Nina Lee

It can be an ongoing effort to get clients to pay their invoices faster or even just on time. Clients run on a different timeline than your firm, so they may not understand the moving parts involved in your invoice and billing department.

Before you start placing blame, you need to step back and analyze what obstacles your clients may be facing that are preventing them from paying their invoices on time. The issue could very well lie within your firm’s billing practices or lack thereof.

Continue reading to learn 3 simple law firm invoice practices that support clients to pay their invoices faster.

Get Your Law Firm’s Invoices Paid Faster

If your law firm’s billing isn’t in order, how can you expect your clients to be? Having a uniform, automated law firm invoice and billing process are key to setting your clients up for success.

Step 1: Communicate Your Firms Billing and Invoicing Policy

Create a clear communication plan that outlines your firm’s billing expectations. This should be discussed at the beginning of the client relationship, preferably during the client intake process. The plan should include a scope of work, billing timeline, payment options, fee arrangements, and billing point of contact. Think of common questions you get from clients that can easily be satisfied in your communication plan and build from that. This plan should also be available electronically for the client to reference.

Tip: Upload your legal billing policy document to Bill4Time so it’s accessible across your firm and can easily be sent to clients.

Step 2: Standardize Your Law Firm Invoice Process

Just like you, your clients are busy and can occasionally lose track of deadlines. Understanding that this is human nature, your firm can set up invoice payment reminders leading up to the date. For example, you could send invoice payment reminders 14 days, 7 days, and the day before the due date. Your firm should also send reminders if the invoice is late and any associated consequences or fees.

With a solution like Bill4Time, you can use features such as custom invoice templates and automatic reminders to streamline this process. Not only does standardizing your invoice process keep your clients accountable, but your firm can report on average invoice payment windows and keep a pulse on payment status.

Step 3: Offer Online Payments

Clients don’t want to waste time running to their bank or filling out physical checks. If your firm is still relying on a paper check process, it may be creating more hoops for your client to jump through. For instance, if a client is accustomed to paying online, they may not have checks easily accessible to them.

Bill4Time makes accepting online payment seamless with the built-in payment processor, Bill4Time Payments. Easily send custom payment links on emails or invoices, create payment plans, and even allow clients to pay their invoices from their client portal.

Online payments are not only a form of great customer service, but they will prompt your client to pay faster. Faster payments mean a cleaner billing cycle and increased revenue for your firm.

Streamline Your Law Firm’s Invoice Process

If your law firm is still hesitant to adopt practice management software, you may be limiting your firm’s profitability and creating obstacles for clients. Particularly when it comes to billing, closing unnecessary gaps in the paper check billing process and offering modern ways for clients to pay will ultimately lead to a higher yield of on-time invoices for your firm.

Is your staff dragged down by tedious tasks? Despite your firm’s efficiency and hard work, you and your staff have only so much time in the day to complete everything on your plate. If you’re spending too much time on administrative tasks, you’re not devoting enough time to the important stuff, like helping clients, practicing law, or growing your firm.

Many law firms face this predicament, so they turn to outsourcing legal services.

When you outsource, other businesses take on tedious tasks, such as document and task management or billing and invoicing. Some firms turn to technology like Bill4Time to “outsource” their firm’s most time-consuming tasks like case management or billing.

Law firm outsourcing saves you time and money so you can boost your firm’s productivity and direct more of your resources and energy toward clients, cases, and growth. 

What Is Legal Service Outsourcing?

Legal service outsourcing is when law firms hire other professionals and companies to take on some of the attorneys’ duties. This way, they can save time and money, allowing them to focus more on their client’s needs and improve their services and reputation.

Some tasks law firms outsource include:

• Administrative tasks, like scheduling, issuing invoices, and recording time entries
• Document management, like organizing client files and uploading important information
• Marketing, like responding to client comments and reviews or creating email marketing and social media posts

What you want to outsource is up to you. Your firm can analyze where you commonly see bottlenecks, missed opportunities to get cases, and more to determine what you need help with most. Additionally, the businesses that handle these tasks can customize how they serve you.

How Often Do Law Firms Outsource Legal Services?

Law firms are outsourcing legal services, and that trend is only on the rise. In 2021, a Reuters survey of small law firms found that 26% of respondents had implemented technology to address pressures and improve their services’ efficiency. Additionally, 19% want to use technology more to outsource and improve some of their firm’s operations. 

