Deductions and Time

Can you deduct for extra, uncompensated, volunteer hours?

No.

Apparently, neither can lawyers.

But, they deduct for their expenses, such as travel, and out-of-pocket expenditures.

Translation: the cake you bought the pizza you bought, the supplies, the pencils, the stickers, the clothes for the child who had no gym clothes, the books, the posters, the chalk, the paper.

You're about to go out right now and buy something for your classroom, aren't you! Gotcha!

More to the point--a lawyer accounts for every moment they work. Every minute. One time I asked a friend who works at the world's largest law firm how exactly they do that. He showed me his written log. Now, they may have fancier, zingier ways of keeping track. And, he showed me that they log time in chunks, say, every ten minutes, or 15 mins. So I asked, and it's just the honor system? The clients just believe you, believe that's how much you worked?

"Yes. We're professionals." And then they are paid for that time. They must bill. Forgive me if I am describing it bumblingly, like an anthropologist visiting some exotic tribe. But being paid for one's labor is so foreign to me, so confusing, so unfamiliar, it seems like the culture of some alien, undiscovered world. And yes, lawyers work very hard. And cry all the way to the bank.

***

Start logging your overtime. If it's too hassle-y, "use the honor system." Guesstimate. You will probably underestimate. It's easy. You keep a calendar. Jot down when you leave. Every day. And start setting a timer for all that grading you do at night. Set it for one hour. When you've reset it twice, three times, four times, it might be time to consider what else you could be doing with YOUR TIME.


Looking for Tax Deductions? Don't Forget Pro Bono Expenditures, from "National Law Journal:

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202428764771&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1