Happy MLK Day! 35 Sales (and Kat’s Top 6)

46 Comments

1. I vote for playing in here instead of the (now unwieldy) OT.

   For those who were wondering, Michelle Obama’s coat was Thom Browne and (IMO) completely stunning on her, especially when coupled with those pretty purple gloves.

   1. I want all of the coats.

      1. Is it terrible that I covet all of Malia’s clothes?

2. Any adivce on buying belts? I would love to belt a dress or cardigan, but I feel like I can never get one that fits right for me to wear at the waist. I feel like I either buy a smaller size and it just isn’t long enough (as in, I can buckle it, but it looks weird because there isn’t that much length left) or I buy the next size and then it is way too big if buckled on the smallest hole. Do I just poke another one? I feel like everyone else (including a super cute momma to be I saw this weekend) gets how to do this and I just don’t!

   1. Have you tried “knotting” the belt? I usually buy belts so that I can wear them at the hip, but then use that trick to tame the extra length when wearing them at waist level. Extrapetite often wears hers this way — here is an overview she did: http://www.extrapetite.com/2011/10/all-about-belts-how-to-tie-hole-punch.html

   2. I create new holes using a nail, a hammer, and a crack in the sidewalk. There are tools to do this, and you can take it to a cobbler too. I just tend to need a new hole NOW and never remember to buy the tool.

   3. A cobbler or seamstress should have the tools to do this for you and if you bring it in with other things, will often do it for free.

   4. Here you go: customized belts. http://badichibelts.com/ If you’re in NYC the stores are everywhere. The quality seems pretty high as well.

      Also, if you’ve got a shoe guy you can have him DETACH the flat end of the belt from the buckle and either cut/resow it to the buckle. Then you don’t have to worry about getting more holes put in the finished end of the belt. (Which always looks bad, IMHO.)

3. Hello to everyone in the office today!! I’m counting down…less than 3 weeks until I’m at a company that actually gives people holidays off…

   1. Congrats! Our office gives staff holidays, but not lawyers. The idea of “holidays” is sort of stupid if you have billable hour targets.

      1. Oof, yes. There is no such thing as a true day off, weekend or vacation… only days on which you’ve chosen not to make progress climbing Mt. 2000.

         1. Exactly. Good way to put it. People who don’t bill just don’t get it (I didn’t either before I became a lawyer).

         2. Yep. I’ve never been so happy to waive goodbye to the billable hour. 6 years was plenty.

      2. On a quick tangent-

         I’m not a lawyer, but the concept of billable hours and billable-hour-targets as a standard way of doing business seems strange to me – it seems to reward inefficiency, or at least, reward striking a balance between inefficiency and getting dropped by the client.

         For example I’m a fast/efficient worker and it generally serves me well in my job and I end up therefore getting staffed to projects more often. However, it seems like if I billed by the hour for my work and had a target of hours, I would end up purposely slowing myself down in order to hit billable hour targets (and it would be probably be problematic for my supervisor if I did something in 2 hrs that we told a client would take 4). It seems like under that system, a fast worker would end up being penalized while a slower worker would be rewarded, even if the quality of work was the same, because the slower worker is then “worth” more money in hours.

         Can someone explain to me how this is reconciled in the legal profession?

         1. My firm does not have billable hours targets. On the other hand, it would be extremely easy to meet them if they did.

            1. My firm doesn’t either. I specifically asked and the managing partner told me they weren’t interested in settling targets because some people would pad their hours. (But some lawyers are on a bonus structure based on hours billed so that seems pointless).

               Maybe it’s the Type A in me but I would love a target just to get an idea of how I’m doing.

         2. I have no idea, but I am a lawyer and I think the same thing all the time.

            I think realization ratio (how much your work has to be written down by the billing partner because you are inefficient…? something like that) becomes important at some point (maybe when you’re mid-level or trying to make partner), but not when you’re super junior. At least that’s what we’ve been told, but no clue if it’s the whole truth.

            And they say that the cheaper rates for juniors reflect their inefficiency- like it should take a partner 3 hours to do X, it will take me 12 hrs to do X, so my billable rate for clients would be, for example, $250, and the partners would be $1000, making the product cost the same? But I don’t know if that always works out.

            1. I think there are two other considerations, though. One is that BigLaw is moving away from lockstep, so if you’re actually faster while keeping quality up, you get promoted more quickly, thus raising your rate. I have actually seen this happen, and I can see why it makes sense. The second is that the billable rate versus realization ratio is different from firm to firm, which sort of changes the game. At my firm we managed last year to bill 98% of hours and get paid 96%, which is quite high. For that, we have generally lower base rates.

