For the Unit 8 Assignment, you are required to revise a timesheet that complies with the ethical rule and explain the mistakes that were made. Penny Paralegal works for the law firm of Wright & Honour, LLP. As a paralegal, she is required to keep track of her time on a daily basis. The law firm wants their paralegals to complete at least nine billable hours every day.
In order to comply with ABA Model Rule 1.5, Attorney Honour asked Penny to use the following guidelines when completing her timesheet:
Timekeeping Guidelines
General
You must write your name, your position, and the date on your timesheet.
You do not need to keep track of time for lunch and breaks.
Billable/Non-Billable
You are required to identify whether each activity is billable or non-billable. Activities that require legal skills and knowledge and are completed for a client are considered to be billable while activities that are clerical in nature and enable the law firm to carry out their day-to-day affairs are non-billable.
You are not allowed to bill more than one client for activities performed at the same time. If you perform activities for two clients at the same time, you must choose only one client to bill. (You can check if Penny completed the activities for two clients at the same time by looking at the Billing Information for the Revised Timesheet.)
You are allowed to bill for travel.
Case Name
You must provide the name of the case that is related to the activity. If the activity is not related to any case, list “N/A”.
Client Name
You need to list the name of the client for each billable activity. If the activity is non-billable, write down “Wright & Honour, LLP”.
Description of Task
You must describe in detail the activity that you completed during the time spent.
Time Spent
You must insure that you do not list more time than you actually spent for each activity. (You can check to see if Penny recorded her time for each activity accurately by looking at the Billing Information for the Revised Timesheet.)
You are required to list the time spent for each activity in six-minute increments. Use the Six-Minute Increments Conversion Chart to convert the time.
You need to calculate the total number of hours that you spend daily.
At the end of the day, Penny submitted her timesheet to her supervising attorney:
Penny’s Timesheet
Attorney Honour reviewed Penny’s timesheet and was very upset with the timesheet that she had submitted. He told Penny that she had completed her timesheet incorrectly and wants her to redo her timesheet to insure it complies with ABA Model Rule 1.5 by using the Timekeeping Guidelines provided by the law firm above. Before you begin your Assignment, review ABA Model Rule 1.5 and its comments, as well as the Timekeeping Guidelines and its linked documents.
Based on your readings, you are required to:
Revise Penny’s Timesheet by using the Blank Timesheet. In order to revise the timesheet, you are required to rely on the Timekeeping Guidelines and its linked documents.
Describe everything that Penny did wrong in one paragraph in a separate Microsoft Word document. Be sure to discuss how ABA Model Rule 1.5. was violated.
Your assignment should consist of a completed timesheet form and one paragraph in Microsoft Word that meet the following APA format requirements:
Title page
12-point Times New Roman font
1″ margins
Double-spaced
In-text citations
Reference page
