Top Five Ways to Increase

Your Billable Time

(Without Working Longer Hours)
by Seth Rowland

Chrometa, LLC
1029 H St.
Suite 103
Sacramento, CA 95814
(888) 340-6425
adam@chrometa.com
www.chrometa.com
 Top Five Ways to Increase Your Billable Time
(Without Working Longer Hours)
A
recent survey found that law-
yers work three hours for ev-
ery two they bill. (Google How
Attorneys Track Their Billable Time,
Maximize Your Billable Time, Jan. 5,
2010.)
Picture a publicly traded company
that disclosed it had only billed (for-
get about collecting) two-thirds of the
items it sold. The Board of Directors
would reprimand and probably ter-
minate the CEO, CFO, and CTO for
failing to develop processes to pre-
vent this catastrophe. Shareholders
would file class action suits. And yet,
this scenario is essentially the current
state of most, if not all, law firms.
This situation exists for many rea-
sons, including: (1) administrative
overhead, (2) reasonable accommo-
dations to the financial circumstanc-
es of clients; (3) write-offs for poor
results, and (4) write-offs for training
new associates. And then there is
the significant amount of non-billable
time spent by lawyers just reconciling
their time — over two hours per week
on average. But none of these factors
explain the majority of the unbilled
time. The reality is there is no legiti-
mate business reason for the major-
ity of unbilled time. So the question
arises — how can you increase your
billable time?
1. Practice Accurate Timekeeping
If you bill clients by the project or
the hour, you need to keep accurate
records of time spent on each job.
For hourly clients, keeping correct
timesheets ensures you get paid for
Chrometa, LLC
1029 H St.
all the work you do. Legal ethics rules
Suite 103 also require you to accurately track
Sacramento, CA 95814 your time.
(888) 340-6425
adam@chrometa.com A number of firms have switched to
www.chrometa.com flat rate or fixed fee billing. Technically,
these firms don’t need to “track their
time.” However, until the use of docu-
ment assembly technology (so-called
expert systems) becomes more com-
mon, even these firms need to track
their time to determine the profitabil-
ity of alternative billing models. They
need to track attorney productivity as
well as assess whether their fixed fee
pricing adequately covers their cost
of doing business.
For hourly clients, keeping correct
timesheets ensures you get paid
for all the work you do.
Legal ethics rules also require
you to accurately track your time.
For administrative work, keeping cor-
rect timesheets reflects the amount
of time that you have “invested” in
bettering your firm. If you invest sev-
eral hundred hours in developing a
set of automated templates, it is im-
portant to know how much “human
capital” was expended in developing
productivity tools. When your clients
ask why you charged $2,000 for an
estate plan that took you two hours
to create with a document assembly
engine, you can point to the hun-
dreds of hours your firm invested to
reach that level of efficiency — and
more importantly the quality of the
finished product resulting from that
investment.
2. Record Your Time Concurrently
“Attorneys fail to bill from 10 to 25 per-
cent of their legitimate billable hours
as a result of bad recording habits,
being overwhelmed, disorganization,
and poor team management,” writes
Dustin Cole, president of Attorneys
Master Class. This means that a firm
with $1 million in gross billings leaves
as much as $250,000 per year on the
table for work performed but never
billed.
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 Top Five Ways to Increase Your Billable Time
(Without Working Longer Hours)
One reason attorneys fail to bill is
“they don’t remember” — and eth-
ics rules say not to invent. The so-
lution is simple. When you finish a
task, bill it. Note the time spent on
the task. Identify the client and mat-
ter, and then briefly describe the work
performed. You can adjust and edit
these entries before adding them to
a bill and sending it out. Given the
wealth of legal billing applications —
both software and Web-based appli-
cations (software as a service) — you
should be able to find a suitable solu-
tion for your firm.
Traditional time tracking systems
require you to enter your time
throughout the day.
Sometimes, this method becomes
impractical even for the most
diligent among us.
It’s inevitable that you will lose
bits and pieces of billable time.
3. Use Your Calendar Software
Everyone has a calendar, paper or
electronic. Whether you use Micro-
soft Outlook or a legal-specific prac-
tice management application, you
can use your calendar as more than
a scheduler. Instead, it can become
your first line of defense in planning
your day and recording your time.
Use your calendar to “schedule work”
and to “document work” you have
Chrometa, LLC
performed. This method works like
1029 H St.
Suite 103 a time sheet but it’s more concrete.
Sacramento, CA 95814 For example, when meeting with a
(888) 340-6425 client, calendar the meeting, includ-
adam@chrometa.com ing the start and the finish time. If the
www.chrometa.com meeting runs over, adjust your calen-
dar to reflect the actual time of the
meeting. When drafting a document
or conducting research, run a stop-
watch or timer and note your start
and finish time. With many practice
management programs, you can con-
vert these calendar items into a billing
entry with a single mouse click.
4. Use Time Capture Software as a
Safety Net
Traditional time tracking systems re-
quire you to enter your time through-
out the day. Sometimes, this method
becomes impractical even for the
most diligent among us. It’s inevitable
that you will lose bits and pieces of
billable time. It may seem small but it
adds up.
With time capture software, you can
prevent these bits and pieces from
falling through the cracks. Time cap-
ture software works by automatically
recording your computer activity —
what you worked on, when, and for
how long. For example, it will track
time spent writing in a word process-
ing file, using a legal research Web
site, reading and writing email, and
much more.
You can generate a comprehensive
report of your day’s activities to help
create your time entries. You may
be surprised at what turns up — not
just lost billable time but wasted
time as well (it happens to the best
of us).
A growing number of mobile apps
perform the same function on smart-
phones. They capture all your tele-
phone calls, which you can then con-
vert into billing entries. Some of these
apps sync with practice management
systems.
Cost recovery systems, a close cous-
in of time capture software, can also
help. For example, if you spend a lot
of time on your office phone, your
cost recovery system can create a
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 Top Five Ways to Increase Your Billable Time
(Without Working Longer Hours)

report of your phone logs and auto-
associate telephone numbers with a
particular client file.
Time capture software works
by automatically recording
your computer activity —
what you worked on, when,
and for how long.
basically conduct “forensic analysis”
by reviewing email and documents.
Staying late to reconstruct your time
gets old pretty fast. It’s pure admin-
istrative work (i.e., unbillable). Even
worse, it typically results in under-bill-
ing and lost revenue. By tracking your
time concurrently when possible, and
using cost recovery and time capture
software as a safeguard, you can re-
duce and even eliminate the need to
reconcile your time.

5. Spend Less Time Reconciling
Your Time
You know the drill. You sit around
for a while and think about the work
you did for the past month. If you are
“good” you engage in this reconcili-
ation at the end of each week. You
Conclusion
You work hard. You’re entitled to ev-
ery penny you earn. While implement-
ing the tips in this report may require
changing your routine a bit, they’re
no more onerous than trying to re-
construct your time and much less
prone to under-billing.

Seth Rowland, Esq. was named TechnoLawyer Consultant of the Year in 2002 for his
work on document assembly and law practice automation. He is a nationally known
technologist whose company, Basha Systems LLC (www.bashasys.com), has helped
many law firms build customized practice management and workflow solutions. Basha
Systems currently offers consulting services for Amicus Attorney, Time Matters,
Advologix, HotDocs, Exari, and DealBuilder. Please visit Seth’s blog
(www.bashasys.info).

Chrometa, LLC
1029 H St.
Suite 103
Sacramento, CA 95814
(888) 340-6425
adam@chrometa.com
www.chrometa.com

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