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Law Firm Billable Hours Calculator

Billable hours from a working week, and what share of a paid day actually reaches a client bill.

Your numbers

%
Admin, business development and firm meetings are not.
$
%
%

Result

Billable hours per year 1,457.0
Billable hours per week 31.0
Value of hours worked $415,245
Actually collected $347,560
Effective rate per hour worked $147.90
1,457.0 billable hours a year at $285 is $415,245 billed, but only $347,560 collected. Across every hour actually worked that is $147.90 an hour.

Business arithmetic for running a practice, not legal advice. Fee agreements, contingency limits, trust accounting and fee splitting are governed by the rules of professional conduct in your jurisdiction, and several of them are strict. Check the applicable rules before any of this affects a client agreement. The gap between the stated rate and the effective rate is the number worth watching. Three separate leaks stack up: time that is never billable, billed time written down before invoicing, and invoices never paid.

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Questions

About this calculator

Why is my effective rate so much lower than my hourly rate?

Because three things reduce it in sequence. Unbillable time, write-downs before the invoice goes out, and unpaid invoices each take a slice, and together they commonly remove a third.

What billable share is realistic?

Measure your own for a month. Most practitioners find it lower than they assumed once business development, administration and reading are counted honestly.

The formula

billable hours = hours worked x billable share; collected = hours x rate x realization x collection

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Estimating is the easy part

The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.