Your Time Entries Are Evidence: Fee Ethics and the Billing File Under Rule 1.5, Part 1215, and Part 137

Learning Objectives

Upon completion, participants will be able to:

• Identify the elements of a firm's billing file that bear on a fee's defensibility under hourly, flat fee and contingent arrangements, including time entry narratives that cannot be reconstructed, invoice content inconsistent with the scope stated in the engagement letter, and expense and disbursement treatment reached by Rule 1.5(a).
• Analyze the application of Rule 1.5 to a fee arrangement, including the New York standard for an excessive fee, the eight enumerated factors, and the actual scope of the communication and writing obligations under 1.5(b)and 1.5(c).
• Describe the operation of 22 NYCRR Part 1215 and Part 137, including the engagement letter threshold and exceptions, the consequences of noncompliance, the circumstances in which arbitration is compulsory for the attorney, the program's exclusions, and the two distinct client notice obligations.
• Apply a standard for contemporaneous billing narratives that reduces the likelihood of a client challenge in the first instance and improves defensibility if one occurs, and evaluate an existing set of entries against that standard, including entries written by attorneys the reviewer supervises.