habits that you had had that were not great and how to change those.

So before we get into how you started to understand that and the understanding that you gained, what made you go, like, pursue life coaching at all?

How Coaching Transformed Her Billing Habits

[00:08:42] Molly: Great question.

I had definitely started listening to podcasts, actually back in 2016, 2017.

One literally just said, the life coach school. And I said, okay, great, I probably need a life coach. I was definitely already feeling burnout.

I had my first child at that time, maybe 2016, 2017.

So I was listening to this podcast, really getting some great mindset tools. I really didn't understand what really mindset was. It's like, what is this mindset thing and how can it help me? And since I already had a kind of a foundation in philosophy, I kind of thought about life coaching as another philosophical way to be thinking about the world.

And so I started listening to that for a while and then actually started to apply some of the mindset tools I was learning just from this podcast I was listening to.

And then back in 2020, when Covid hit, I was on. I had baby number two. And so two little girls at home, Covid trying to work remotely. All the things. I really dove into other podcasts, too, and other life coaching.

And then I really started to implement some of the tools, both with my time management. But then, like you said, and we'll get into it with my billing habits, because what was happening around that time was my billing habits were not helping me to capture my time so that I could go and be with my family, so that I could go and take care of my girls or the other things I needed to do before 2020, when I was just working in an office, I would just stay late.

I would just stay at the office till 8 o' clock at night to make up for time that I lost because I was under billing. Or I'd stay an extra hour so that I could reconstruct my time, but I couldn't really do that anymore. Definitely working from home, it was a lot more challenging. And so all of a sudden, I started to see this all of my bad billing habits. I'm putting bad and funny quotes, like air quotes, because it wasn't bad. They were just really unhelpful. They were unhelpful for me to create the life that I wanted to.

But the coaching really helped me in time management and other areas, creating boundaries.

I didn't even know really what a boundary was and that I could create it around my work. And so then I said, wait a minute, maybe I could apply this to some of my unhelpful billing habits, like procrastinating under billing confusion, cutting all the non billable distractions that I was engaging in. And so I started to do it slowly and then realized, wait a minute, this is actually working.

These are more permanent. I can actually capture a full seven or eight hour day without being at my desk for 10 hours. It was just this magical thing and this light switch kicked on and I said, wait a minute, I could help others. And that was kind of the start of it. I think I went off on a little tangent, but.

Why Transitions Are Often Slow (Not Quick)

[00:11:33] Heather: No, you didn't. So you, it's interesting. So you, you didn't have this like massive epiphany immediately? No, yeah, I kind of did. But of course I had a like life experience that did that for me and I had no clue when I had my epiphany. Like, what on earth does this mean? Like I actually, and I don't think I've ever told people this, but I thought about being a holistic nutritionist. I thought about like all these different things and then finally somebody said, heather, you'd actually be a really good coach.

And that's what got me like looking into coaching.

So you know, for me it was like it was about a year process from knowing I didn't think I wanted to practice anymore, but not having a clue what I wanted to do to figuring out what it might even be. And then I found coaching and got went to coach school on the side to see does this really fit with what I want to do.

You were probably a little smarter about it, right? You were a long process. Like it was a long process of, oh, this is going to help me. This is interesting. I'm applying it to myself. And you kept learning, learning, learning. And you got to a point of, wait a second, I can help others with this too, right? When did you make the decision to just leave law?

Molly's Journey Into Coaching

[00:12:45] Molly: It took a while because I wasn't sure if my coaching business would work because there weren't any other billing coaches, it was just me.

[00:12:52] Heather: Probably why it's so brilliant.

[00:12:54] Molly: Yeah, yeah, it was me helping other attorneys and it was kind of strange. And so I wasn't sure. Also, I don't have any sort. I didn't have any sort of entrepreneurial background.

So I really was like, I just don't know if this is going to work. But the thing that helped me was because I had created better billing habits, I created more time to work on this business.

And I all of a sudden had two or three hours that usually I spent overworking to make up for the bad billing habits. Now I could work on my business. I was capturing at least six, seven, sometimes eight hours a day. And then having two, maybe three hours at night.

