Professional services
Law Practice Billable Hours Calculator
Works billable hours and what they produce, where the gap against hours worked is the real finding.
Result
Business arithmetic for running a practice, not legal advice. Fee agreements, contingency limits, trust accounting and advertising are all governed by the rules of professional conduct where you practise, and several are strict. Check the applicable rules before any of this affects a client agreement or a marketing decision. A solo practitioner carries every unbillable function personally. The foregone billing figure is not a loss to eliminate, because the work has to happen; it is the number to weigh against what delegating or outsourcing it would cost.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Billable hours times rate gives gross billings, with realisation and collection applied to show what actually arrives. Separating the three stages matters: hours recorded, hours billed after write-downs, and amounts collected are three different numbers, and a practice tracking only the first has no idea what its work is worth.
What moves the number
- Hours recorded against hours worked.
- Write-downs before the bill goes out.
- Collection on what was billed.
- Rate, which is the least variable of the four.
Where this one goes wrong
Contemporaneous time recording is the whole foundation, and reconstructing a week on Friday loses hours systematically rather than randomly: the short tasks and interruptions vanish and they add up to a substantial share. The second issue is write-downs, which frequently reflect work the client was never told about rather than work done badly, so communicating scope as it expands preserves more of the bill than arguing about it afterwards. Billing itself has to be accurate; recording time not actually worked is a conduct matter, not an estimating choice.
Before you quote
- Record time contemporaneously rather than reconstructing.
- Track recorded, billed and collected as three separate figures.
- Communicate scope expansion before it reaches the bill.
Where the rules come from
Questions
About this calculator
Why do recorded hours fall short of hours worked?
Mostly through reconstruction. Writing up a week on Friday loses short tasks, calls and interruptions systematically rather than randomly, and they amount to a substantial share. Contemporaneous recording is the single biggest improvement available to most practices.
What causes write-downs?
Frequently work the client was never told about, rather than work done poorly. Scope that expanded without a conversation becomes a bill the client disputes. Communicating the expansion as it happens preserves far more of the fee than justifying it afterwards.
Should I bill every recorded hour?
The bill must be accurate and the fee reasonable under your state's conduct rules, so recorded time has to reflect work actually performed. Within that, judgement about what to bill is a commercial decision, and tracking what you choose not to bill tells you where the estimating was wrong.
The formula
billable = hours in the office - admin - business development - unbillable client time
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How to use this calculator
- Hours in the office per week. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 50.
- Hours on running the practice. Billing, trust reconciliation, bookkeeping, compliance.
- Hours on client development. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.
- Unbillable client time. Intake calls, conflicts checks, courtesy questions.
- Working weeks. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 46.
- Hourly rate ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $295.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to billable hours per year, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Hours in the office per week | 50 |
| Hours on running the practice | 9 |
| Hours on client development | 5 |
| Unbillable client time | 4 |
| Working weeks | 46 |
| Hourly rate | $295 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Billable hours per year main result | 1,472.0 |
| Billable hours per week | 32.0 |
| Share of the week that bills | 64.00% |
| Gross billings | $434,240 |
| Value of the unbillable hours | $244,260 |
32.0 billable hours a week, 1,472.0 a year, which is 64.00% of the time in the office. The unbillable hours represent $244,260 of foregone billing, which is what running a practice costs.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only hourly rate, this is what happens to billable hours per year. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Hourly rate ($) | Billable hours per year |
|---|---|
| $148 | 1,472.0 |
| $221 | 1,472.0 |
| $295 example above | 1,472.0 |
| $443 | 1,472.0 |
| $590 | 1,472.0 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Hours in the office per week
- A number, between 0 and 100, starting at 50.
- Hours on running the practice
- Billing, trust reconciliation, bookkeeping, compliance.
- Hours on client development
- A number, between 0 and 40, starting at 5.
- Unbillable client time
- Intake calls, conflicts checks, courtesy questions.
- Working weeks
- A number, between 0 and 52, starting at 46.
- Hourly rate ($)
- A money amount, starting at $295.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Billable hours per year | The headline result. A decimal figure. |
| Billable hours per week | A decimal figure. |
| Share of the week that bills | A percentage. |
| Gross billings | A money figure. |
| Value of the unbillable hours | A money figure. |
Keep going
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