Every law firm is going to set standards when it comes to billing hours. They will expect their legal associates to bill a certain number of hours each year. This ensures that the law firm stays on track with profits and revenue. In particular, the bigger the law firm you are at, the more hours you will be expected to bill. For example, it is estimated that a legal associate is expected to bill between 2000 and 2100 hours each year.
However, the number of hours can be higher if you are looking to become a partner at a law firm. To impress, you may want to bill around 2300 to 2400 hours per year. As you can imagine, this is a lot of time each week and means that you will be working above the standard number of working hours to achieve this.