The Power of Timecards: How Time Entry Narratives Can Transform Your Law Firm
Law firms today are sitting on a wealth of untapped data: time entry narratives. These brief notes, often added to time and billing systems, detail the work performed, providing essential context about the stage of the legal matter, client interactions, and much more. However, this data is often underutilized because it is unstructured and difficult to analyze manually.
This is where technology plays a role. With the advancements of machine learning-based tools, law firms can quickly access and analyze time entry narratives, providing them with an accurate view of who is doing what, when, and at what cost. By transforming this raw data into actionable insights, firms can streamline processes, enhance profitability, and make better business decisions.
Here are seven ways your firm can benefit from analyzing time entry narratives:
- Reduce Write-offs and Increase Realization Rates
Time entry narratives provide detailed context for client invoices, turning them into clear, informative reports. By analyzing these narratives, your firm can proactively address potential billing discrepancies, explaining charges clearly before the client even asks. This can prevent write-offs, improve realization rates, and help ensure that clients understand the value of the services provided. - Training for Junior Associates
Vague or unclear time entries can result in lost revenue and client frustration. Analyzing time narratives is a great way to train associates on the importance of detail in their entries. Firms can flag vague narratives, giving associates valuable feedback and helping them understand how clear communication contributes to client satisfaction and profitability. - Visibility into Lawyer Availability
Knowing who’s working on what—and how much time they’re spending on tasks—is critical for effective resource management. Time entry narratives provide an objective view of a team’s workload and availability. This enables partners to distribute tasks appropriately, preventing over- or under-utilization of associates. Moreover, when cross-selling opportunities arise, knowing team capacity can ensure that new engagements are handled efficiently. - Ensure the Right People Are on the Right Tasks
By analyzing the content of time entry narratives, firms can better match lawyers to tasks. This prevents associates from spending excessive time on work that’s above or below their level, saving money and boosting efficiency. For instance, if an associate is spending an inordinate amount of time on a certain task, driving up billable hours to where it might be a red flag for a client and leading to a write-off, the managing attorney can use the data to proactively address the issue, ensuring that the right resources are used while minimizing potential write-offs and uncomfortable client conversations. - Analyze Staffing Strategies
Time entry narratives offer insights that go beyond traditional timecard analysis. By examining narratives at an aggregate level, firms can pinpoint inefficiencies within practice areas or identify specific types of work that result in write-offs. This can inform staffing strategies and business development efforts, helping firms target the right clients and improve performance across different offices or practice areas, improving client satisfaction and helping win new business. - Track the ROI of Analyzing Time Entry Narratives
Narrative analysis can directly impact a firm’s bottom line by identifying problems before they spiral into significant write-offs. For instance, if a certain type of work frequently leads to write-offs, addressing that issue early can save substantial revenue. Additionally, tracking narratives over time enables firms to measure the return on investment (ROI) for technology, staffing, and other business decisions. - Empower Pricing Teams
For pricing teams, time entry narratives can be a game-changer. Tools like Litera’s Clocktimizer automate the collection and analysis of these narratives, allowing pricing specialists to generate detailed reports in minutes instead of days and taking out human error. This frees up time for strategic decision-making and ensures that pricing is based on accurate, real-time data.
Transforming Timecards into Strategic Insights
At the heart of every law firm’s billing system is a treasure trove of data, often hidden within time entry narratives. By leveraging technology to analyze this data, law firms can uncover valuable insights into their operations, making better decisions about staffing, pricing, and client management.
Tools like Clocktimizer make this process easier than ever, enabling firms to use the data they already have to drive performance improvements across the board. As stated by Clocktimizer customer, Eugenia Frenzel, Director of Pricing at Perkins Coie, “Previously, the only way to dig into a matter was to read through the timecard narratives to understand who did what work, how long it took, and what was actually done. There was no phase and task codes, so I often had to spend two days coding timecard narratives. I was delighted to discover a platform that could do all this work for me!” Whether it’s reducing write-offs, optimizing staffing, or enhancing business development efforts, the insights gained from timecard narratives can have a profound impact on a firm’s success.
Want to learn more about the treasure hidden inside your timecards? Check out our full e-book, What’s In Your TimeCards: 7 Ways to Leverage Actionable Data from Law Firm Time Entry Narratives for more detailed tips, or connect with an expert at Litera today to see if Clocktimizer might be a fit for your firm!
