freshfields -NQs

how many hours do you reckon they work a week?  on average

FF have not done this to fend off asshurts, it's to fend off the US big fellas like K&E or Latham (both of which pay somewhat substantially north of 100 to their 24 year olds as I understand it...)

Yes, it's against the US firms.  But a 24 year old does not merit anything like £100k, no matter how well-regarded the firm employing them.  Until you're 5 years pqe, basically you're a CP and ancillary docs gimp.

That the meme espoused by Badders at 1429 still persists is a testament to MC marketing/propaganda.  Badders you've been reamed harder than most lawyers I have ever met.

I reckon on average 45 hours billable and a further 5 hours non-billable per week, plus say an hour faffing it’s basically 11-hour days

in peaks and troughs

You will not work any harder /longer at a Sidley, Latham or KE than one does at FF or similar . There are afterall only 24 hours now a day . 

These US firms do more premium paying work and often bill in 15/20 minute units , which obviously makes a huge difference.

close friend left CC to work at Debevoise and works considerably less hours 

I don't think I'd feel right from an ethical point of view spending two minutes dealing with a short e-mail and billing a client for 20 minutes.  It feels bad enough rounding it up to six minutes.

heh

Reminds me of the tale told too gleefully by one of my ex-colleagues. Tale of a bloke who used to come in at 7:30, call 6 active clients leaving a voicemail to check in on the deal and then leave by 7:45 to get breakfast knowing he’d already bagged 1.5 billables. Plus at least another 1.5 when he got called back.