Billing Follies

At The American Lawyer, Chris Johnson has a piece entitled "You Really Don't Want To Submit Bills Like These."  Johnson profiles some of the more colorful billing shenanigans at firms across the nation, including:

• Submitting a series of bills that, together, resulted in one lawyer charging 42 hours in a single day. A lawyer at another firm billed just over 500 hours over 15 days—an average of more than 33 hours per day.
...
• Charging a client for lingerie because the lawyer didn't pack enough underwear for the duration of a trial.
...
• Billing for unusually expensive "meals" that turned out to be strip-club expenses lawyers from an Atlanta firm racked up while in South Florida for client business.
• Charging a client for the lawyer's state bar registration fees.
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• Charging a client for document review work handled by a third-party vendor at a 320 percent markup. The firm also added the document review hours to its own bill, again at a 320 percent markup, resulting in a total overbilling of $6.3 million.

Read more here.

(Hat tip: Scott Swenson)

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