And yes, I know that it is done...but not nearly to the extent that people think. Like I said, clients have become very viligant in reviewing their bills and conducting audits.
Besides, most firms cap the amount of hours an attorney can bill in one year. At my firm, you can only (LOL) bill 3000 hours in a year (although the real "cap" is about 2500-2800). Anything over that number screams fraud.
"""Yes...and double billing is defined as billing 2 clients for the same portion of the workday. You can't, ethically, spend the same hour working, i.e., billing for client A as well as client B."""
I am sure they do it more than you think.
Look at auto mechanics:
They have a book that tells how many hours it takes to do the job and that is how they charge.
If the book says it takes 3.5 hours to change a water pump that is what they will charge you, even if they do it in 1.5 hours. the other 2 hours they are working on another persons problem and they will charge that person what the book says it should take for that job. Big rip off and my nephew is a mechanic and sees nothing wrong with that practice, he says that part of the business.
They could have like 20 hours billable and only worked for 8-10 of those.