Have you ever worked diligently to complete a task and, when it’s done, say to yourself “I’ll record my time later today?” Then, later today becomes later in the week, and later in the week becomes later in the month. Attorneys work so diligently to serve their clients, that they often put their own needs second, including ensuring adequate compensation. While the effective completion of client tasks makes up the most important part of providing legal services, that time and effort must be tracked and billed before the firm receives compensation for the hard work and effort. Too many law firms lose out on potential profits because timekeepers fail to track all of their tasks completely and accurately. Make the effort to develop and implement processes that promote the capture and billing of all available time.Īccurate time tracking is one of the most effective tools for capturing and billing more time. Extensive training for all new firm members regarding the importance of appropriately capturing and billing timeįailure to establish best practices within your firm leaves the door open to missed billing opportunities and, ultimately, lost money into your firm.Weekly review of time records for the identification of missing time and billing opportunities.Mandatory completion of time entries as tasks are completed, with time tracking completed on at least a daily basis to promote accuracy and completeness.Some of the time tracking procedures you may implement within your office include: Once you have time management processes in place, you must ensure that those hours are being accurately and completely tracked. Regular project reviews allow you to better gauge missed billable hours and make changes to capture them. This can be effectively accomplished with legal project management, where matters are broken down into specific tasks, budgets, and timelines. Without effective practices in place, firms allow for an environment where procrastination and inaccuracies persist. As a law firm leader, you need to put systems in place that promote timely completion of tasks and counteract unproductivity. The first step to capturing and billing time is establishing processes to make it happen throughout the firm. Inadequate time tracking and billing processes account for far too many wasted billable hours, but many law firms fail to implement processes that promote appropriate use and tracking of firm hours. Armed with this information, you can make the necessary changes to ensure that your associate works on profitable tasks. This information allows you to fully review what’s happening throughout the firm and where opportunities for billing are missed.įor instance, maybe an associate who bills for $250 an hour spends way too much time on an administrative project that cannot be billed. Identify unbilled time, fees, and expensesīefore you can implement strategies to capture more time and billable hours, you need to identify how and where this time gets lost. To accomplish this goal, have your staff track all of their time, whether they consider it billable or not. Lawyers need to capture and bill as much time as possible and here are some tips for making that happen.ġ. This exemplifies the importance of billable time to legal practice. But those who fail to capture all the hours of a day lose opportunities and money. Lawyers who capture their time effectively see greater profit coming into the firm. In a law firm environment, every increment of time equals some measure of money.
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