Should Lawyers Bother with Timekeeping in a Fixed Fee Practice?

Do you know your Effective Hourly Rate?

Many attorneys with fixed fee (estate planning, probate, IP) practices don’t bother to keep time. You are paid a flat fee. So why bother, right?

Nope. If you don’t track your time, you have no idea how long you spend on each task and ultimately, you don’t know how much your time is worth. You need to know your Effective Hourly Rate (EHR). If you don’t know how much your time is worth, how do you know what kind of flat fee to charge?

When you understand EHR on your fixed fee cases, you’ll also be able to measure and rank which cases and what type of work took how many hours. You will also be able to identify repetitive tasks, which can provide opportunities to seek out automation. You’ll have a better understanding of what kinds of cases are most profitable: which practice areas are not only meaningful, but also are financially rewarding. You can now find the balance.

This might not be just about your work, but also people who are reporting to you.

You want to measure all the time you work, not just billable hours, so that you can understand the financial health of your law practice.

At LeanLaw, our mission is for every lawyer to have a lean practice. Getting there involves not only new technology, but behavior change as well. Meaning: you have to use the technology. Sometimes, new technology can be an adjustment and other times, you take your first step and never look back.

At LeanLaw, we offer legal software as well as IT services specifically catering to lawyers to help you create a lean law firm. We focus on small law firms and solo attorneys.

Tell me more about LeanLaw Time Tracking

Whether you use LeanLaw Timekeeping Software, a competitor’s or (please don’t) a yellow pad, tracking your time will help you build a leaner, more successful - and more meaningful to you - law practice.

Join the Movement!