More law firms are looking into optimizing their services as they realize they need more support with payroll, case research, and billing. In a short time, the practice of outsourcing legal services will likely expand significantly.

Is Legal Outsourcing the Same as Offshoring?

The short answer: No.

However, they do relate to each other. Legal outsourcing occurs when you contract a specific task or tasks to a third party that works in that field. For example, if you need help with setting up your billing and invoicing templates, you would hire a company that offers specific aid in that area.

On the other hand, when you participate in offshoring, you’re sending your in-house jobs overseas to complete your work remotely—at times, for a lesser cost. For instance, if you’re in the United States and want assistance with producing high-tech devices, you may offshore this work to reduce labor costs. 

Benefits of Legal Service Outsourcing

Hiring a team for legal service outsourcing comes with plenty of benefits, including:

• It’s cost-effective: Generally speaking, it’s cheaper to have someone who works outside the law firm complete certain services for you. That is, it can help keep your overhead and staffing costs on the lower end.

• Supplement your systems when your resources are limited: Sometimes, law firms don’t have the necessary technology to complete certain tasks. For example, you may not have a system for timekeeping. Outsourcing your services to another company that has a program designed for timekeeping can save you time and money, as you won’t have to dedicate extra hours to handle it on your own.

• The ability to support more clients: When you’re preoccupied with menial tasks for much of your day, it can take time away from your clients. As a result, your brand and reputation may take a hit, especially if your clients are overcharged, or you lose their information.

Types of Legal Service Outsourcing Processes

Legal services outsourcing isn’t limited to one type of process. Depending on what your firm needs, the company may tailor its services to how your firm operates. Typically, law firms may seek assistance with:

Billing

Inform the company about the payment structure you use. Flat fees? Hourly? Contingency? 

Whatever the case, the company to whom you outsource can create and customize an invoice template and set up the terms for online payments and late fees.

This feature allows the client to pay you with one click. That way, it’s convenient for the client, and you receive your payment right away.

Filing and Document Management

Uploading documents into a cloud-based system allows you and your staff to easily access data and other controls at any time. That way, you don’t spend hours remaking documents and searching for client folders.

If you need to move things around, rename, or customize documents, you can. These features should be flexible and mesh with your firm’s current needs.

E-Discovery

Thanks to e-discovery technology, law firms can easily identify and collect important data for cases. Not to mention, e-discovery can help you with your document management, such as scanning your uploads.

It makes these documents more accessible to their clients and saves their memory and time.

Administrative Tasks

Legal services outsourcing can also take care of your administrative tasks. The contracting company can manage aspects of your client relationships, bookkeeping, timekeeping, and even phone calls.

You don’t need a full-time employee to be responsible for these tasks when someone else outside your firm can perform them for a fraction of the cost.

How to Hire for Legal Service Outsourcing

If you’re looking for legal consultants or freelance workers to assist you with your legal services, check out these websites:

• Lawyerist
• Fiverr
• Guru

While you’re searching for the right fit, think about the qualities that will add to your firm’s success, like:

• Experience: How long have they been in the business? What was their training like? Who have they worked for?
• Skill: What are they capable of? How much of a workload can they handle? What do they prioritize at work? Do they have any specializations or certificates in certain areas?
• Familiarity with legal technology: Many contractors continue their education to keep up with the latest technology. Have they listed what they have expertise in? For instance, see if they know how to manage legal billing and invoicing, timekeeping, and task management using legal software.

Narrow down your top two or three favorite candidates. Don’t just consider their past but also their potential.

When Should I Consider Outsourcing the Legal Services at My Firm?

If you’re not sure if you should look into legal process outsourcing services, reflect on the well-being of your firm.

You may want to consider the extra help if you’re experiencing:

• Overwhelming caseload: If you’re taking on more than you can handle on your own
• Decreased client experience: If you’ve received client complaints, especially about errors in their invoices or lost documents
• Tasks falling through the cracks: If you find yourself putting off sending invoices, uploading client documents, or reminding your clients to pay you

Simplify Outsourcing With Legal Technology

You don’t have to take care of all your practice’s tasks on your own. Help is available, and it doesn’t have to be complicated. Don’t be intimidated about having someone work remotely for you. You can easily manage their tasks, especially when your firm’s most crucial documents, billing records, and customer information is housed in a central location.

