The billable hour is not actually an hour; it's more fine-grained than that [1]. It may vary from one jurisdiction to another, but the example I found uses 0.1

The billable hour is not actually an hour; it's more fine-grained than that [1]. It may vary from one jurisdiction to another, but the example I found uses 0.1 hour as the increment. The result is that it's possible for a lawyer to spend 8 hours working, and bill more than 8 hours. E.g. assume a lawyer calls a client and gets an answering machine. Three minutes on the phone can be billed at 0.1 hour. Of course, slack time can't be billed, so it probably evens out. [1] https://cand.uscourts.gov/about/court-programs/criminal-justice-act-cja/cja-compensation-rates/billing-increment-chart-minutes-to-tenths-of-an-hour/ https://cand.uscourts.gov/about/court-programs/criminal-just...