King & Spalding 2,400 Hour Rule Is Just the Norm, Recruiter Says

Sept. 9, 2025, 6:03 PM UTC

A memo from law firm King & Spalding to its associates saying they need to log 2,400 “productive hours” a year surprised some in the legal world. But today’s guest on our podcast, On The Merits, says it shouldn’t have.

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It’s always been the case that lawyers need to go beyond meeting their billable hours quotas and put in some non-billable hours in order to advance their careers, according to Jessica Chin Somers, a former Big Law attorney and current managing director at Kinney Recruiting. King & Spalding just wrote down what was essentially a legal industry unwritten rule, she said.

Chin Somers talked to Bloomberg Law editor Jessie Kokrda Kamens about why associates might need to have this policy spelled out and about how they can get ahead even when they’re not working on client matters.

Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.


To contact the reporter on this story: David Schultz in Washington at dschultz@bloomberglaw.com

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