When you have Bill4Time on your side, you can outsource many time-consuming legal services—like billing, invoicing, timekeeping, and other tasks—using a single software system. It’s easy to use, efficient, and affordable. That way, you spend less time dealing with tedious tasks and focus more on your clients. Request a demo with us today.

Managing billing can be a cumbersome process and take up a large portion of a law firm’s productivity on tasks that don’t directly bring in money — like invoicing. 

Most lawyers get into the legal profession to practice law, not to be overloaded with billing, invoicing, and other administrative tasks. One way to streamline this process is with legal billing software to automate tasks such as invoicing, payments, or retainers.

Both retainers and standard invoices have their purposes in a law firm. Regardless of which you choose, both can be standardized to make your day easier and get your firm paid faster.

What Is a Retainer?

A retainer is a payment agreement between the law firm and the client. In this contract, the client agrees to pay the law firm a predetermined amount for a certain number of hours or specific tasks.

Retainers can be various lengths, but the retainer itself is usually open-ended. Retainer invoices are usually paid on a monthly basis with the agreement that the law firm will complete the agreed-upon work within that period.

What Is on a Retainer Invoice?

A retainer invoice is a bill that’s drawn up for the services rendered by the law firm. It’s sent from the law firm to the client and contains all the details about the work, fees, and transactions. The client knows exactly what they’re paying for and has all the information to settle the bill, including;

• Contact information for the payee (law firm) and payer (client), including the name, address, email, and phone numbers.
• Contact information for the payee as well as the name, address, and contact numbers of the business, person, or department that will be handling the invoice.
• Invoice number for documentation.
• Relevant dates, including the date of the invoice and the due date for the payment.
• Details about the specific services to be provided.
• The amount owed, including past-due balanced or any applicable taxes.
• Accepted forms of payment, including online payment methods.

What Is a Standard Legal Invoice?

A standard legal invoice is a document that law firms issue to customers to request payment for legal services. The billing processes may look different depending on the client and practice areas, but all standard legal invoices should have the following information:

• Law firm details: Identifying details, including the firm name, phone number, email address, and physical address.
• Client details: This may vary according to the client, but the invoice is usually addressed to the point of contact. Some clients may provide a billing contact, however.
• Date of issue: The date you’re sending the invoice.
• Itemized list of services: A breakdown of the services the law firm provided to the client.
• Billing rate for each service: The rate for each service line item the law firm provided.
• Total due for each service: The total amount owed based on the itemized list and billing rate for the services provided.
• Subtotal for all services with taxes: The total amount the client owes for each service, including the percentage of services tax.
• Payment due date: The deadline for payment.
• Late payment consequences: The penalties if the client pays late.

What Is the Difference Between a Retainer Invoice and a Standard Invoice?

Retainer invoices can be used by the law firm to ask for payment before the services are rendered. Essentially, it’s a form of deposit or prepayment.

This is a method for the client to secure legal services as needed and for the law firm to get paid in advance for services. Law firms can also choose to bill based on billable hours or a fixed fee for a retainer, depending on the nature of the case.

Retainers also set up clear expectations for the ongoing arrangement, including the retainer amount, excess hour charges, and more. There’s a sense of security and predictable recurring revenue for the firm as well.

A standard legal invoice is broader and may include any invoice for legal services rendered, including billable hours, subscription services, sliding scale fees, unbundled services, payment plans, flat fees, and contingency fees.

The key difference between a standard and retainer invoice is that the client is paying for services in advance instead of in arrears. There are benefits and drawbacks to both, depending on your law firm, client, and practice area.

How to Manage Law Firm Invoices

Billing and invoicing take up a lot of time in your law firm. Depending on the type of law you practice and the cases you take on, it can waste a lot of non-billable time.

It’s necessary for a law firm to stay profitable. A defined billing process determines how efficiently your firm gets paid which includes implementing a streamlined invoice process.

Traditional invoicing is a manual process that’s vulnerable to human error and hinders productivity. When a lot of time is spent on invoicing, it can advertently also cost you money.

Law practice management software, such as Bill4Time, is a simple way to standardize your billing and invoicing process. Features like time tracking, built-in payment processing, and custom invoice templates reduce the time spent on these administrative tasks and get your firm paid faster.

