Some fine examples of how lawyers use their skills of reason and logic to rip off clients without them clocking it. Or not as the case may be. The problem with the billable hour is that you can only sensibly have 24 of them in a day and that, you see, has its limitations.

Like other advisors, some lawyers find questionable ways to squeeze a bit of extra cash out of clients. Some are legal, some aren’t, but all will make a CFO’s blood boil.

Here are 5 of the best:

1. Double billing – billing two clients for the same hour of work. Dubious.

2. Padding Hours – don’t pretend you don’t know. Work for ninety minutes? Call it two hours. Forget how long you worked? Call it five.

3. Expense Accounts – a favorite of our political classes. Have you noticed how many of them started out as lawyers?

4. Exorbitant Rates – if you ever get to charge £1,000+ per hour then yes, you are either a high-flying barrister or a City god.

5. Working while sleeping – a partner at Chicago’s Chapman & Cutler, James Spiotto, once charged clients for more than 5,471 hours in a single year – about 15 hours a day, every day. He also claimed to have pulled 52 all-nighters in a row in 1993.

Need more here are 10 ways lawyers rip off clients.

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