Fee-earner targets: how to set them so they don't backfire

A good fee-earner target is built from the firm's financial need, broken down by role, set on a measure the fee-earner can control, and adjusted for the non-chargeable work the firm expects of them, such as supervision and business development. Most targets that backfire fail on the last point: they count hours and ignore everything else the job requires.

This post covers what firms usually target, how to build a target from the numbers up, a worked example, and the side effects that show a target is doing damage. It is part of our series on what a fee-earner is. It is not financial or employment advice. Where targets feed into pay or performance processes, take advice from your accountant and HR adviser.

What do law firms usually set fee-earner targets on?

Four measures are common, and each has a known weakness:

• Chargeable hours recorded. Easy to measure and understand. Rewards recording time, not creating value, and invites padding.
• Fees billed. Closer to value. But the fee-earner may not control when bills go out, especially on fixed fee or staged work.
• Cash collected. Closest to what the firm needs. But collection depends partly on the client and partly on the accounts team, so it can punish a fee-earner for something they did not cause.
• A multiple of salary. A shorthand some firms use: a fee-earner is expected to bill a certain multiple of their own salary. Simple to communicate, but it hides the assumptions underneath, including overheads that differ widely between firms.

None of these is wrong. Each needs pairing with something that catches its blind spot.

How do you set a fee-earner target from the numbers up?

Start from what the firm needs, not from last year's target plus a percentage. A method in five steps:

• Step 1: the firm's fee requirement. What fee income does the budget need this year to cover costs and the planned profit? Your accountant can help you build this.
• Step 2: split it by team, according to each team's capacity and pipeline, not just its share last year.
• Step 3: work out realistic available hours per person. Contracted hours, less holiday, bank holidays and a sensible allowance for sickness.
• Step 4: deduct expected non-chargeable time. Supervision, training, business development, management roles. Write the deduction down for each person.
• Step 5: apply realistic realisation. If a team typically bills 85% of recorded time, a target in hours needs to reflect that, or the fees target will not be met even if the hours are.

This produces a target someone can check. A fee-earner can see where their number came from, which is more motivating than a figure handed down.

A worked example

A hypothetical associate, with invented figures:

• Contracted hours: 1,725 a year (37.5 hours a week over 46 working weeks after leave and bank holidays).
• Allowance for sickness and other absence: 45 hours. Available: 1,680.
• Expected non-chargeable time: supervising a trainee (3 hours a week, 138 a year), training and knowledge work (60), business development (80). Total 278.
• Hours available for chargeable work: 1,402.
• Suppose the budget needs about 1,010 billed hours from this associate, and the team usually bills 85% of recorded time. The recording target is then about 1,190 chargeable hours, comfortably inside the 1,402 available, which leaves headroom for the unexpected.

Now compare the common alternative: a flat 1,400 chargeable hours target applied to everyone. For this associate, that leaves almost nothing for the supervision, training and business development the firm says it wants. Something gives, and it is usually the supervision.

Should targets be adjusted for supervision and training?

Yes, and the evidence suggests many firms do not. In LawCare's Life in the Law 2025 research, only 31% of respondents who managed others said their targets or billable hours were adjusted to take into account the time they need to spend managing others or undertaking appropriate training. The same research found that almost 79% of respondents regularly work beyond their contracted hours.

The practical consequence is not only wellbeing. A supervisor who is not given time to supervise will supervise less, and in litigation that has a sharper edge since the Court of Appeal's 2026 judgment in Mazur v Charles Russell Speechlys, which, as summarised by Clyde & Co, tied the lawful delegation of litigation tasks to proper supervision and control by the authorised individual. How your firm structures supervision is a question for your COLP; the point here is that a target should leave room for it. See what "fee-earner with conduct" means.

What are the signs a target is backfiring?

Watch for these, because the target report itself will not show them:

• Recorded hours rise while realisation falls. Time is being recorded to the target and written off at billing.
• Supervision and training quietly disappear. Juniors wait longer for answers; file reviews slip.
• Work is hoarded. Fee-earners keep work they should delegate, because delegating takes hours off their own number.
• Month-end spikes. Time recorded in bursts near the deadline, reconstructed rather than contemporaneous.
• Good people leave. Often the ones doing the unmeasured work. See fee-earner retention.

How do you make a target fair when fee-earners do not control their day?

A target assumes that a fee-earner's chargeable hours are mostly within their control. For many, they are not. A family or crime solicitor, for example, may spend hours a week on inbound calls from anxious clients, new enquiries that ring through to whoever is free, and court days where their phone cannot be answered at all. Those hours come out of the chargeable total without being anyone's decision.

