The joys of freelancing – you either have too little work or too much work – the balance is never quite right. And then there’s the admin. So here I am doing my first blog in over six months – slightly shameful when blogging is part of my work and I can’t seem to quite manage to do it for myself!
I wrote my last blog when I was about to begin my first fee-earning role in 3 1/2 years. The role proved as useful as I expected – it’s all very well writing about the law but there’s no substitute for actually practising it. As I expected, the Jackson Reforms do seem to have tightened up court timetables – or at least encouraged lawyers to adhere more strictly to them – but Denton v White and other post-Denton decisions may calm things a little.
Another interesting project over the summer was writing a time recording policy for a law firm. Such policies are becoming more common place and are critical as law firms seek to optimise their profitability. The fairest way to treat fee-earners is to set out clear guidelines so that they are able to record all of the work that they carry out, bill for it where appropriate and in turn get their due reward. Time recording is the bane of many fee-earners’ lives – certainly not something I miss – but hopefully a clearly written policy will result in a switch to more accurate time recording.
