Many Lawyers Prefer to Be Too Busy than to Fall Behind on Billable Hours

Lawyers in private practice are usually too busy to sit around bemoaning the fact that they are obligated to live their lives in six-minute or fifteen-minute increments.  It is only over lunch or during breaks in the courthouse that lawyers will complain to each other about the hectic and unrelenting pace of billable hours.  As in other professions, the typical large-firm lawyer is wont to affirm that she would rather be "too busy, than not busy enough."  There is something comforting, and yet simultaneously disturbing, about being overly busy.  If a lawyer in a law firm has too much work to do, she generally contents herself with the fact that she at least is not faced with the prospect of looking for work within the firm or outside of the firm and falling behind in the race for billable hours.