And then even on the weekends I was able to work a little bit more because of my mindset.

And so that is really what helped me to create my business and to become an entrepreneur and do all the hard things that as you know, it's the life of an entrepreneur.

[00:13:47] Heather: Oh yeah.

[00:13:48] Molly: Did take a pretty good amount of time, I want to say. It was about a five year journey. It was long. And I needed also the support from other coaches and learning a lot about how to do it and all of that as well. But it was a longer journey for me for sure.

[00:14:01] Heather: Well, and I think, though, I like that you shared that because there are people out there listening, thinking, maybe I don't want to practice law forever. I'm not quite sure what else. Or maybe I have something else, you know, in mind. But we have this sense of, well, I've. I have this other thing. I have to go headfirst, all in.

And that's not always the smartest or the best way of doing it because it can cause more stress and anxiety and overwhelm. And you also need, all of us need to be financially secure. And so there is no perfect or right way. So you sharing that it took that long. That's not that long though, because you were doing it on the side all the way through, learning what you needed to learn, getting to a place that made you comfortable before you jumped out.

[00:14:46] Molly: While you were talking. You said it at the very beginning. It was like, wait a minute, I could, I could do both. I did have that epiphany, right? I literally remember exactly walking with my husband and I was thinking about, well, no, I have to do either or. Because that's that attorney mindset. It's that black and white, either or right or wrong. And all of a sudden I'm like, wait, I could do both that and in between. And that is like one of the biggest coaching Tools that I used with my legal practice and with billing. All of a sudden it was like, oh, I don't have to just do the legal work and then do the billing at the end of the day.

I could do the legal work and the billing at the same time. How could that be possible?

And then I also was able to open up my mind to I could be a lawyer and a coach. How could I make that reality possible? And that was my big epiphany. And so, yes, it definitely took more time because I was doing both. I didn't go all in, but I was so happy because just like you said, I could have created way more stress and overwhelm by just being like, I'm done with the law, jumping into this. Right. And so that. And between it so powerful.

[00:15:52] Heather: Oh, that. Yes. And I learned that early in coaching. Yes. And instead of. But there was always we want to do but the human brain and especially the legally trained vein. Yes, but no, no, it's. Yes. And what comes after the. And now, you know, that was very freeing for me when I learned that. So, okay, so I want to jump into billing and billing practices and I want to set this up with the picture of this was a partner that I worked with for many years who I observed from afar. And I know there are many out there like this and probably some of my listeners are like this and I'm sure some of your clients have been like this when they come to you.

So high level senior person, great work, great work ethic, very well respected. But he had one issue and his one issue was his time at the end of the month. He always scrambled. And I remember like the last week of every month, his poor secretary was like searching all his emails, looking at his calendar, trying to figure out when did you have conference calls, how long did this last? Like she was trying to do this for him. Then she would like give that, turn that over to him and he'd. And it would seriously would take him, I think two full days of time, her a whole week of wasted energy, time and stress just to reconstruct the past month. Because he did not track it very well as he went.

[00:17:19] Molly: Yes. If at all.

Billing Practices: Why They Matter (A Case Study)

[00:17:21] Heather: I just remember watching that thing. This is insane because I thank God. I think you've seen this because I've told you this before in on LinkedIn.

I was forced at a very young age to learn how to bill properly. And I will tell you, I did not appreciate it. Those first two years of my career when I was forced to do it, we had A couple of very high needy clients. They were just very needy and very. They would love to look at the bills and just say, no, can't bill for this. No. What is this question things constantly.

So this partner who is in charge of this client would make the young associates. As I came in, I had to do it, review the bill before it went out. And not only did we have to review it, we had to review it with a fine tooth comb and make sure all the narratives made sense with one another and that they were accurately describing what was going on. So I learned the art of building a correct narrative at that time. And as I went through that, I also learned. Wait a second, I have this time entry. And I know I was working with so and so, and they don't either. So I started to realize how much time people were losing at a very young age. So it created a habit in me in a very early age to bill your time, bill your time, bill your time. And if I ever got behind, it was never more than a day or two, and I could reconstruct it kind of. I will tell you, that's even hard. So I don't understand people who get weeks and weeks behind. It's crazy to me.