Two things help:

• Measure the uncontrollable part for a month. Ask fee-earners to tally inbound calls and messages that did not move a matter forward. It needs no software.
• Then remove as much of it as you can, before raising the target. Routing new enquiries elsewhere, and sending clients updates before they chase, often recovers more capacity than a higher target ever would.

What should sit alongside the headline target?

A single number invites gaming. A small balanced set works better:

• One money measure: fees billed or cash collected against target, on a rolling three-month basis.
• One quality measure: realisation, or write-offs as a share of recorded time.
• One people measure: supervision delivered, or feedback from those supervised.
• One client measure: complaints, or time to respond to clients.

Keep it to four. More than that and nobody knows what matters. The screen fee-earners see day to day is covered in what belongs on a fee-earner dashboard, and the maths of utilisation in fee-earner utilisation.

How do you set targets for fixed fee work?

Hours targets fit awkwardly with fixed fees. On a fixed fee matter, a fee-earner who works faster brings in the same fee in fewer hours, so an hours target punishes exactly the efficiency the fixed fee was meant to reward. Three alternatives work better:

• Matters completed, weighted by type, so a complex matter counts for more than a simple one.
• Fee income from completed matters, against a target built from the fee schedule rather than from hours.
• Time per matter against the pricing assumption. If a conveyancing fee was priced on 8 hours of work and matters are taking 11, the target is not the problem; the price is.

Keep recording time on fixed fee work even if you do not target it. Without it, you cannot tell whether a fee is still profitable. Our sibling post on how fixed fees work goes further.

How often should targets be reviewed?

At least once a year, and whenever a role changes. The common failure is a target set when someone joined and never revisited after they took on a trainee, a management role or a heavier caseload of legal aid work. A short quarterly check-in helps more than an annual review alone:

• Is the person on track, on the rolling measure?
• Has anything changed in their non-chargeable load?
• Is anything outside their control eating their chargeable time?

The third question is the one most often skipped, and the one that tells you where the firm can help.

How should a target be explained to the fee-earner?

In writing, with the working. A one-page note for each fee-earner showing contracted hours, the deductions for leave and absence, the agreed non-chargeable time and the realisation assumption turns a target from a demand into a calculation that both sides can check. It also makes the annual review easier: if a fee-earner took on a trainee mid-year, everyone can see which line should change. Firms that cannot explain a target in one page usually have not built it; they have inherited it.

Should targets be linked to bonuses?

Many firms do link them, and it sharpens every side effect above. If a bonus depends on hours, expect more hours recorded and more written off. If it depends on cash, expect fee-earners to spend time chasing clients for payment instead of doing work. If you link targets to pay, link to the balanced set rather than to a single number, and review the effect after the first year. Pay and contract terms are a matter for your HR and employment advisers.

Where does WasilX fit?

In the part of the day a target assumes fee-earners control. Cam, our AI Engagement Coordinator, takes calls on the firm's line at any hour, says it is AI, asks the firm's own qualifying questions, books the call back and sends the firm a summary. Each fee-earner's personal assistant covers their calls in court and drafts matter updates for the fee-earner to approve. That means fewer interruptions eating into the hours a target is counting on. If you would like to talk about it, get in touch. For the firm-level numbers that sit above individual targets, see the KPIs a managing partner should actually watch and billable hours in UK law firms.

Frequently asked questions

What is a typical fee-earner target? There is no single standard. Firms target chargeable hours, fees billed, cash collected or a multiple of salary. The useful question is how the number was built and whether it allows for supervision, training and business development.

How do you calculate a fee-earner's chargeable hours target? Start with contracted hours, remove holiday, bank holidays and absence, deduct expected non-chargeable time such as supervision and training, then adjust for the team's usual realisation.

Should fee-earner targets be adjusted for supervising juniors? Yes. LawCare's Life in the Law 2025 research found only 31% of respondents who managed others said their targets or billable hours were adjusted for management and training time.

What is the salary multiple for fee-earners? Some firms expect a fee-earner to bill a set multiple of their salary. It is a shorthand, and the right multiple depends on the firm's own overheads and profit target, so it should be worked out rather than borrowed.

How do you know if a fee-earner target is backfiring? Common signs are recorded hours rising while realisation falls, supervision and training slipping, work being hoarded rather than delegated, month-end recording spikes and good people leaving.