Onetime BigLaw Partner, Now In-House, Was Aided by Teen Son in 'Torture' of Reviewing Time Entries
When he was a partner at a large law firm, Mark Hermann took seriously the job of reviewing attorney time entries before sending out the bills to his clients.
But after a solo session at a local coffee shop, he was ready to stick toothpicks into his eyes after several hours of this “torture,” writes Herrmann, who now serves as chief litigation counsel for Aon, in an Above the Law column.
So, taking a lesson from Tom Sawyer’s fence-whitewashing experience, he convinced his teenage son, Jeremy, that reviewing time entries was an important job. From his son’s sophomore to senior year of high school, the two spent time together at the coffee house on the third Sunday of every month going over bills before sending them to clients.
In exchange for a caramel frappuccino with whipped cream, the teen helped his father rewrite time entries in an active voice (substituting phrases such as “summarize Smith deposition” for “prepare summary of deposition of Smith”) and satisfy themselves that the time entries represented meaningful work.
Sometimes, Herrmann’s expertise was required: After considerable cogitation and review of other time entries, by the attorney in question and other lawyers at the firm doing related work, the father was able to substitute “Researching and drafting motion in limine to exclude evidence of fraud on the FDA” for the cursory explanation that a lawyer had spent 7.5. hours on “MIL.”
What lesson can be learned from this experience? Those sending the bills to Aon and other corporations need to make the relatively minimal effort to ensure that their bills provide clear and persuasive explanation that payment-worthy work was done, Herrmann says.
Jeremy, he points out, is at college now, so he’s on his own as he goes over the bills from the other side of the table, determining whether or not they should be paid.
