Law Practice Today

Technology and better timekeeping can help you capture more time. With technology, and a few tricks, you can increase your billable time by catching more of the actual time you spend on tasks. This gives you more time to bill, which will ultimately transfer to a greater bottom line. Here are some of the best ways you can use technology to capture, and more importantly, bill more time:

• Use electronic timesheets: Paper timesheets are error prone and inefficient because they require double-entry.
• Enter your own time: The efficiency, extra speed, and greater accuracy of entering your own time on electronic timesheets make this a no-brainer.
• Enter time contemporaneously with task completion throughout the day: Trying to create time entries for work done in the distant past is time consuming, and not likely to be very accurate or complete. Studies have shown that lawyers gain up to 20 percent in their billable time when they do this.
• At the end of the day spend a few minutes reviewing your dockets, and make any necessary corrections or additions while things are still fresh in your mind.
• Use standard billing codes and bill in detail: Many accounting software programs have standard billing codes, for example, “conference with client,” or “review of correspondence.” While these codes are convenient (and you should use them for this reason), they don’t include enough detail. Having detailed bills or time entries is critical as a record of the work you did on a file, and for communicating to the client the details of that work. A detailed bill should look something like this: “telephone conference with client re: details of weekend access problems.” Or, “drafting of correspondence to client confirming instructions to skip zoning search.”
• Include the detailed time entries in your bills: Detailed listings of time entries on a bill give a client much less opportunity to complain about their legal fees, and you will be far more successful in defending your account in the event you end up before a fee arbitration board or assessment officer.
• Record every minute you spend on a file: Don’t judge and write off time spent on a file as unnecessary by not recording it on the day it was done. Wait until you final or interim bill the file, at which time you can properly judge all the factors that determine what should be billed, including the time that was spent on it. You can easily make adjustments to an account by editing it at this stage. And, if you do elect to write off certain billing entries, show it on the bill as work done.
• Docket all administrative and other non-billable time: To properly evaluate where your time is being spent, it is important that you understand how much time you are spending on non-billable tasks, and what they are.
• Review detailed time and billing reports: Practice management software and accounting products can give you detailed reports and breakdowns of your time. Review these reports to really understand where your time is going

The following is a short excerpt from the just-published book The Busy Lawyer's Guide to Success: Essential Tips to Power Your Practice by Reid F. Trautz and Dan Pinnington (ABA 2009). This book is the absolute best-ever collection of practical tips, ideas, and techniques to help you survive, thrive, and find success in the practice of law.