Why Lawyers Hate Timekeeping

An Easy Way to Record Time and Find Lost Revenue

Attorneys hate keeping time. Legal timekeeping is how most attorneys get paid, so it’s crucial.

How crucial? Tardy timekeeping can cost you $25,000 to $100,000 year. Ridiculous, you say?

Not so. The amount you lose if you don’t keep time contemporaneously is shocking. According to studies compiled by Ann Guinn for her ABA blog, if you don’t get your time in by the end of the day, you’re likely to lose 10 percent of your billable hours. If you don’t get it in the next day, you’ll lose 25 percent. If you don’t get it in by the end of the week, you’ll lose a full 50 percent.

Realistically, that means you’ll be making up what you put on your timesheet. Your clients aren’t stupid. They will sense something is wrong, making it more likely you won’t get paid or your bill will be contested. And then you have to spend time explaining the bill to them - if you can remember.

LeanLaw makes it ridiculously easy to record time and find lost time in your day.

How do we do it? It starts with understanding there are as many ways to keep time as there are lawyers. A calendar-style timesheet can help you identify gaps in your day and find that lost time. Some lawyers like a widget that’s right there on your desktop whenever you need it. Other solutions include:

• Timers
• Dictating your time into your mobile phone
• LEDES codes
• Mix hourly billing with fixed fees

No matter which device you are working on, LeanLaw accommodates all of these needs and we’re still developing more. In fact, some of our clients ask for ingenious solutions and we’re able to implement them within weeks.

You work hard for your clients and you deserve to be paid for your work. It’s frustrating to walk away from hard-earned fees just because you forget to record the time.

This is all part of a larger mission. At LeanLaw, we want every lawyer to have a lean practice. This means efficient, low-overhead and high service. Our legal timekeeping and billing software is a gateway to lean practice. We can also coach you to be a better technology user, and help you set up and use a complete lean technology stack. With a lean practice, you’ll have more time to enjoy your family, get into shape, or go on that quest to rediscover the ivory-billed woodpecker. We focus on small law firms and solo attorneys.

Check out LeanLaw’s timekeeping software

Join the Movement!