But I know you see this all the time. So let's start there and tell me what is going on.

[00:18:52] Molly: What is.

The Struggle With Contemporaneous Timekeeping

[00:18:53] Heather: Why do lawyers have such a problem with tracking their time as they go?

[00:18:59] Molly: I mean, that's it, right? That's the. That's the ultimate question. And it is interesting, that story that you told of the partner. At every law firm I worked at, there was one of those partners I worked for. Right. And there were associates as well. But there was. There were those partners who. The door would shut and it wouldn't open for two or three days, and they would be in there scrambling to get their time in. But to your question, I think that attorneys struggle with their billing because, number one, it really is that, like, we're going back to the time management.

Lack of Training (& Role Models)

Like, we're just not trained to keep track of time. Right? We're just normal human beings, just go through the day and do the tasks that they're assigned, but they are not trained in their brain to keep track of it at the same time. So that's one issue with it. Another issue, I think, is that lawyers in law school, right, it's radio silence with billing. Nobody talks about it other than, oh, you have to meet this billing target. And usually it's 2000 hours or 2100.

So it's about the number of hours you have to work, but it's not about how to bill or when to bill. Right. It's just this like, oh, you're going to make more money, but you're going to have to bill more of your time. And so all throughout law school, you're just trained on how to be a lawyer, how to think like a lawyer. But then once you get into the legal profession, it's like, oh, by the way, you also have to think about capturing every increment of your time, every six minutes or whatever that billable time is.

And so it's just this skill set that we're not taught. And most partners or anyone who is a mentor to the younger associates, they're also not taught. And so they're not good at it either. Yeah, they don't know what they're doing.

[00:20:39] Heather: So nobody's teaching it anywhere. We're never trained on it and we're just creating this atmosphere of. It's the ball and chain that you.

Mindset: It's Not A Priority

[00:20:48] Molly: Have behind you that you. I think another thing, another thing too is I talk about is that once you, it's like, okay, so here's the scenario. You're a first year attorney, you go into the partner's office and they say, okay, here's the assignment. This is the client. I want you to research this, I want you to do this. This is when it's due, right? They go over all the parameters of the work that you're supposed to do and then they push you out the door. And that's it, close the door. Not once do you likely hear, oh, and make sure you bill for that. And here's how to bill for that.

And make sure it's in a reasonable amount of time, none of that. Over time, the young lawyer brain learns that what's important to the partner, right? We want to please the partner is the legal work, the client, it's the legal work. Nobody is pleased. When you get your billing work in right in the moment versus at the end of the month, obviously it's like deadline panic, but in the moment, you're always trying to please the partner, please the client. And what they want is the work, right? It's like the billing work doesn't count, so it's not important. And what our brains don't think is important, it forgets, it deprioritizes and that pattern just runs over and over. So typically what I hear from law firms is in the beginning, right? Some attorneys are pretty good at getting their time in, but as they go, they learn that it's the legal work. And you got to get the legal work done and there's deadlines for the legal work and then they scramble at the end of the month to get the billing in. So the have the bad billing habits start early because there's so much pressure to do the legal work and zero pressure to get that billing work done.

[00:22:23] Heather: You know, I think probably two things helped me a that experience and seeing the connection between the legal work, the billing of it and the collection it really showcased. Okay, this is a business and we actually have to collect on this work. So this is just as important.

But I'm also.

I was an economics major. I was more finance oriented. I think that probably helped me because I had. My mindset was always, well, how are we going to make money off of this? Like we actually do.

You know, my viewpoint on billing, especially once I saw how it was done, was this is how I get paid. And that is really important to me. So I must track this correctly.

And then I also realized, and I think this is somewhere a lot of associates mess up.

If I don't track my time well from the beginning, and when I say, well, every single moment of the time that I think should be billable, I am not going to learn correctly what is and is not billable or should or should not be billed for, because I don't know yet at that age.

And most things really are, by the way, it should be, number two, I'm not going to learn how to describe it correctly even if it is billable.

Number three, I'm not going to show how I'm getting more efficient and better at my job. Because the fact of the matter is, is you're going to spend way more time at something the first couple of years than you are later on down the road.

