The old, tired cliche in the news biz is that if a dog bites a man, it’s not really news. If a man bites a dog, THEN it’s really news.
So perhaps this should be filed in your Dog Bites Man file:
Can your lawyer collect 12 hours’ pay after working an eight-hour day?
A recent survey shows that about a third of U.S. lawyers have done it. Nearly half of all lawyers don’t see an ethical problem with it.
The American Bar Association and the Florida Bar condemn the practice, called “double billing.”
Some lawyers have another name for it: stealing.
Now get ready for the “nuance”:
But it may not be that simple.
Think of an ethical billing dilemma in these terms:
A lawyer is on an eight-hour flight from Tampa to Seattle. The lawyer’s client has agreed to pay for business travel. In flight, the lawyer reviews the file of another client and drafts several letters, which takes four hours.
Can the lawyer bill the first client for the eight-hour flight time and the second client for the four hours of case work?
An easier question would be “What’s black and white and red all over?” (The answer, as you all know is “A penguin that strayed into Central Park and was mugged.”) MORE:
The American Bar Association released an opinion in 1993 that said lawyers should never bill for hours that were not worked. Therefore, it would be unethical to bill for travel time and for work performed during that travel time.
A recent anonymous survey of 251 lawyers from across the country, however, shows that 46.6 percent of lawyers see nothing unethical about it. Of those lawyers who thought this was OK, nearly half said there was no need to tell the client about the practice, which many experts say is the real ethical problem.
William G. Ross, the law professor who conducted the billing survey, said most bar associations and most clients feel double billing is unethical. Even if a lawyer thinks the practice is acceptable, he’s not likely to put it in his Yellow Pages ad.
That’s the key on a practice that may or may not be unethical. Is it something someone is willing to a)admit up front and/or b)advertise? If the answer is no, it can be interpreted as being possibly sleazy. AND:
“As a practical matter, most attorneys are not going to go to their clients and ask if they could double bill,” Ross said. “The business relationship would probably end right there.”
Still, lawyers who do double bill are unlikely to get caught.
Or, they might follow the example of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales when asked a question. Just say, “I can’t recall..”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.