At an AMLAW 100 firm with Cravath rates. Frankly, the caliber of clients at our firm cannot afford Cravath rates and yet our firm keeps raising rates. The result is that we have several partners who routinely ask associates to write off very significant chucks of their own time to protect their own comp. Even equity partners are doing this, even though it’s technically against our firm’s billing policies.
We are experiencing a race to the bottom where gunner associates comply with the demands to write off their own time, so now any associate who refuses looks extremely bad.
This is a totally unethical practice and I refuse to be a push over and write off my time. Will this get me fired eventually? How common is this practice? Should I lateral asap?