And it very quickly showed me, like when I was looking at all of that, like, if I track my time, it may look like I'm spending five hours on something, but a year from now I'll spend two and a half and the partner's going to notice that.

And they're not going to write down time anymore because they do write more time down up front because it does take you longer and they expect that.

So you are doing yourself a huge disservice because they have no clue. You might think, well, they should know I spent all this time how they are overseeing numerous things with numerous people. They're not sitting there staring at your office and knowing exactly what you're working on when they have no clue how long you're Taking on things. So if you spend five hours on something but only bill two or three, they think you're only billing that two or three. You're only working that two or three hours. They don't know you're working those extra hours on that thing.

You're hurting yourself.

[00:24:50] Molly: I know 100% well and I love that point of like partners really don't know what you're doing, especially in this remote work environment.

Right. We're not all in the office anymore, so the partner can't see that you're in there working.

Billing Narratives

The Importance of Good Billing Narratives for Associates & Your Clients

So now I always say your billing narratives are such a great way for the partners reviewing your billing if you're an associate to better know you, like you and trust you. Well, at least know and trust, right? Maybe like two. Because if you have really great billing narratives, they don't have to go back and like right on their Sunday when they're reviewing all the pro formas and have to change it and, and make it better. So it's so helpful for them to be like, oh, Sally is doing XYZ and this is the value she's providing to the client and this is how much time. So it really does help them to better know like and trust you. And the same thing for the clients. Right. When the clients ultimately get the bill. It's a really good way for you to showcase the value you're providing to your clients in your billing narratives. And so it's so nice that you don't have to give them a call and tell them exactly what you're doing. You just bill your time in those narratives. Make sure you have a good robust four part framework that justifies the time and tells them the why.

And then they really can develop a better relationship with you without you doing a thing other than narrating your billing.

What You Can (& Should) Bill For

[00:26:06] Heather: Okay, so let's talk. I want to get into your top tips in a couple minutes for how to better capture your time and pay attention to it. But before we do that, let's talk narratives for a minute because it is insane to me how some people will, well, I can't bill for this because I met with the senior partner or I am the partner and I met with the younger associate and I assigned the project and I can't bill for that time. What would you say to that? Because there's a lot of lost time in the meetings and discussions and that. So what do you say to that?

[00:26:42] Molly: So there are a lot of clients who have specifically in their billing guidelines, no inter office communications.

Right. And so that is Very much drilled into partners who they want to keep the client. And so a lot of them are like, well, I just have to eat that time. Or with associates, same thing. Well, we're just going to have to eat this time.

So I like to define billable time a little bit differently than what most people, most lawyers do. Most lawyers are thinking the definition of billable time is if the client will pay for it, it's billable, or if it's legal work, it's billable.

So my definition is if the work you're doing, either mental or the actual physical fingers to the keyboard, typing something out, if that work moves the matter forward, right. If it adds value to the case by moving the matter forward, I say it's billable and I say that is the definition of it.

Because the client, what they're paying you for is to resolve their case, right? To get their problem solved. And for most definitely litigators to get their problem solved, they have to keep moving their case forward through the litigation process, starting with the initial pleadings and then through discovery and then through motions and then all the way up till trial. So they have to keep moving that case forward. So I say any work you're doing, and I always like to emphasize the mental work as well, because let's face it, that's what the clients are paying attorneys to do is all of the mental strategy evaluation work, that is what I consider billable work.

Billing for Inter-Office Communications

So going back to those inner office communications, I like to reframe that as well. And I really think that you can classify those as masterminds because it is. It's two legal minds put together discussing the case, coming up with more solutions.

Right. Versus just one, one associate trying to think about it on their own. If you add in the partner and the experience that they have, maybe it's 10, 20 years experience, all of a sudden, you'll likely get to a solution of the client's problem much more quickly. And the client wants that to happen. Yeah, they want that efficiency, they want that quickness. So I always say you can and should actually bill that time. And if you want, I can talk about how or if we can save that for when we talk about billing tips and all of that.

