Most lawyers work between 50 and 70 hours per week. Billable hour targets at large firms typically run 1,800 to 2,200 hours annually, which works out to 45 to 55 billable hours per week before accounting for non-billable admin, client intake, and business development. Solo practitioners and small firm owners often work even longer because they handle tasks that larger firms delegate to support staff.
If you are running a law firm, you already know the hours are brutal. The question is not whether lawyers work a lot. The question is why so many of those hours are spent on work that has nothing to do with practicing law.
This post breaks down the data on attorney work hours by firm type, identifies the biggest time drains, and shows how small and mid-size firm owners are using offshore legal staff to get some of those hours back.
How Many Hours Do Lawyers Work on Average?
The answer depends on firm type. BigLaw associates face the heaviest formal expectations, but small firm owners and solos often match or exceed those hours without the support structure.
According to the National Association for Law Placement (NALP), most law firms set billable hour targets between 1,800 and 2,200 hours per year. But billable hours are only part of the picture. For every hour billed, attorneys spend additional time on non-billable work: intake calls, internal meetings, email, billing administration, and business development.
| Firm Type | Annual Billable Target | Est. Weekly Total Hours |
|---|---|---|
| BigLaw associate | 2,000 to 2,200 hrs/year | 60 to 70 hrs/week |
| Mid-size firm attorney | 1,800 to 2,000 hrs/year | 50 to 60 hrs/week |
| Small firm owner / partner | No formal target | 55 to 65 hrs/week |
| Solo practitioner | No formal target | 50 to 70 hrs/week |
Small firm owners and solos face a compounding problem. They carry a caseload and run the business. There is no one else to handle intake calls, manage billing, or follow up with clients. Every administrative task falls on the attorney.
Attorney Burnout Is a Business Problem, Not Just a Personal One
The American Bar Association reports that lawyers experience depression and anxiety at significantly higher rates than the general population. But for firm owners, burnout is not just a wellness issue. It is a revenue issue.
When attorneys are running at 65 or 70 hours per week, work quality drops. Response times slow down. Intake calls get missed. Client satisfaction declines. Senior attorneys start thinking about exits.
The cost of losing a partner or a key associate is real. Recruitment fees, onboarding time, and lost client relationships add up fast. Preventing burnout is a retention strategy, and retention is a growth strategy.
Firms that have built sustainable staffing models, including offshore legal staffing for law firms, consistently report lower attorney turnover and higher per-attorney revenue.
How Law Firm Owners Are Reducing Hours Without Cutting Revenue
The most effective lever available to small and mid-size firm owners is delegation. Not to other attorneys. To trained, vetted offshore legal professionals who handle the non-billable load under attorney direction.
This is not a new concept. Large firms have always had deep support structures. What has changed is access. Offshore legal staffing now gives small firms the same leverage at a cost that works.
For Law Firm Owners
Your attorneys are spending hours every week on work that does not require a law degree.
Remote legal staff can handle it, under your supervision, at a fraction of the cost of another in-house hire.
See How It WorksWhat Offshore Legal Staff Can Handle
A remote paralegal can manage document preparation, legal research support, and case file organization under attorney supervision.
A legal intake specialist can handle inbound leads, screen new clients, and manage intake forms so attorneys engage only with qualified prospects.
A legal office assistant can manage calendars, coordinate scheduling, handle billing follow-up, and triage email so the attorney’s day stays focused on legal work.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Consider a solo practitioner running a personal injury practice. Before adding offshore staff, every intake call, every scheduling request, and every document formatting task sits on one desk. That attorney is working 65 hours a week and still feeling behind.
After adding a remote legal intake specialist and a virtual paralegal, intake is handled before the attorney touches a case. Documents come back formatted. The calendar is managed. The attorney recovers 15 to 20 hours per week and redirects that time to cases and client relationships.
The caseload does not shrink. The revenue does not drop. The attorney gets their time back.
The Cost Difference Is Significant
A local in-house paralegal in a major U.S. market costs $55,000 to $75,000 per year in salary alone, before benefits, taxes, and office overhead. An offshore paralegal through a staffing partner typically runs a fraction of that cost. For more on the numbers, see legal staffing costs: local vs. remote.
A Simple Framework for Deciding What to Delegate
Requires a law license
- Legal advice and strategy
- Court appearances
- Signing pleadings
- Settlement negotiations
- Client representation
Legal knowledge, under supervision
- Document drafting
- Legal research support
- Case file management
- Discovery assistance
- Deposition prep
No legal expertise required
- Client intake calls
- Scheduling and calendars
- Email triage
- Billing follow-up
- Data entry and filing
Not every task is the same. The goal is to match the right role to the right task. The delegation matrix for lawyers is a useful starting point. In general, the framework works like this:
- Tasks that require a law license: attorney only
- Tasks that require legal knowledge but not a license: paralegal or legal assistant, under supervision
- Tasks that require attention but not legal expertise: intake specialist, administrative assistant, or virtual legal assistant
The attorneys who recover the most time are the ones who are honest about what they are doing that falls into that third category. If you are formatting documents, scheduling calls, or following up on unpaid invoices, you are doing work that does not require your law degree.
For a detailed breakdown by task type, see tasks attorneys should delegate.
What the Research Shows on Attorney Work Hours
Industry data consistently confirms the pattern. Lawyers work more than the typical professional, and a significant share of that time goes to non-billable work.
The American Bar Association’s legal technology surveys have documented that attorneys spend a substantial portion of their workweek on administrative tasks, with solo and small firm practitioners disproportionately affected due to limited support staff.
The consistent finding across sources is that the attorney workload problem is not primarily about caseload. It is about support structure. The firms that solve it are the ones that build the right staffing model.
For Law Firm Owners
If your attorneys are consistently working 55-plus hours a week, a significant portion of that time is recoverable.
RemoteLegalStaff places vetted offshore legal professionals with U.S. law firms. Schedule a call to talk about your firm's workload.
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