Customer Reviews

The Honest Hour: The Ethics of Time-Based Billing by Attorneys

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This book has the look, feel, and tone of an extended law review article. The author is a professor at a law school in Alabama with numerous law review articles to his credit, so the tone is not surprising.

Before he entered academe, however, the author spent nine years practicing law in New York City and is clearly wise to the ways of the big firm world periodically lampooned in places like _The American Lawyer_.

This book is largely descriptive and not prescriptive, and at times has an ingenuously horrified tone at the sharp billing practices chronicled through the use of an impressive variety of resources. Nonetheless, most professionals who log their time and use it for billing will find something to make them squirm.

Unfortunately the conclusions were only three pages of a 264-page book, and a number of other conclusions were scattered throughout the preceding chapters. More unified conclusions would have been helpful.

Worth struggling through if you want to take a cold hard look at how you do your timesheets.

Professor William R. Ross is a leading scholar on the ethics of attorney billing, and this is the definitive academic work on the subject. Professor Ross takes on a subject that, he acknowledges, was "taboo" until not so long ago -- the highly questionable ethics of the billing practices that now dominate the practice of law. Written in 1996, the book remains as relevant today as when it came out -- sadly, its message has not dated.

This is a comprehensive work, with citations to numerous sources, both academic and from the "real world" of the practice of law. Professor Ross also draws on surveys he has carried out in which lawyers answer pointed questions about actual billing practices. The results of his most recent survey -- published in 2007 -- post-date the book, but can be found on his Web site (www.williamgeorgeross.com).

"The Honest Hour" is an excellent work for a law school class on ethics and professional responsibility. But I also strongly recommend it for practicing lawyers -- especially those who mentor others on billing practices or who are influential in law practice management.

As with all books on the subject, the problem is that the lawyers who need it most are probably those who are least likely to read it. But the more who do read it, and who encourage others to do the same, the better the profession will be.

The title of the book -- "The Honest Hour" -- shows that the underlying message of the book is a positive one, namely that there is a better way.

John Derrick
Practicing attorney and author of: Boo to Billable Hours