responsibility for clients' legal matters
Normally a partner carries out most of the work personally but another lawyer would also be familiar with the client’s files so that the client can contact a person acquainted with the status of its files at all times. The ultimate responsibility for client's matters lies with a partner.
It is only ethical and we do all it takes to avoid 'legal padding' that comes across in law firms in many faces such as overstaffing a matter, charging for learning time of lawyers newly assigned to matters, authorizing premature or peripheral legal or factual research, holding inessential internal "conferences" about a matter, routinely digesting or summarizing documents, handling specific tasks through persons who are either over-qualified (that is routine document reviews by a senior lawyer) or under-qualified (that is extensive research of general principles of law by junior associates).
It is only ethical and we do all it takes to avoid 'legal padding' that comes across in law firms in many faces such as overstaffing a matter, charging for learning time of lawyers newly assigned to matters, authorizing premature or peripheral legal or factual research, holding inessential internal "conferences" about a matter, routinely digesting or summarizing documents, handling specific tasks through persons who are either over-qualified (that is routine document reviews by a senior lawyer) or under-qualified (that is extensive research of general principles of law by junior associates).