via
Getty)
What
happened
here
[an
Irwin
Mitchell
senior
associate
getting
caught
misrepresenting
billable
hours,
who
was
ultimately
banned
from
the
profession
by
U.K.
regulators]
is
not
as
extraordinary
as
it
may
sound.
The
practice
of
inflating
hours—at
least
to
some
extent—is
widely
accepted.
After
all,
if
you
divide
annual
targets
such
as
2,000
or
even
2,400
billable
hours
by
the
actual
working
days
in
a
year,
you
quickly
realize
that
this
level
of
‘billable
productivity’
is
hardly
achievable—especially
for
lawyers
who
are
not
directly
responsible
for
managing
client
relationships
or
leading
matters.
—Lawyer
and
executive
trainer
Anna
Elena
Brolis
told
Law.com
about
the
billing
snafu
garnering
international
attention.
She
continued,
“From
this
perspective,
the
sanction
in
this
case
feels
disproportionate:
it
does
not
punish
the
associate
for
the
tolerated
practice
itself,
but
rather
for
having
managed
that
tolerated
practice
poorly.”