Are your associates working?

When I talk to other lawyers about our law firm's business model, their reactions range from envious to incredulous. No, we haven't billed an hour since 2006, I tell them. OK, fine, they say. But don't you internally (they sometimes say "secretly") keep track of your associates' hours?

No, I tell them.

Then comes the look on their faces like I'm an idiot or a rube or a naif. Often they wait a moment to see if I wink or otherwise let them know that I'm joking. Once they see that I'm serious, they almost always ask this question:

"Then how do you know if your associates are working?"

I lean in, like I'm going to let them in on my secret formula.

"By managing them."

This is the point where they usually wander off, muttering and shaking their heads.

Seeing a timesheet with a figure like 8.4 hours on it at the end of the day doesn't tell me that an associate has been working. And it certainly doesn't tell me anything about their work. What law firms have done over the past three generations is replace the need to manage associates with an overly simple reliance on hours billed.

A law-firm partner — a manager — has to do more than look at a number on a timesheet to actually manage his or her associates. The partner has to know what the associate is working on, and how it's going, and if he or she needs any guidance. A number on a sheet doesn't tell you this.

If you want to know whether your associates are working, you have to manage them. A timesheet can't manage anything.