One of the reasons why lawyers and accountants make good money is, because of there billing method. The first appointment is billable, every phone call you make with the lawyer or he makes for you is billable. Every letter he sends out, he charges. And once you go to court he may charge more than 8 hours a day. Why do architect don't bill them the same way they bill everyone else? It is even easier to justify your work. You have a much higher overhead and you have mostly a high educated staff. How can a lawyer reject your fee if he bills the same way?
from what i know of laywers, every minute you're on the job you're billing. if you go to the washroom, you stop billing, if you talk to a collegue, you stop billing, answer a personal call or get a coffee - you stop billing. depending on how efficient you are you can spend 9 hours in the office, but only be actually billing 6.
velo ... yes, that's true. However, much of legal practice revolves around "creative" billing. I used to be an associate at a giant law firm in Texas, and, for example, we would bill any temp work to our clients. Another client (a large Korean telecom company) was being billed about $1million/month for our services. And yes, all of these were billed "hours." I was billing between 1800-2000 hours per month. And you wonder why I stopped being an attorney?
I find the notion of billable hours kinda questionable. I think it is a system that works when you have a lot of employees, with work "delegated" to a handful of specialists.
Pete ... it's true that the "billable hours" method does generate a lot of income. However, the $400-$500/hour that an attorney bills does not go to that attorney. It goes to the firm. The partners get the lion's share, the associates get the "scraps."
When I worked in the entertainment industry for a large talent agency, we had a "percentage commission," per client. In other words, if X actor and Y director get attached to Z project at a studio, the agency (not me) would get the 15% commission. We had a flat salary, but would "recoup" the commissions at the end of the year in the form of a bonus that often times was 100-200% of the original salary rate,
Just because you bill, doesnt mean they pay. Many clients will insist on a not to exceed cap or just flat out refuse payment if the services are deemed insufficient. Architects need to stop comparing themselves to law and medicine - we are nothing at all like either. We may aspire to their status, but we can not emulate their profesions. We would be better off to look to the builder as example.
sMC2s, i don't question your argument. i question your math on billed hours per month. 30 days a month X 24 hours in a day = only 720 hours. did you mean to say you regularly billed 180-200 per month? that's still a lot of billed hours considering in law, an 8 hours billed equals probably 10 hours worked.
Devil Dog ... thanks for the correction! It's 1800-2000 hours per annum. It's around 38 billable hours per week. And this is a conservative estimate precisely because 1 billable hour may be the result of 4 hours of work.
Hypothetically speaking, if lawyers were architects, the profession of architecture would have the same level of income, status and power as lawyers have today. They would definitely not be that stupid to let developers and project managers to take control and leave architects behind with the leftover crumbs. So it all has to do with the individual and not the profession. The only one that is to be blamed for the bad pay are architects self.
Coming back to your question, you will never be able to charge the same fee by the hour like lawyers do, because they know that architect are the only idiots who would bring down the fee just to get a job. No other profession would do that and that is why accountants, lawyers etc. make money. However, you shouldn’t be discouraged to try. Who knows, you may find a lawyer client, who sees you as an equal and where he would not find it strange to be biledl the same way he does with the same hourly fee ($200-$500)
This seems like a reoccuring topic - pay. The simple fact is there is a disconnect between what architects offer and what clients want. Clients rarely make big desisions based on asthetics. Planning for a building is cheerleaded by architects, but in more cases than not the client probly has a better idea of what works best for them. So they look to the architect to enforce compliance, construction management and cost controls/projections. While we may be good at code compliance, we utterly have failed as a profesion to be effective at the others without becomming "building type" specialists. This is why the contractor has become the new architect - the clients advocate, and the architect has become the picture drawer. If this is to change it must happen in the schools - give a real education or drop the requirements for education from licensure. If not, we will continue to lose ground to everyone else.
the one thing i would state is that in the profession of law, the amount of effort is proportional to any bonus received at the end of the year. if you meet your billable target (and that's a hard target to achieve) then you could qualify for a bonus. we all hear stories of lawyers working long hours, they just have an opportunity for a bonus. architects on the other hand, work long hours but rarely if ever receive a bonus and it's usually not proportional to their individual effort.
I also want to add that the reason why architects never become politicians is because they are viewed as incompetent people. And who's to blame them. If you can't even control your own profession and you keep losing ground, how the hell can you be a politicians? Even I as an architect would not feel at ease if a former architect becomes mayor in my town.
