Plugging the leaks: Unlocking billable hours in law firms

Consider the following scenario: It’s been a busy month for one of your client matters; as a result, you’ve neglected to log your hours as they accrue. You are certain that the client has exhausted the retainer, but you don’t know for sure because you haven’t compiled an invoice for the client matter for over a month.

To notify the client about renewing the retainer, you must have a current invoice. And to create an invoice, you must have a complete and accurate itemized accounting of all the billable hours and expenses attributed to the client matter. Marking your billable hours long after you worked them leads to the risk of an inaccurate or incomplete invoice as well as the potential to undercharge clients, rather than risk overcharging them.

Sifting through records for billable time and expenses is a time-consuming task that will cost you more time and money. What’s more, the much-needed retainer renewal gets further delayed.

This is not an ideal situation for any law firm. Given the high value of time and billable hours, it becomes critical to ensure that fee earners spend less time on non-billable administrative tasks. For example, for a lawyer who bills at $2000 an hour, adding an expense or time to a system can take about 30 seconds; that action alone can be worth close to $20. In addition, fee earners are often expected to clock utilization rates of over 90%, thus increasing the demand on their time.

Technology has stepped in as an indispensable tool to help law firms and fee earners improve their operations. Cloud-based solutions as well as emerging technologies like AI and machine learning are helping law firms improve their existing processes and business workflows such as client matter intake, billing, invoicing, reporting, etc. Automation tools help reduce the time and effort required for repetitive tasks such as billing or time/ expense tracking, allowing fee earners to spend more time for billable activities, business development, and client relations.

Join our webinar with Microsoft where we dive into the new technologies that law firms can invest in to make your operations more efficient. Learn about the power of cloud platforms, intelligent automation, advanced analytics, and artificial intelligence to streamline processes, increase efficiency, and improve outcomes.