Yeah, it's wicked beneficial that you're paying $40 or even $80 just to say hello and ask how their weekend was. I understand that from the other side, talking to you is working and they wouldn't be doing it if they weren't getting paid. But when one's rate is in consultant territory (as opposed to lower contractor rates based on bulk time) then that type of overhead should already be built in. And sure billing increments are theoretically orthogonal to billing for overhead, but it's galling to see "1.1 hours" knowing that 6 minutes of that was overhead that didn't get rounded down.

OK... so don't call someone who bills you for their time and make smalltalk. That seems pretty self-evident.

If I start a meeting with a consulting software engineer and spend the first 5 minutes making small talk, that's fine, but my company is gonna pay for that time. The same thing is true for lawyers.

Yes, that's the obvious conclusion. But surely you can see how clients needing to deliberately refrain from standard pleasantries doesn't contribute to lawyers having a good reputation.