Since I have a lawyer as a client, I can tell you he laughs at us when we try to bill him hourly. Since he knows how far he can push us legally, he does at every opportunity. He routinely pays late and not for our total billed amount. Everyone on the job is scared of him since he is a lawyer and they all fear he will sue them for some reason or another. When we use him for legal services, he bills us as he would bill any other client and gets upset if we are ever late with payment.
Remember - a lawyer has never constructed anything, they are in the deal breaker rather than maker catagory. Conversely our biggest residential client is a lawyer whos currently pissing money at both his million dollar homes - one in town, one on the lake. Pretty sweet. He pays on time too. But hes a rare one.
The last time I had a lawyer as a client he was a total prick, Just a little landscape design for a new home. More of a filler job for an aquaintence doing the Architecture. I should have know when I looked up his web site he turned out to be a personal injury lawyer/ ambulance chaser.
I know that the big boys (principals) don't bill every hour they may work on a job, but as an intern, they bill most all my hours. Isn't that typical? Is that what is meant by 'billable hours'?
The principals perhaps don't bill all their hours because they pursue work and chitty-chat to make good buddies wit clients. Or... heck, I don't know what they do all day. Can you bill for chitty-chat? Lawyers don't have to pursue work beyond basic advertising I don't think. Clients come to them and it's most likely cause they are in a jamb so they are desperate. Architecture clients are more in a social atmosphere and the work is a reward, much harder to get and keep.
We try to have the lawyer billing mentality though and talk about it as such. I don't bill when I go to the bathroom, and take note if I come back from lunch 8 minutes late. We get nagged on this about three times a year that "this is how you make money in practice, lawyers do it".
What if lawyers were like architects? In that they did lots of research and drafted pages after pages of components and plans to be carried out by others. Then they handed it off to the client's professional contractor who carried thru the work and changed it all anyways and meanwhile griped about how how incompetent that lawyer's plans were and how expensive the concept was and say 'I could do it cheaper than this'? Then lawyers wouldn't make shit either.
Not all attorneys are good businessmen and not all architects are lousy at it either..Im always surprised to hear many of you crying about what youre making.. There are plenty of architects around here [NJ]who are doing very very well financially..I do alot of land use work and deal with some top architects both residential and commercial and they are not only very busy but seem to be doing well financially too. Many do what I been doing recently and have dropped the hourly rate and have gone to a mixed set fee + payment for hearings.. You cant hire these guys for less than $25,000 per house.. Many are getting $100000+ for bigger more expensive houses.I refer clients to them and Im often told that they have a 6 month + backup..For those of you here on the East coast house renovation might not be exciting but there big bucks in it and from what I have read its going to last for at least another 15 years..Get a few new big homes in on top of the renovations and youll be making more money than your local lawyer..So if your not making the big bucks at your local arch firm cut the apron strings, borrow a few dollars and get out on your own..There's plenty of work out there for good architects..
A word of caution if youre going to get into hourly billing is to not to undercut yourself and to keep accurate records.. Nothing pisses a client off more than if they think youre robbing them..
smokety - there's some love in this corner. too many relatives who are in law for me not to be somewhat biased. that and my best client, ever, is a lawyer. total faith in what we are trying to do, pays on time (mostly - he can get forgetful but has never balked when we remind him). you guys do suffer from some image problems....
billing hourly is fine for some jobs, especially residential. although as everyone wants to know what the top cap is. we typically bill out schematics as hourly (to let the clients control how much time is spent tweaking everything out), dd/cd's are fixed, and ca is hourly. we haven't lost money on that method yet. i've yet to meet a commercial client who will do anything hourly except for the smallest tasks.
But are they cool? I think often times not. Being cool is cool when a $30 Rolex is just a good as a $300 Rolex. Yes? Architects are good businessmen are just not so cool is all . . .
I agree with G-Love on the billing method we follow in a pretty similar vien. Clients expect some exploration and are prepared to pay for it. but the crunch of a DD/ CD is pretty standardized and then the CA is what it is. simple. If they aren't interested then either are we.
Are lawyers the ideal client?