            2. My firm says realization doesn’t matter so much when you’re junior either, but I don’t think people should rest on that. It may not matter as much on a macro level, like your bonus (although I still think you will be rewarded for being more profitable), it certainly matters with individual partners. If the partner always has to cut your time, he’s not going to staff you on his projects anymore. I know several people who this has happened to, and suddenly they didn’t have enough work because enough partners didn’t want to work with them.

         3. no idea. I am also a fast worker and although we dont’ have written target billable rates, we are supposed to be billable. However, when I finish my work and put non-billable time in my timesheet I always feel weird. I don’t know what the solution is.

         4. It’s not reconciled. You’re pretty much correct. The only difference is the faster worker is “punished” by being put on more projects and more cases, which is desirable in theory but punishment in practice.

            1. This is true. But I think in this day and age, if you’re not both very good and quite fast, you’re out the door anyway, and all the associates are overcommitted.

            2. I agree with Cornellian. I don’t think it comes down just to hours. Clients generally know about how long something should take, so they’re not going to pay outrageous bills. And if the clients down pay, higher hours are of no benefit to the firm.

         5. A couple thoughts:

            1. Overbilling or slowing down on purpose is illegal and can bring disciplinary measures down on your head, so it would be stupid (and immoral). I am certainly not going to lose the right to practice law in order to satisfy my employer’s hours target.

            2. Faster and slower workers end up in different pay grades, and thus their billable rates change. So whether it takes a junior lawyer 5 hours (at 400/hour) or a mid-level lawyer 3 (at 600/hour) is immaterial to the client. If you truly do produce great work faster than other people, they charge more for your work.

            3. If you’re fast at some things, but not great at some in-depth legal research skill or something, you may just get staffed on shallower, faster jobs, and not longer in-depth jobs. Not all projects reward speed, especially when there’s an ever-moving target from the client, or your progress is dependent on getting some draft back from your supervisor or some approval from your client.

            1. I haven’t seen #2 happen, ever.

               Also, I do slow down sometimes, and *still* get told I’m fast. Good grief. We should be measured by productivity and NOT hours.

            2. Diana, on #2, that may because the shift is only now occuring. My biglaw firm switched from lockstep about 4 years ago, and other firms are slowly making the move. I read on abovethelaw it was something like 40 of the top 200 had made the switch. And I have colleagues who have both been promoted in salary and billing rate before their time, and, well, after.

               On a side note, I’m curious/worried about what this will do for the comparative advancement of men and women in the firm.

            3. I moved from a smaller Biglaw firm to an AmLaw 50 firm. My old firm had eliminated lockstep; my new one maintains it. I personally saw exactly the issue you mention, Cornellian – one of my dearest friends is a male associate there, and he was promoted an extra level at the last round of evaluations before we departed. I wasn’t. My hours were significantly higher than his (in fact, I billed more hours than any other associate in the group); I received the highest bonus the firm had ever paid to an associate; and my evaluations literally couldn’t have been higher (I topped out the scale).

               My friend was painfully embarassed to tell me, and straight-up said, “I don’t know why they did this for me and not for you; I’m sorry.”

               Was it sexism? I can’t say for certain, but something strange was going on there. I’d already left the firm before he told me (six months after the fact, as part of a conversation about the lockstep/non-lockstep issue). Although my old firm was in an allegedly more progressive part of the country, I felt like there was a persistent assumption that all women would eventually go part-time, and so you got mommy-tracked before you even had children.

         6. A few factors keeping inefficiency down:

            – Being slow is a short-term, not long-term, advantage in getting hours, because as others have noted, if you take an excessive amount of time such that the partner needs to “write off” some of your time, you become less profitable to the firm despite the longer hours, and if it’s a recurring issue as compared to other associates, well, partners don’t like to have to “write off” time and will choose accordingly.
            – If you want to gain experience, it does not benefit you to take as long as possible on the junior associate tasks, leaving less time for mentoring and showing you’re ready to take on new responsibilities.
            – When you have more than enough to do, dawdling only cuts into your personal time more than work already does.

            1. True story on point 3. It’s not like if I get through my 9 hours of billable work in only 10 hours I get to leave at 7, because that means it’s time to start tomorrow’s work. or someone else’s. or new work.

         7. The RULE I learned in billeing is to bill as MUCH AS YOU CAN for task’s, even if they are repetetive, unless the CLEINT object’s and then you REDUCE the billeing ONLEY so much that you still make a profit.