[00:29:06] Heather: So I would say I used to, and this is true for transactional, because I was a transactional lawyer. Like in order to have the associate, let's say a mid level or senior associate, draft the initial draft of the documents, we would need to meet, talk over the term sheet, think about strategies like here are the Pressure points that we really need to be watching for. Here's where you need to pay attention.

This is going to be a unique drafting situation. Here's why, here's what to think about. But I want you to give it the first because it was cheaper for them to do that and frankly they learned a lot more that way and were able to provide better service to the clients over time with that, that it made sense. And so I did bill for that, but I didn't say give assignment to.

Right. So there are ways to describe it and we'll get into that, but that is moving it forward. Now if we were meeting for 30 minutes and the first 20 minutes was going over and it really was billable time, but then the last 10 minutes is, okay, I'm going to help you with where to get started or let's find a form that I wouldn't necessarily bill for. Right. So I would say Bill, 20 minutes at this time. And here's how to talk about it.

Right. You need to talk about it this way to make it clear to the client what we were really doing so that they will understand this is valuable to them. But this last 10 minutes where we're searching for the right form to get started because I know there was another deal that had something or this provision, we're all not bill for that because that is really more your like learning time, your professional development time and my training you time.

So I do think there's sometimes these meetings that are like, well, it went too long because. Okay, so talk then about, well, how much of this should be billable?

More of it than you think? I think.

[00:30:56] Molly: Yes, 100%. And so I think unfortunately clients, or the broad assumption is that when attorneys are just talking to each other, right. It's not valuable, it's not something that should be billed.

It's harder because you can't see a finished product.

So I think a lot of clients, that's why they say no inter office communications, we want to see a finished product.

But I think it is up to the attorney to educate them through the billing narratives on why this is valuable, why this is benefiting you, the client, to move the case forward more efficiently and more quickly. And so I think you definitely can do that in those billing narratives, just like you said.

[00:31:36] Heather: Yeah, and I think we need to do a better job of explaining to our clients what we really do for them. Like you're actually paying this money not just to get this document or to get this, you know what, everything filed, you're actually paying me the money mostly for my brain power, for my understanding, for my. Our ability to then strategize correctly. And frankly, that doesn't happen in a vacuum, and it happens better when you talk it out with other people.

So I just, I think we've done a horrible job in how we've addressed this. I think some of it is the way we've treated the bill of hour, the way we keep raising rates, you know, the way we pay people has really hurt us. But then we're not doing a very good job in communicating what we're really doing and then educating the client.

How To Write Better Billing Narratives (& Get Paid For The Work You Do In Full)

[00:32:25] Molly: Yes. And that's why I'm always saying it's so interesting, because attorneys are, you know, huge advocates, zealous advocates for their clients and the work they do, but then when it comes to their billing and their time, they somehow just like drop it. And there's no advocacy for the time that they spend on their clients cases. So I'm always encouraging attorneys to zealously advocate for the time that you spend on your clients cases, to do it for you, but also to educate the client, like you said, educate them on how you're providing all of this value.

And so when we do talk about the how and the billing narratives, I'm always a big proponent of emphasizing the why, the value, that last part of the narrative. Yes, of course we want to talk about the action and the task part, but that last third and fourth part, the value or the extra value you're providing, that's what the client, I think, is. Should be seeing in all of those narratives to some extent.

Change Your Billing Mindset

[00:33:19] Heather: Yeah. Well. And okay, so this leads me to a mindset question, because I think a lot of what we've talked about so far today ultimately comes down to the mentality that lawyers even have around billing.

And when you shift, we're talking about a shift in how we see the narratives, the purpose for them.

How does that help with the mindset shift? And what mindset shift do lawyers need to have in order to start changing their habits?

Mindset Shift #1: Time Is Your Most Valuable Resource

[00:33:52] Molly: So I think the number one most important mindset shift is to think about your time as the most valuable resource. I always say it's way more valuable than money because clients can always make more money. They can make an absurd amount of money, but you can never get back your time, all of the time you spend on their cases. Right. You could have been spending that time doing something very differently, maybe being with your family or doing a hobby that you like or whatever it is, but you don't. You choose to spend it on Your clients, cases. And it's so valuable because it's so finite. And I think a lot of attorneys forget. And so first is that mindset that my time is so valuable all the way from a beginner associate all the way up to, you know, a partner with all the experience still, that beginner associate, your time is still so valuable because it is finite. You never get it back.