With Bill4Time’s legal billing software, you can create, print, or email custom invoices in a matter of minutes, complete with detailed services, payment terms, and late fees. These invoices seamlessly link to the online payment options to make paying quick and convenient for the client.

There are also tools to maximize efficiency. You can batch invoices, apply LEDES format, allocate payments to current invoices, create summaries, and track expenses to keep your firm moving toward long-term growth.

Simplify Law Firm Billing and Invoicing with Law Practice Management Software

Whether you bill on retainer or with standard invoices, manual billing and invoicing processes foster human error, decrease client satisfaction, and cost valuable time and money. By standardizing your billing, you can offer more transparency into your billing and improve bottlenecks within your billing cycle.

For attorneys, time is money. Most attorneys rely on billable hours for their income, and many firms expect attorneys to achieve a minimum billable hour requirement of 1,700 to 2,300 per year.

To meet this requirement – and get paid – attorneys must track their billable hours efficiently and accurately. “Padding” errors hurt the attorney and the firm’s reputation but missing out on valuable time in the time tracking process leaves money on the table.

Plenty of resources are available to help attorneys easily and efficiently calculate and log billable hours, including an attorney billing increment chart and time tracking software for attorneys.

What Is an Attorney Billing Increments Chart?

A billing increment chart is a standardized chart or template that helps you calculate how many increments of an hour to charge based on the time you spent working. With a billing increment chart, most attorneys stick to a 1/10^th of an hour rule, or 6-minute increments.

This means if an attorney works for 15 minutes at a rate of $100 per hour, the chart will show that the time increment is 0.3. This is multiplied by the hourly rate ($100/hour) for a sum of $30.

Here’s a sample billing increment chart:

Why Do Attorneys Bill in Increments?

Billing in increments is standard practice for practical reasons. Billing by the minute or just a few minutes is difficult to track and time-consuming, not to mention calculating it by hand. This can lead to a lot of wasted time in the tracking process and plenty of errors, which create doubt in the clients.

Similarly, billing in large increments, such as by the half-hour increment, pad the bills. Attorneys either mention one task in that time or combine multiple, unrelated tasks, casting doubt on how much time they actually spent on casework.

Billing in 6-minute increments is easy to calculate and allows for reasonable increments without too much padding or lost time.

Do Attorneys Have to Bill in Increments?

Law firms can structure their billing as they choose. The standard increments used by most firms are 1/10 of an hour (6 min), 1/6 of an hour (10 min), and 1/4 of an hour (15 min). This is a matter of convenience rather than necessity. Attorneys choose the increments they intend to bill in and then round up to the nearest billing increment of their choice.

Billing increments can present problems for the firm and the client, no matter what they are. Smaller increments look better to the client, but billing in 6-minute increments is inefficient and puts attorneys in a position to “beat the clock.”

Larger increments aren’t much better, as they can look unsavory to the client. Larger increments suggest – even if untrue – that the attorneys are billing for more time than they’re actually putting in. This can have a detrimental effect on the firm’s reputation, especially if the other firms in the area rely on small increments.

What Is Time Tracking Software?

Legal time tracking software is a cloud-based resource to log, categorize, and record the time spent on billable and non-billable tasks. This software tracks work in real time to reduce errors or missed time, ensuring efficiency in the tracking process and accurate billing for both the firm and the client.

Benefits of Time Tracking Software

Attorney increment charts are helpful for doing the quick calculations necessary to convert hour increments to billing rates, but that’s still not as efficient as it could be. Time tracking software takes it a step further with efficient, convenient, and accurate timekeeping.

• Automatic increment calculation: Rather than manually calculating time increments and billing rates with a chart, time tracking software uses pre-set rates to automatically round time entries to the nearest increment.
• Simplified time tracking processes: Time tracking software helps you log your billable hours when they happen, instead of trying to remember them later. You can add time entries to meetings, events, tasks, emails, and more.
• Real-time tracking: Time tracking software has automatic timers to record the time you spend on a task, so you don’t have to guess or risk forgetting your hours. 
• Multiple devices: Using a cloud-based format, time tracking software can track time entries on the mobile app to record your time while working remotely or taking client meetings in the field.

Best Practices for Managing Billable Hours

Law firms can bill efficiently and transparently when there are standards in place for billable hours.