One of the reasons why lawyers and accountants make good money is, because of there billing method. The first appointment is billable, every phone call you make with the lawyer or he makes for you is billable. Every letter he sends out, he charges. And once you go to court he may charge more than 8 hours a day. Why do architect don't bill them the same way they bill everyone else? It is even easier to justify your work. You have a much higher overhead and you have mostly a high educated staff. How can a lawyer reject your fee if he bills the same way?
he'll just go to an architect/designer who isnt billing that way.
from what i know of laywers, every minute you're on the job you're billing. if you go to the washroom, you stop billing, if you talk to a collegue, you stop billing, answer a personal call or get a coffee - you stop billing. depending on how efficient you are you can spend 9 hours in the office, but only be actually billing 6.
velo ... yes, that's true. However, much of legal practice revolves around "creative" billing. I used to be an associate at a giant law firm in Texas, and, for example, we would bill any temp work to our clients. Another client (a large Korean telecom company) was being billed about $1million/month for our services. And yes, all of these were billed "hours." I was billing between 1800-2000 hours per month. And you wonder why I stopped being an attorney?
I find the notion of billable hours kinda questionable. I think it is a system that works when you have a lot of employees, with work "delegated" to a handful of specialists.
That's just my experience, though.
Pete ... it's true that the "billable hours" method does generate a lot of income. However, the $400-$500/hour that an attorney bills does not go to that attorney. It goes to the firm. The partners get the lion's share, the associates get the "scraps."
When I worked in the entertainment industry for a large talent agency, we had a "percentage commission," per client. In other words, if X actor and Y director get attached to Z project at a studio, the agency (not me) would get the 15% commission. We had a flat salary, but would "recoup" the commissions at the end of the year in the form of a bonus that often times was 100-200% of the original salary rate,
Just because you bill, doesnt mean they pay. Many clients will insist on a not to exceed cap or just flat out refuse payment if the services are deemed insufficient. Architects need to stop comparing themselves to law and medicine - we are nothing at all like either. We may aspire to their status, but we can not emulate their profesions. We would be better off to look to the builder as example.
sMC2s, i don't question your argument. i question your math on billed hours per month. 30 days a month X 24 hours in a day = only 720 hours. did you mean to say you regularly billed 180-200 per month? that's still a lot of billed hours considering in law, an 8 hours billed equals probably 10 hours worked.
Devil Dog ... thanks for the correction! It's 1800-2000 hours per annum. It's around 38 billable hours per week. And this is a conservative estimate precisely because 1 billable hour may be the result of 4 hours of work.
Hypothetically speaking, if lawyers were architects, the profession of architecture would have the same level of income, status and power as lawyers have today. They would definitely not be that stupid to let developers and project managers to take control and leave architects behind with the leftover crumbs. So it all has to do with the individual and not the profession. The only one that is to be blamed for the bad pay are architects self.
Coming back to your question, you will never be able to charge the same fee by the hour like lawyers do, because they know that architect are the only idiots who would bring down the fee just to get a job. No other profession would do that and that is why accountants, lawyers etc. make money. However, you shouldn’t be discouraged to try. Who knows, you may find a lawyer client, who sees you as an equal and where he would not find it strange to be biledl the same way he does with the same hourly fee ($200-$500)
This seems like a reoccuring topic - pay. The simple fact is there is a disconnect between what architects offer and what clients want. Clients rarely make big desisions based on asthetics. Planning for a building is cheerleaded by architects, but in more cases than not the client probly has a better idea of what works best for them. So they look to the architect to enforce compliance, construction management and cost controls/projections. While we may be good at code compliance, we utterly have failed as a profesion to be effective at the others without becomming "building type" specialists. This is why the contractor has become the new architect - the clients advocate, and the architect has become the picture drawer. If this is to change it must happen in the schools - give a real education or drop the requirements for education from licensure. If not, we will continue to lose ground to everyone else.
the one thing i would state is that in the profession of law, the amount of effort is proportional to any bonus received at the end of the year. if you meet your billable target (and that's a hard target to achieve) then you could qualify for a bonus. we all hear stories of lawyers working long hours, they just have an opportunity for a bonus. architects on the other hand, work long hours but rarely if ever receive a bonus and it's usually not proportional to their individual effort.
I also want to add that the reason why architects never become politicians is because they are viewed as incompetent people. And who's to blame them. If you can't even control your own profession and you keep losing ground, how the hell can you be a politicians? Even I as an architect would not feel at ease if a former architect becomes mayor in my town.