So let's capture it, right? Yes. We put a monetary value on it, but remember, it is the scales are always tipped towards the client's favor because you can never get back that time, but they can always make more money. So I think that's just the first little mindset shift that attorneys need to start making. And I know it's hard for associates because, oh, we have all the time in the world, or I don't have, you know, kids or families or other obligations.

And so I think what happens is they spend way too much time at the office, and they don't capture all their time because they're not thinking that their time is super valuable. And so if you get in that habit from day one, understanding that your time is finite, it's the most valuable resource, I think that's the first step so that they can really start to see that it is valuable and I need to capture all of that time.

Mindset Shift #2: Billing Is Just As Important As Your Legal Work

[00:35:32] Heather: Okay. And then is there another shift they need to make after that?

[00:35:37] Molly: So I also think that when you think about the legal work as the most important thing, and most attorneys, like I said in the beginning, do they say the legal work is the most important, but if you can shift into the legal work and the billing work are just as important.

Right. We don't really think of the billing work as important as the legal work. But like we talked about with that, and the legal work and the billing work are both just as important, how could that be the possible mindset that you are in every single day? And when you do think the billing work is just as important, you do have a bigger tendency to take the action of getting your time in versus not that important. Put it off till later. Put it off till later. Legal work's the most important thing. And so if you can start that mindset shift early, the legal work and the billing work are both just as important. I think that will help you to prioritize both.

Mindset Shift #3: Your Law Practice Is A Business

[00:36:31] Heather: So I would add, and I think this is necessary not just for this purpose, but for later purposes as you start to build a business and try to build your own book.

Yes, you're a lawyer.

Yes, you're there to do great legal work, but it's also a business. And we do not think, we think this a law practice.

No. Think of it as your legal business.

And that helps with that shift because it really is just as important. Otherwise you can't make money. You have to actually be able to collect. And the way you're collecting, at least the way it works right now, is through the billable hour. So you, you must prioritize it. Just as important, it needs to be on equal footing because you are running a business. And I don't care if you're in, you're a solo practitioner, you're in a mid sized or boutique firm or big law, it's actually still a business, your business. Right. Think of your hours as your business. And then when you grow into a more senior attorney and make partner, it will be a lot easier to make that shift into business development and prioritizing it the way you need to, because you will see it as the business it really is. Because ultimately the book you build is your business.

[00:37:45] Molly: Yes.

[00:37:46] Heather: No matter where you are. I want you to start thinking of it that way.

[00:37:49] Molly: Yes. And I think that was hard for me when I became an entrepreneur because all throughout my legal career I was not thinking about my work and my building and even in my billing as a business.

So I think that's a really good mindset shift to have, especially for younger attorneys.

Molly's Top 3 Tips For Recapturing More Of Your Billable Time

[00:38:05] Heather: Okay. So we've been through the narratives, we've been through the habits, some of the habits, like what they need to prioritize and the mindset shifts they need to make to be able to do it. What are your top two or three tips for the practical, like day to day, how when they get busy, do they really keep track of their time as they go? What are your best tips?

Tip 1: Commit (Daily)

[00:38:28] Molly: So first of all, the number one thing is to make the decision that you are going to commit to becoming a contemporaneous timekeeper. Not maybe some days, and maybe not some days it's like, no, no, no, I'm going to commit to this contemporaneous timekeeping. And my definition of contemporaneous timekeeping is capturing your time either before you even start on the legal work, during or after. It doesn't necessarily have to be after.

Bonus Tip: Create Narratives Ahead of Deep Work

And I think for a lot of tasks, a lot of work that you do, especially the bigger, you know, motions, if you're a litigator or a transactional attorney, if you have like a big purchase agreement, you can actually create that narrative for what you're about to do before you even start on it. I call it that anchoring advantage approach. What happens when you do that is you anchor yourself in. You start to focus, laser focus on what you're about to do because you've really drafted out this narrative. Oh, this is the reason why I'm reviewing these documents in preparation for this purchase agreement. Or this is the what I'm looking for when I'm reviewing the plaintiff's deposition transcript. So when you can narrate that before, it really primes your brain and gets you laser focused in on what you're about to do.

