Billing

Today I spent most of my day billing files for cases that have been concluded at the Police Station and Magistrates Court.

This mundane task is a necessary evil in the world of legal aid. To ensure that there is a constant flow of cases being billed each month the firm that I work for sets a date for each month when each fee earner must bill all billable files under their control.

What often causes trouble when billing files is trying to locate the attendance notes that other fee earners should have put on the file but for some reason have not. Also if Counsel has been down to the Magistrates Court they often phone through with the result of their case and later fax through an attendance sheet - for some reason the firm's high tech fax to e-mail system seems to loose half of Counsel's attendance notes!

After doing the usual searches and making the usual phone calls I managed to sort out the vast majority of my billing to sufficiently please those in control at the firm. As long as they see money coming in they are kept at bay for another month.