What are customary items for an hourly lawyer to bill?

Question

This question presumes the hourly billing method and the lawyer's perspective. To avoid broadness, I restrict this question to the UK (but please advise whether I should remove this).

I already know of the following:

• expenses incurred for a client's case (e.g.: fees for court, experts, and other lawyers; travelling)
• meetings
• reading, preparing, negotiating and working on notes and documents (e.g.: of meetings, of telephone calls and of proceedings)
• research;
• composing and receiving correspondence (e.g.: letters, faxes, email, telephone calls)
• attending court or other formal proceedings, including waiting time;

Answer 1

Lawyers generally will bill clients for two broad categories:

• Professional fees (time spent working on a client's matter); and
• Cost recovery (lodging forms, printing, faxing, photocopying, etc)

Anything that falls within these two groups is fair game, including everything you've mentioned in your question.

I suspect it's not possible to devise a comprehensive list of items that may be billed, as it will depend largely on the matter being worked on.