Biglaw Partner Who Said She Worked 3,173 Billable Hours is Suspended for Overbilling
The ABA Journal reports that a Biglaw partner who relied on her assistant to create first-draft billing records based on her work product has been suspended for six months for overbilling.
The Massachusetts Board of Bar Overseers sought a two-year suspension for Boston lawyer Doreen Zankowski for her billing practices when she was at Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr. The firm had opened an investigation after Zankowski told her department chair that she worked 3,173 billable hours and more than 720 nonbillable hours in 2015, according to the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court justice hearing the case.
Zankowski conceded to a hearing committee that “her billing practices were inadequate, careless, rushed and error-prone,” according to the justice’s finding.
