Personal Injury Law

How to Teach Lawyers Not to Steal

An Ohio lawyer has been suspended for two year years suspension for submitting ?false and fraudulent? time sheets. Theoretically possible for the workaholic? Sure. But three of her bills reflecting more than 24 hours of work in one day, once billing 90.3 hours of work during a 96 hour period. In another, she billed 139.5 hours of work during a 144 hour period.

Although the number of lawyers who pad their bills is probably on the downside in 2010 as more companies are looking for more ways to trim legal budget fat, lawyers who bill by the hour have been padding their bills since Emperor Claudius lifted the ban on lawyers billing more than 2,000 years ago. Little known fact: Abraham Lincoln was a notorious bill padder, sometimes charging clients five times the number of hours taken to complete the task. There was scores of client complaints about Lincoln about his billing. (Before you pass this information along, consider the possibility that I'm completely making this up.)

Anyway, while most lawyers don't, the fact that one lawyer was caught ridiculously padding her bills in not actually a Page 1 story. But I found the defense to the crime particularly interesting: it was the the law school's failure to teach law firm management.

The first reason why this is so ridiculous is obvious. As Carolyn Elefant points out, if you can't figure out that you are not allowed to bill more than 24 hours in a day, a law school class is not going to set you straight.

But, in my opinion, the whole idea of Law Firm Management as a course is an exercise in futility. You have make believe lawyers pretend to run a make believe law firm with make believe problems. Students just are not going to really digest the problem. It is like suggesting the guy that won your fantasy football league three years in a row would make a great general manager.

Full post as published by Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog on August 31, 2010 (boomark / email).