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Feeding the Beast: Improving Time-tracking

BY Dan C. Felean
October 01, 2003

After all the sophisticated analysis and strategies are stripped away, the key to a successful law practice often comes down to getting the fundamentals right. Just as the success of a baseball team ultimately depends on the proper execution of “throw, catch and hit,” so too law firms have to facilitate the execution of those processes which are fundamental to the firm's business. The time-tracking process is the one law firm fundamental that has proven to be the most resistant to improvement. Yet, this tradition-bound process can most benefit from a fresh all-inclusive approach.

The Clock is Always Running

Even though the profession is constantly trying to implement better ways to measure value, time remains the basic currency of the legal profession. Billable hours provide a basis for valuing work, justifying fees and compensating the lawyer. Despite the underlying flaw in logic (ie, billing by time actually rewards inefficiency), both law firms and clients still find the billable hour to be the most understandable and common transaction basis for legal services. The method is simple, it encourages effort and it provides a familiar compensation basis when quantifying value is difficult. Internally it provides the easiest overall performance indicator for measuring effort and compensation.

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