Alexandra Walsh was on the defense team for one of most high-profile trials of George W. Bush’s administration: United States v. Libby. The defendant was a high-ranking official in the Bush administration being investigated for interfering with a criminal investigation, and the dramatic trial made headlines across the country.

Walsh worked around the clock in the weeks leading up to the trial. And the day after closing arguments, she took a deep breath. Or rather, a series of very deep breaths: She gave birth to her third child, Frances.

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Law firms have come to expect as many as 2,000 billable hours per lawyer over the course of a year, says Stanford law professor and legal historian Robert W. Gordon.

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“The billable hour survives because the partners of a firm have every incentive to preserve it. By pressuring their associates to bill more hours, they ensure they’re going to extract much more from the associates and the firm profits,” Gordon says. “It’s a relatively easy way of computing the reasonable value of a lawyer’s services for billing clients. It’s a useful if rather crude instrument.”