There
are
24
hours
in
a
day.
Unless
it
happens
to
be
one
of
the
rare
days
when
the
International
Earth
Rotation
and
Reference
Systems
Service
applies
an
intercalary
second,
in
which
case
there
are
24
hours
and
one
second
in
a
day.
But
in
no
event
is
a
day
69
hours
long,
though
you
wouldn’t
know
that
based
on
Chicago’s
legal
bills.
The
Chicago
Tribune’s
Joe
Mahr
and
Jason
Meisner
embarked
on
a
deep
dive
into
legal
invoices
paid
by
the
city
of
Chicago
to
its
stable
of
private
law
firms
—
specifically
those
handling
federal
civil
rights
cases
defending
the
city
from
people
who
had
their
lives
stolen
by
Chicago
police
misconduct.
In
its
report,
the
Tribune
found
at
least
40
instances
where
a
firm
billed
for
a
timekeeper
working
more
than
24
hours
in
a
single
day,
all
of
which
were
dutifully
paid
in
full.
One
bill
logged
69
hours
for
a
single
attorney
over
a
24-hour
stretch.
A
different
firm
had
one
person
clocking
24+
hours
on
15
separate
occasions.
Unless
the
Chicago
Pope
wants
to
rewrite
the
Gregorian
calendar,
that’s
going
to
be
a
problem.
“Doesn’t
the
city
have
some
sort
of
computer
system
to
guard
against
paying
bills
like
these?”
you
might
ask.
And
you’d
be
on
to
something!
Because
the
city
of
Chicago
does
indeed
use
CounselLink,
for
the
express
purpose
of
flagging
this
kind
of
thing.
Outside
counsel
must
submit
invoices
electronically,
and
the
software
identifies
invoices
where
a
timekeeper
logs
more
than
10
hours
in
a
day
to
give
the
bureaucracy
at
opportunity
to
give
the
bills
a
second
look.
And
the
software
worked…
the
humans
did
not.
In
the
last
decade,
roughly
1,500
invoices
got
flagged
by
this
10-hour
heuristic.
The
city
reduced
payment
on
139
of
them,
and
the
remaining
90
percent
or
so
got
paid
to
the
penny.
And,
of
course,
10
hours
is
a
conservative
figure,
especially
for
attorneys
going
to
trial
One
invoice
featured
162
separate
instances
of
a
staffer
billing
10+
hours
in
a
day
during
a
trial
month,
which
is
a
lot
but
within
the
realm
of
reasonable
depending
on
the
demands
of
the
trial.
But
the
10-hour
flag
is
just
the
first
step.
The
problem
is
that
the
city
wasn’t
taking
the
second
step
of
scrutinizing
the
TWENTY-FOUR-HOUR
flag.
Which
is,
when
you
think
about
it,
the
more
important
one.
All
ethically
compliant
bills
are
alike;
each
24+
hour
bill
is
comical
in
its
own
way.
Just
two
weeks
ago,
an
Australian
court
punished
a
lawyer
for
billing
Broken
Hill
more
than
30
hours
in
multiple
single
days.
That
lawyer
defended
himself
citing
dead
dogs
and
international
time
zones.
Back
in
2013,
an
Ohio
attorney
who
billed
a
29-hour
day
to
the
taxpayer-funded
indigent
defense
system
blamed
record-keeping.
A
Biglaw
partner
had
her
license
suspended
for
(among
other
things)
entries
where
she
billed
for
depositions
she
didn’t
attend.
A
Dentons
associate
got
caught
billing
277
hours
on
a
document
review
project
for
20
documents
that
nobody
had
opened.
More
than
half
the
overbilling
episodes
caught
by
the
Tribune
were
attributable
to
Borkan
&
Scahill.
For
its
part,
the
firm
said
those
clock-busting
bills
arose
from
multiple
employees
billing
their
time
under
a
single
timekeeper.
“Because
of
varying
needs
throughout
the
year,
we
do
not
input
a
dozen
or
more
separate
timekeeper
codes
for
every
single
paralegal
we
use
on
every
single
file,”
the
statement
said.
“Rather,
we
use
the
general
timekeeper
codes
of
our
head
paralegals
to
document
these
services
on
invoices.”
That
is…
not
best
practice.
And
the
city
agrees,
with
its
outside
counsel
guidelines
explicitly
requiring
invoices
to
list
“the
Name
or
Timekeeper
ID
of
the
person(s)
who
performed
the
work
billed.”
Chicago
even
updated
the
guidelines
in
March
to
specifically
prohibit
“‘sharing’
timekeeper
accounts
to
bill
multiple
staff
under
one
staff
member’s
account.”
While
“hey,
each
person
should
probably
bill
their
own
time”
should
be
a
simple
rule
to
follow,
the
city
doubtless
imposes
a
byzantine
set
of
guidelines
upon
outside
counsel
that
incentivizes
the
sort
of
corner-cutting
involved
here.
If
it’s
going
to
take
hours
out
of
substantive
work
to
get
a
second
timekeeper
approved…
that’s
when
firms
will
say
“just
slap
that
time
under
the
pre-approved
code.”
It’s
not
good,
but
it’s
what
happens
when
clients
make
life
difficult.
Everyone
will
point
fingers
over
this
reporting
—
because
finger-pointing
is
fun
—
but
they
probably
should
all
sit
down
together
and
hash
out
a
better,
more
streamlined
billing
procedure
that
prevents
these
mistakes
from
ever
coming
up.
Or
just
commit
to
handling
this
work
entirely
in-house.
One
of
the
great
scams
of
the
ironically
named
“fiscal
conservatism”
movement
that’s
held
sway
in
this
country
for
almost
50
years
is
the
idea
that
government
work
gets
cheaper
when
it’s
farmed
out
to
the
private
sector
and
we’re
half
a
century
into
“nope,
apparently
not!”
Even
if
one
assumes
the
private
sector
performs
more
efficiently
—
a
questionable
prospect
—
those
efficiency
gains
would
have
to
be
more
than
what
the
firm
needs
to
take
in
profit
to
succeed
as
a
business.
Chicago’s
reversed-conviction
cases,
per
the
Tribune,
cost
taxpayers
more
per
case
than
New
York
or
L.A.
Well,
Chicago
has
a
solution
to
this
overbilling
problem!
Last
fall,
the
law
department
began
what
it
described
as
a
pilot
project
for
“new
billing
protocols
and
additional
layers
of
review
by
introducing
a
third-party
managed
bill
review
service
to
improve
invoice
compliance.”
They
hired
another
private
contractor.
Joe
Patrice is
a
senior
editor
at
Above
the
Law
and
co-host
of
Thinking
Like
A
Lawyer.
Feel
free
to email
any
tips,
questions,
or
comments.
Follow
him
on Twitter or
Bluesky
if
you’re
interested
in
law,
politics,
and
a
healthy
dose
of
college
sports
news.
Joe
also
serves
as
a
Managing
Director
at
RPN
Executive
Search.