[00:39:36] Heather: That is absolutely how I did it. Anytime I was doing what I would call deep work, drafting, going into a negotiation, a big meeting, something where I knew, okay, the next hour, two hours, this is what I know I'm going to be working on.

I would create the narrative first so that all I had to do when I was done is, okay, this took me X time, no biggie, and I would move on. And you are so right that it primes your brain to like, just focus in and get it done.

[00:40:03] Molly: Yes. And I, I love that. So what you just said, it's like, oh, I just got to put in the time after. I'm always telling attorneys recommending that we want to create the mindset where billing is easy, where it's effortless, it's not a big deal. If you are reconstructing at the end of the day, it is not an easy thing right now. I always say your willpower is low and your resistance is high. And at the end of the day, the last thing you want to do is spend 30, 40 minutes, maybe an hour if there was a lot of different things you did, capturing your billing, reconstructing your time, because it'll most likely take double the amount of time since you have to go back into your emails, go back into your phone records. So when you're doing it contemporaneously, it is easier, it is quicker. And really repeating that to your brain, saying, this is an easier, quicker way to bill versus waiting till the end of the day to bill.

So that's definitely my number one tip, is to commit to that contemporaneous timekeeping habit.

Tip 2: Open Your Billing Software First Thing

Number two is just an easy action tip, which is just click on the billing software, have it pulled up, see it first thing in the morning. I always say, open up your email. Most attorneys, they open up their email, maybe they open up their document management system, right? They open those apps and then maybe they open up the word Doc or whatever they're working on. But make sure you click on itimekeep or whatever billing software you use, it tells your brain this is important. Like right from the beginning, this is important. We're going to be working and billing, working and billing. So that's just a little action to take every single morning.

Tip #3: Bill Your Bookends

And then another tip would be billing bookends. This is huge. So a lot of attorneys forget to bill for the prep time, either the intellectual work prep or the actual physical work prep.

Usually before calls, before meetings, and also the after what I call the billing bookends. It's the before and after time that so many attorneys forget to bill for. And usually it's only a point 2.3 on both sides. But I promise, if you get in the habit of making sure you're capturing, maybe it's a point too for evaluating and strategizing some documents or whatever it is in preparation for a meeting with a client, or maybe updating a case litigation status tracker in preparation for a meeting with the client.

Heather: Yep.

[00:42:19] Molly: What happens is you do that work and really we're just focused on the client call. And typically most attorneys just bill for that client call and they forget the, you know, 10, 20 minutes before the call, the preparation time, and then there's also the after. And I think this is what makes way better attorneys is when you take what happened on the call and do some follow up or at least have a couple of to dos afterwards. Right. The further action plan could take, you know, 10 minutes after the call to make sure that you know what you're going to be doing and you can bill for it. So there's the bookends. I always like to say that attorneys likely miss when they're just billing. And typically this happens when you're reconstructing your time. You forget, you go back and you're like, oh, I had a meeting with the client from 10 to 10:30, just go for that. And then you forget.

Heather: Yeah, you forget that you spent 10 minutes beforehand and 15 minutes afterwards, which is almost 30 minutes of time, five minutes of time that you're then letting go of completely. That is how, by the way, you end up at the end of a really crazy busy day and you've been there for 10 hours and you've built six and you're like, what did I do in those other four hours? That's the kind of thing you're doing.

Or you're getting an email.

Help With A Common Scenario (The Crazy Day of Emails & Interruptions)

So, okay, we're pretty much at the end of time, so I'm going to give you a scenario and give me your best advice for how to Deal with this, because we all have these days. What about those days where you come in thinking, I've got X and Y to do, and that's going to take me six hours of time. And of course, you end up with two hours on it because all heck breaks loose and you get the phone call and then you get these emergency emails and you're like back in for earth on things, and that's not your norm. But it's just one of those days.

How do you track your time through that?

