Apparently a lot has changed since the 1930s. It turns out that the large, New York City law firm of Wilmer Hale, if their webpage is to be believed, had the following policy as stated by their 1930 annual report:

At the present time an older senior partner is expected to work 5.5 hrs. on weekdays (9–1, 2–3:30) and 2.5 hrs. on Saturdays (9–11:30), with one month vacation.

Sounds cushy! 48 weeks times 30 hours per week (5.5 hours per weekday and 2.5 hours per Saturday) works out to 1,440 hours per year. That’s not billable hours, mind you, it’s just hours. Billable hours would be significantly lower. Top firms today tend to require something closer 2,000 billable hours. There’s always rumors of places secretly requiring much more.

I guess that work week was understandable considering the starting salary for a junior associate.

Average starting annual salary of a “junior” or associate at Hale and Dorr: $1,200.

Starting salaries today at the top firms are $160,000. Back then, they worked at $0.82 per working (not billable) hour. Today’s starting lawyers, even at the unlikely rate of 3,000 billable hours per year, work at a rate of $53.33 dollars per billable hour.

Who’s better off?