Create Guidelines

There should be rules in place for billing increments. Use policies to explain your rates and billing practices to both clients and staff. These policies should include the rate, billing increments, billing intervals, and billing method. This helps manage client expectations for billing and ensures that attorneys understand the processes.

Itemize Your Billing

It may be faster to multitask and include several tasks in a block of time, but that doesn’t inspire faith in the client. Take the time to itemize tasks separately for better accuracy, transparency, and clarity. This can be made easier with custom invoice templates that can be pre-filled and stored for future, continuous use. 

Use Detailed Descriptions

Detailed but concise descriptions are essential for transparent billing. These descriptions should include enough information for the clients to understand how you spent your time. If a dispute comes up, this can serve to jog your memory to help you account for the time you spent as well.

Track Time Accurately

Whether you choose a manual billing increment chart or efficient time tracking software, make sure your billable time is real-time and accurate. With the use of multiple timers, you won’t forget about the time spent on a case or estimate time either in the firm’s favor or the client’s.

Don’t Pad Your Bill

It may be tempting to round up to the nearest increment or hour when billing, but is not best practice. Padding your hours – intentionally or otherwise – is unethical, inaccurate, and potentially damaging to your firm’s reputation.

Replace Attorney Billing Increments with Legal Time Billing Software

An attorney billing increments chart was a useful resource when manual timekeeping was best practice. With the introduction of legal technology, law firms no longer need to spend hours counting their hours and doing the math for billing clients. By implementing legal time billing software, your law firm has access to an automated process that ensures accurate, convenient, and efficient time tracking and billing every time. 

Time is of the essence for law firms. Not only is accurate lawyer time tracking vital for record-keeping and tracking billable hours, but wasting time on manual tasks and following archaic processes distracts from what’s important: practicing law and growing your firm. 

Many lawyers choose to track time the old-fashioned way: manually recording their time in logs and calendars.

But this introduces the possibility of inaccurate timekeeping, missed billable hours, and — especially if your firm is large or growing — inconsistent record-keeping habits amongst your staff. As a result, you lose time, money, and even clients.

Replace the headache of manually documenting every detail of your day down to the minute with an efficient lawyer time-tracking software like Bill4Time. Save time, record every billable hour, simplify time entry and track productivity. Bill4Time gives you back the time you would otherwise spend logging hours so your team can focus on serving clients and growing your practice.

What Is Legal Time Tracking?

Legal time tracking is when a lawyer records how much time they’ve spent working for a client — whether it’s in the office, in a courtroom, or on the go. The American Bar Association (ABA) sets guidelines for legal time tracking. First-timers, especially, should:

• Regularly check their bills. That way, you can avoid getting accused of padding hours (or essentially rounding up and overcharging clients).

• Charge reasonable fees in accordance with Model 1.5 or your state’s equivalent. This number can help monitor your hours and share if you over or undercharged someone. 

• Use time tracking tools to help ensure accuracy and organization. You can log your hours via your phone, computer, or tablet.

Bill4Time helps you comply with ABA and state guidelines.  

What Do Lawyers Use to Track Their Time?

Legal time tracking has evolved in the past several years. Even still, lawyers stick to “ol’ reliable” and continue the traditional method of time tracking. They’ll handwrite their billable hours and manually log their tasks on notepads, spreadsheets, and sticky notes. When lawyers use this method, they usually track their time using 10- or 15-minute increments when they enter their time at the end of the billing period — and those are big chunks of time.

Increment Billable Hours

When you set up your time-tracking system, though, figure out the time increments in which you’ll charge your clients. Think about setting up a billing chart template. It’ll help you calculate how many hours you can charge per time increments.

The standard method for lawyers is to bill every 1/10th of an hour or every six minutes. Any shorter than that can be tedious and time-consuming when you try to manually track them. Any more increments risk overcharging and padding. The six-minute increments aim to combat both of these risks.

Automated Time Tracking

The busier you get, the more difficult it is to stay organized and stay on top of logging –– even when you have a billing chart. In that case, you may want to try automated time tracking. This technology allows you to log your hours right away and track how long you’ve spent in meetings, making phone calls, writing and sending emails, and going from website to website, among other tasks.

By the end of the day, you can easily figure out what you did and how long you spent on each client. It’ll give your administration team less of a headache when you submit your hours and send clients’ invoices.