That's hard.

[00:44:07] Molly: Yes, it is. It is. And this is always a question. I get anytime I do a billing workshop or anytime I'm working with clients, it's always a question. But I'm so busy, I'm constantly going from task to task to task. And this goes back into time management.

This goes back into creating more boundaries around your time and also remembering that billing, your time is as important as the legal work.

So a lot of the time, I tell them, you have way more control over your day than you think. I always say, yes, of course the client's going to call, and unexpectedly, yes, of course the partner is going to email you with an unexpected project. Everyone's going to do all the things, but it always ultimately is up to you to manage your mind around what everyone else is doing.

And remember that billing is not going to be important to them. Like, for the most part, they don't care if you're entering your time contemporaneously. It's something you do for you.

So when you mentioned at the very beginning of this podcast episode, the self care, I think billing is a part of self care because you do it for you. You don't really do it for anyone else. Yes, of course the firm will make the money and you get paid eventually, but you do it for you so that you aren't left at the end of the day scrambling to reconstruct your time. So it is a form of self care, and so it's constantly thinking about it that way.

So part of it is the time management, right? When you do have those crazy days, but not letting go of this billing habit that you're trying to create, this contemporaneous timekeeping habit. So many attorneys have that, like, effort mentality. Oh, well, can't do it. It's one of those days. I just got to let go of something. It's got to be the billing, because nobody's waiting on me to get their bill, get my billing in. And so you really have to make it that priority. You have to do it for yourself and at least as much as you can. I get it.

There are those days when it does feel like the tug to get all the other things done and there are deadlines and all of the things that do seem very scary and urgent. But as much as you can calm your brain around it, kind of do the thought work around really taking down the momentum of the urgency. And this is something that I help clients with a lot of, is taking down, soothing the momentum of that high frequency urgency that a lot of attorneys feel all day long. And I always say, I promise we can, we can take it down a couple notches. We can take the volume down. And when you do that, you create more space to get more of your billing done in the moment. So, yeah, time management for sure.

[00:46:38] Heather: Yeah, yeah. I would say ultimately there's two things going on there that people don't realize. It's a prioritization issue.

[00:46:44] Molly: Yes.

[00:46:45] Heather: It's a boundaries issue and it's also a. Your brain, when you're being bombarded like that, it's up to you to take that moment. Like I, I promise you have one to three minutes to deep breathe, slow things down and you'll start thinking more rationally about it and realize, oh, it'll take me two minutes to sit here and actually bill, and then I can move on.

[00:47:11] Molly: Yes.

[00:47:12] Heather: And you'll also be able to see that, okay, somebody else's urgency doesn't mean priority. Like there's all these things going on.

[00:47:18] Molly: That's a good way to think about.

[00:47:19] Heather: It, caught up in. But if you take that just one minute to calm down and think, you will start to actually log it better and realize this is not taking up that much time. I have time for this. And by the way, just by taking that urgency down, then you're going to actually be ready and more prepared mentally to do the next thing better, more quickly. So we convince ourselves we can't take that time and it's just not true. We will get things done better and more quickly and productively if we do take that time.

[00:47:55] Molly: So good. That's exactly it. Yes.

[00:47:57] Heather: Well, this has been an amazing conversation. I know a lot of people are going to get a lot out of this. So where can people find you if they want to hear more from you?

[00:48:08] Molly: Yes, I definitely think that the first step, if you've never heard of me, go to LinkedIn. You can definitely find me on LinkedIn. Just put in the search bar, the billing coach and I will show up and please connect with me. I am always posting really great tips all. I always like to just put it all out there. So if you want to follow me on LinkedIn, that is the best, best place to first start to get to know me and get to know my coaching and all the ways I can help you create better billing habits for you.

[00:48:36] Heather: Awesome. Okay. And I everybody needs to go and if you're a leadership in a law firm, highly recommend you go follow her as well. And she has workshops y' all that she gives trainings for your attorneys and it's very well worth it. So just gonna say that.

[00:48:52] Molly: Thank you so much for having me on. I so appreciate it.

[00:48:54] Heather: It was great. Thank you so much. I'm glad you were here.