            When I bill, I alway’s bill the same for each PLEADEING, IRREGARDELESS, and even if all I do is to change the name and the date’s. The CLEINT does NOT have to know I am an expert and have done this type of thing before. After all, they are payeing for MY EXPERTISE as an attorney, duly admitted to the Bar of the State of New York, not some schlub who is NOT admitted.

            So for example, if I write up an ANSWER, I automaticaly bill 1.2 hour’s even if it takes only 10 minutes b/c it is a GENERAL DENIAL. If it take’s longer, I bill MORE.

            Then with the BREIF’s, it’s the same. Often the issue is the same, the Company is the same and the PUTITATIVE INJURY is the same. So I can write 3 breif’s in NOT to much more time then it takes to do ONE, but I BILL 3x the hour’s. For a typical breif, I bill 6 hour’s so 3 breif’s = 18 hour’s.

            This is how I keep the billeing up and my hour’s up so that the manageing partner can give me a bonus. YAY!!!!!

   2. Working from home ad glad because its 10 degrees today…..

4. On the topic of sales, Anthropologie was doing an extra 50% off all apparel sale prices yesterday. Not sure if that’s still the case today but if you have a store near you, it may be worth a call. I ended up with a sweater, a tee, a sweatshirt and the softest bathrobe for $99 yesterday.

   1. Incidentally, while I am not sure this sweater is 100% appropriate for work, it’s really cute on and I am so totally happy I bought it. If the extra 50% off sale is still on, it would $25 in store.
      http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/shopsale-sweaters/25749375.jsp

      1. Nice! I have not been into any of the heart-theme stuff lately, but this is an exception. They managed a heart design that doesn’t look too little-kid (for my taste).

         1. Exactly! I think the brown/navy combo keeps it from being too cutesy. Plus it’s not glaringly heart shaped so I feel like I may even be able to get away with it at work – though still undecided on that one. So glad you like it.

5. Any houseplant lovers out there? I’ve decided to start taking better care of the plants I inherited (instead of just keeping them alive, I want to really make them grow and look impressive).

   I’ve been googling but haven’t gotten a clear answer on this. I have a Dracaena fragrans ‘Massangeana’ (aka Corn Plant?) and it has lots of thick leaves..however, its stem is very thin and the plant kind of leans over and curls. I’m planning to prune back and attempt to root the top, but how do I encourage the original plant to bulk up its stem? TIA!

   1. Warning: I am not a gardener.

      We have a similar plant (DH keeps telling me it is Not A Corn Plant, but that’s what it looks like to me). Whenever it gets too tall / leggy, I just cut off the top part and plunk it in the dirt at the base. (No rooting, no special anything. I just push it into the dirt.) Every time I’ve done that the old top / new bottom has flourished. The “trunks” get thicker with age. Ours is now a little bit shorter than me, but very full because of the plunking. I cut it when it gets taller than me, which happens once or twice a year.

      1. Thanks! Do you cut off the entire “head” (all of the leafy part) or do you cut it off somewhere in the middle of the leafy part?

         1. I guess you could call it a “head”. I cut on a stretch of stem/stalk where there are no leaves.

            I do have a couple of stubs — stalks/trunks with no leaves, but they’re hidden in the bottom.

            The thing with our plant is that I Am Not A Gardener and it seems pretty happy, so it has to be pretty hardy. I have occasionally cut what looked like too much, and it has taken a couple of months for it to perk up from those buzz cuts, but it has come back every time.

   2. You might also consider the type of light it is getting. Certain colors of light (Red vs blue vs yellow, I think) will encourage different types of growth. The kind of light that you get out of your incandescent (and maybe fluorescent bulbs) tend to result in more spindly growth, b/c of the wavelengths of light they give off. If you are looking to mimic the wavelengths of sunlight, you might consider getting a dedicated grow light to help the plants that don’t get the amount of sunlight they really need.

      1. Not enough light can cause it to “reach” for the light & look spindly; too much (wc I doubt at this time of year, unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere) can cause it to boot, or grow up very fast, with a skinny stem.

         1. boLt, not boot. Sorry!

6. A few weeks ago I posted asking if anyone had a suggestion for a cheaper overnight bag like the OMG by Lo & Sons. I found one that I’ve ordered for anyone interested. It’s the Lug Life Puddle Jumper. It’s not as…sleek I guess, but it should work well for what I need it for. It’s only $70 on Amazon!

7. How exciting for him to dress MO again!

   1. MO was stunning!

      1. I loved all the fabulous coats…Michelle and the first daughters looked lovely. The berry hues on Malia and Sasha were great.

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