Since I have a lawyer as a client, I can tell you he laughs at us when we try to bill him hourly. Since he knows how far he can push us legally, he does at every opportunity. He routinely pays late and not for our total billed amount. Everyone on the job is scared of him since he is a lawyer and they all fear he will sue them for some reason or another. When we use him for legal services, he bills us as he would bill any other client and gets upset if we are ever late with payment.
In short, lawyers are the WORST clients.
Remember - a lawyer has never constructed anything, they are in the deal breaker rather than maker catagory. Conversely our biggest residential client is a lawyer whos currently pissing money at both his million dollar homes - one in town, one on the lake. Pretty sweet. He pays on time too. But hes a rare one.
The last time I had a lawyer as a client he was a total prick, Just a little landscape design for a new home. More of a filler job for an aquaintence doing the Architecture. I should have know when I looked up his web site he turned out to be a personal injury lawyer/ ambulance chaser.
I know that the big boys (principals) don't bill every hour they may work on a job, but as an intern, they bill most all my hours. Isn't that typical? Is that what is meant by 'billable hours'?
The principals perhaps don't bill all their hours because they pursue work and chitty-chat to make good buddies wit clients. Or... heck, I don't know what they do all day. Can you bill for chitty-chat? Lawyers don't have to pursue work beyond basic advertising I don't think. Clients come to them and it's most likely cause they are in a jamb so they are desperate. Architecture clients are more in a social atmosphere and the work is a reward, much harder to get and keep.
We try to have the lawyer billing mentality though and talk about it as such. I don't bill when I go to the bathroom, and take note if I come back from lunch 8 minutes late. We get nagged on this about three times a year that "this is how you make money in practice, lawyers do it".
What if lawyers were like architects? In that they did lots of research and drafted pages after pages of components and plans to be carried out by others. Then they handed it off to the client's professional contractor who carried thru the work and changed it all anyways and meanwhile griped about how how incompetent that lawyer's plans were and how expensive the concept was and say 'I could do it cheaper than this'? Then lawyers wouldn't make shit either.
You folks have nothing but venom when it comes to attorneys. I'm an attorney. In fact, I think the person who is the most surprised by it is me.
Not all attorneys are good businessmen and not all architects are lousy at it either..Im always surprised to hear many of you crying about what youre making.. There are plenty of architects around here [NJ]who are doing very very well financially..I do alot of land use work and deal with some top architects both residential and commercial and they are not only very busy but seem to be doing well financially too. Many do what I been doing recently and have dropped the hourly rate and have gone to a mixed set fee + payment for hearings.. You cant hire these guys for less than $25,000 per house.. Many are getting $100000+ for bigger more expensive houses.I refer clients to them and Im often told that they have a 6 month + backup..For those of you here on the East coast house renovation might not be exciting but there big bucks in it and from what I have read its going to last for at least another 15 years..Get a few new big homes in on top of the renovations and youll be making more money than your local lawyer..So if your not making the big bucks at your local arch firm cut the apron strings, borrow a few dollars and get out on your own..There's plenty of work out there for good architects..
A word of caution if youre going to get into hourly billing is to not to undercut yourself and to keep accurate records.. Nothing pisses a client off more than if they think youre robbing them..
smokety - there's some love in this corner. too many relatives who are in law for me not to be somewhat biased. that and my best client, ever, is a lawyer. total faith in what we are trying to do, pays on time (mostly - he can get forgetful but has never balked when we remind him). you guys do suffer from some image problems....
billing hourly is fine for some jobs, especially residential. although as everyone wants to know what the top cap is. we typically bill out schematics as hourly (to let the clients control how much time is spent tweaking everything out), dd/cd's are fixed, and ca is hourly. we haven't lost money on that method yet. i've yet to meet a commercial client who will do anything hourly except for the smallest tasks.
But are they cool? I think often times not. Being cool is cool when a $30 Rolex is just a good as a $300 Rolex. Yes? Architects are good businessmen are just not so cool is all . . .
I agree with G-Love on the billing method we follow in a pretty similar vien. Clients expect some exploration and are prepared to pay for it. but the crunch of a DD/ CD is pretty standardized and then the CA is what it is. simple. If they aren't interested then either are we.
dazed and confused: try the $30 rolex is just as good as the $6,000 Rolex!!! The $300 one is a fake too.
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