What Is Time Tracking Software?

Time tracking software is a simple and efficient way to accurately log your time working for your clients. Bad timekeeping is the culprit for more than 30% of lost billable time, and our legal time tracking software is the solution. All you need to do is start a timer on your computer, phone, or tablet and enter how much time you spent on a task.

You may think, “Well, yeah, but why do I need software to do that when I can do it on my own?”

You’d be interested to know that that’s just one benefit of having legal time tracking software, as it also offers:

• Flexible time tracking: This feature covers recording billable and nonbillable time, separating tasks unrelated to internal non-client time and keeping track of staff, consultants, and other colleagues.

• Staying on top of your time spent on clients: With legal time billing software, you can check your weekly time summaries, so you can gauge your firm’s financial status and productivity.

• Easy time entry: This feature allows you to run multiple timers on one screen and account for appointments as time entries.

These features can make every billable hour count so you can charge your clients and get paid fairly.

Best Legal Time Tracking Software for Lawyers 

There’s a plethora of legal time tracking apps, so it may be overwhelming to choose one that best fits your needs. Ask yourself which features would be most important to you.

While you’re doing a search, see if the time and billing software offers:

• Convenience: Hours, tasks, phone calls, meetings, upcoming events, and every document you can think of. Do you have to be in the office at your computer to log this information, or can you do it anywhere?

• Accuracy: Accuracy should be one of your firm’s highest values, and the software you choose must reflect that. Does the software help your firm cut back nonbillable hours? Does it allow you to go back and make a correction if you didn’t stop your timer or need to update a client profile? If the answer is no, you may want to keep looking for technology that leaves wiggle room for human error.

• Accessibility: See if the software produces periodic reports on timekeeping. Knowing what you’re dedicating your time to and for how long helps you make more well-informed decisions about the direction of your firm.

There’s more to a legal software app than just timekeeping, so check out the other features the software offers that keep all aspects in check. That includes case, task, and documentation management, trust accounting, invoice template customization, and system integration.

Bill4Time is your way to go if you want to get to a point where you’ll barely have to think about legal billing. It’ll do the work for you, so you can focus on what’s most important: your clients. Within the first few hours of use, you’ll be convinced that it’s the best time tracking software. 

Common Mistakes Lawyers Make with Time Tracking

No matter how convenient spreadsheets and manual time tracking seem, they leave room for inaccuracy. If inaccuracy gets through to the clients, your reputation as a brand takes a hit. 

But what aspects of manual tracking can get you into trouble? Well: 

• You can easily lose track of time, making it easy to miscalculate your hours. That may transfer into under or overcharging your clients.

• You end up spending more time working, which means adding nonbillable hours to your day.

If you get into a dispute with a client, you’d have a hard time proving your process and the time spent working. Legal billing software prevents you from these stressful disputes. 

Another mistake lawyers make is waiting until the end of the day to log their hours. By then, you may not even remember what you had for breakfast. How would you remember how long you spent working on a client’s case and what you covered? Make a habit of recording this information right away, so you don’t make a mistake when sending your clients their invoices. 

Having a legal time tracking app can save you time (and panic) when you have to charge your client. That way, you can easily pull up what tasks you performed and for how long when you bill your client. If there’s ever a dispute, you’ll have the evidence of your work to back up your claim right in your pocket.

Implications of Improper Lawyer Time Tracking

If you improperly track your time, the consequences may go beyond a little back and forth with your client. They could accuse you of padding, meaning you overstated how much you worked for them and are overcharging them as a result. If you and your client don’t resolve this dispute, they could sue you for legal malpractice, which could destroy your firm.

On the flip side, improper time tracking risks revenue leakage (or an unintended loss of profit for your firm). So, all that time you thought you spent being productive ends up going to waste.

If revenue leakage goes unnoticed long enough, you may not have the funds to sustain your firm, resulting in bankruptcy or even going out of business.

Tips to Improve Time Tracking

To stay on top of time tracking, implement a time tracking policy and use your resources. Think about working with:

• Timesheets: We know it’s hard, but ditch Excel and your handwriting logs, and opt for a timesheet. Create a template that allows you to document your start and finish times on certain tasks. After a while, you may make a note of a pattern in your schedule, so you can expect a reasonable game plan every day and adjust accordingly. Review it every now and then to check your progress.

