We are still talking about the area of "billing" as one of the five areas that make up every business in the world. "Billing" is the fourth area. The other four areas are as follows: "Clients" or "customers"; "Administration"; "Getting the work done"; and "Collecting."

This week we are continuing to discuss the topic of YEARLY RUNNING RECAPS ON HOURS PER BILLER in the area of "billing."

Recently, I discovered another phenomenon that I have previously discussed, and that I have previously tried, and I am finding that it is still working very well. If each of us, as I previously stated, has the same amount of time, then if I can devote my time to billing, and have other people at lower hourly rates help get the other parts of my life accomplished, then I ultimately end up billing more time and thereby billing out more dollars. Let me give you an example. If in a given week, you were to spend ten hours doing things that you could not bill, but instead spent that extra ten hours billing and collecting your hourly rate, you might be a lot better off to hire someone to do that ten hours worth of work that you could not normally bill and collect for if the net amount of money that the person costs you is less than what it costs you to not bill that time. Let me be specific. Assume your hourly rate is $250 per hour. If you don't bill the ten hours, you have not billed $2,500. Let's further assume you could hire someone for a forty hour week for $15.00 per hour. Each week you would pay that person $600. Do the math. If that person you hired for $15.00 per hour could do those tasks that took up that ten hours, you are ahead of the game $1,900.

This very thing happened to me last year when I hired a Client Services Manager. This person, as I have stated in previous articles, is worth his weight in gold. This person has become somewhat of an alter ego. This Client Services Manager concept worked out so well that I recently hired an additional Client Services Manager. I have split the task between two people with one doing all of the out of firm tasks, and the other person helping me get done all of the in-firm tasks. The result has been that I have been able to put in more billable hours, and have had each of these people pick up many of the tasks that I had to achieve before, but that I could not bill for. It turns out that we had a record 2003, we beat that in 2004, and now we are running ahead of 2004 through the first four months of this year. I attribute this to more billable "hours." Right now everyone in my law firm seems to be educated about billing, educated about hours, and is hitting their goals or close to them on a monthly basis. Right now I am able to optimize the number of hours I put in helping clients, and therefore I can bill more hours on a monthly basis, and try to minimize the amount of administrative time that I am putting in. Luckily, we continue to be blessed with more business than we can handle, and so we are continuing to try to work "smarter instead of just harder."

It is absolutely amazing to look at the reports we get on a monthly basis and to see the absolute direct correlation between people putting in hours and the fact that those hours generate dollars.

Next week we are going to talk about having a "budget." I think you will see how setting goals with regard to hours can translate quite easily into setting a budget. The budget allows you to see how you are doing every month over the year. I think you will like some of the ideas I have with regard to this budget and that you may well try to put your firm on a budget for next year.

Talk to you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.