Hourly Billing, Attorney Identity, and the Therapeutic Challenge
The practice of law has long been tethered to the billable hour. While this model has been critiqued for its economic inefficiencies, its deeper psychological effects on attorneys merit equal scrutiny. Hourly billing does more than incentivize long workdays; it habituates attorneys to a worldview in which time is only valuable when rendered “productive” in measurable, compensable terms. This conditioning—though adaptive within the professional domain—risks becoming a pervasive mindset that undermines personal relationships and individual well-being. When productivity becomes synonymous with worth, interpersonal interactions that lack instrumental or outcome-driven value are easily dismissed as trivial or wasteful. Over time, this internalization