• Calendars: Having a big calendar up in your office or on your phone helps you know what to expect in the upcoming months. A calendar can make it easier to prepare your timesheet and designate certain times to log your hours. Bill4Time offers a seamless integration with Google Calendar allowing you to make updates on either calendar that are automatically synced. 

• Timers: Timers are a life saver for lawyers for obvious reasons, but it also helps differentiate billable hours and nonbillable hours, ensuring your firm’s integrity and precision.

The key to lawyer time tracking is making it simple. Tracking your time should be something that flows seamlessly throughout your day, no matter how many cases you’re working on. Bill4Time keeps your time tracking and legal billing in a centralized location to give you better insight into how and where your time and money are being allocated. To see how Bill4Time can do the heavy lifting for your firm, you can schedule a demo today to see the platform’s time-saving features in action. 

Keeping track of the time spent on meetings, briefs, case research, the discovery process, and other billable hours is a fundamental part of a lawyer’s day. Every lawyer has their process for tracking their hours, but the important question is:

How accurate is the time tracking?

Losing track of time, forgetting to stop a timer, or otherwise “guessing” at an hour can lead to billing issues or even legal implications. Without reliable processes for timekeeping, law firms suffer from significant operational challenges.

What Is the Importance of Time Tracking for Lawyers?

Lawyers rely on billing by the hour almost exclusively. While some lawyers use a retainer or other billing structure, the majority of lawyers are tracking billable hours.

Errors in either direction are harmful to a lawyer and a firm’s reputation. If the billable hours are underestimated, the lawyer and firm lose money for the time spent on a client’s case. If the billable hours are overestimated, the client may question the accuracy. The last thing any lawyer wants in this competitive market is a bad reputation.

What Do Lawyers Use to Track Their Time?

Many lawyers use traditional methods of calculations where clients are charged on the billable hour in 10-15 minute increments. Lawyers often captured this time manually in a spreadsheet or on paper. However, this process of tracking time should be avoided as it is prone to human error and can be easy to lose track of time. 

Manual tracking is not only cumbersome in itself, but it has no accountability as a tracking method. The results aren’t as accurate as can be expected, and if there’s ever a dispute, the lawyer has no transparency to account for the time spent.

What Are the Risks of Lawyers Not Tracking Time?

Here are 3risks of not using time tracking software for lawyers.

1. Losing Billable – and Non-Billable – Hours

Billable hours are essential for a firm to operate, but they must be accurate. If a lawyer is manually logging billable hours, it’s a risk to overall profitability.

Worse yet, some lawyers don’t log time as they work, which inevitably leads to time being lost. Waiting until the end of the day can result in a 10% loss of time for lawyers. Longer than that and the loss jumps up to 25% or greater.

This doesn’t only apply to billable hours. Tracking non-billable hours helps lawyers accurately price legal services and identify processes that can be streamlined or outsourced to ensure the overall firm is profitable.

2. Discrepancies in Billing 

Billing processes can take up a lot of administrative time, especially with a manual time tracking process. The law firm’s staff has to sort through time records from individual attorneys, organize them, and enter them into a law firm’s billing system.

With efficient time tracking software, lawyers can track time on their own using the software, which is then consolidated for staff to generate accurate invoices. This not only ensures an easier billing process, but it reduces the time spent on administrative tasks that hinder productivity and cost money.

3. Impact on the Client Experience 

Clients may come to a law firm or lawyer for legal expertise, but the client experience is heavily relied on how easy it is to do business with a firm. This applies to all aspects of working with a firm but especially billing. 

It starts with having an efficient, automated time and billing process. With Bill4Time, a lawyer can easily jump between cases while timers capture time. This process allows lawyers to work freely without guessing about the time they spend on a specific case. Once this time is captured, the firm can create a detailed, custom invoice that accurately reflects the billed time. 

Showcasing your law firm’s use of legal technology and automated processes during intake is a simple way to set the stage for a transparent attorney-client relationship.  

Make the Switch to Time Tracking Software

Time is money, so lawyers need to adopt processes that are efficient and precise. With Bill4Time’s time tracking software, lawyers can gain better insight into where they spend the most time with custom reporting, and automated features to increase the accuracy of their billing. In and out of the courtroom, Bill4Time allows you to track and bill your time wherever you go.