Technology. Before its time?

• Author: Sean la Roque-Doherty
• Pages: 20-21

ABA JOURNAL | WINTER 2019-2020

20

Business of Law edited by

VICTOR LI

Victor.Li@americanbar.org

TECHNOLOGY

Before Its

Time?

Despite lawyers saying they hate

having to track hours, automated

timekeeping programs have failed

to gain a foothold in the industry

BY SEAN LA ROQUE-DOHERTY

Photo illustration by Sara Wadford/Shutterstock

information to clients. “Firms cannot

value [alternative fee arrangements]

without understanding the amount of

time spent on the life cycle of a mat-

ter—it’s like playing baseball in the

dark.”

Time capture for all seasons

Time-capture technology started 20

years ago with software that crawled

law rm systems to identify and capture

time, says Gabriela Isturiz, president

and co-founder of Belleeld, maker of

iTimekeep. At law rms that deployed

this passive time capture, only 10% to

15% of timekeepers adopted it—the

common complaint from others was

that timecards weren’t automatically

created, Isturiz says. Sometimes it took

more work to utilize the technology

than simply entering time.

Allowing progressive time entry on

mobile devices and in desktop appli-

cations for lawyers to capture time on

their own terms increases user adoption,

Isturiz says. Add the ability to validate

The sooner law rms bill

clients, the sooner they get

paid. Everyone knows that,

but the billing process gets

bogged down in the rst step: getting

time entered in a proper narrative with

activity and task codes, according to

the 2019 Aderant Business of Law and

Legal Technology Survey.

There are two things law rms

can do. Firms can reduce or eliminate

their reliance on time capture and the

billable hour by turning to alternative

fee arrangements, such as at fees or

traditional retainer models. Alterna-

tively, they can facilitate time capture

and entry for lawyers by adopting new

technology.

Moving away from the billable hour

model can be a dangerous proposition.

On the one hand, the billable hour is a

performance measure for lawyers and

practice areas and a reward system for

law rms. On the other, it is a measure

of work product. The billable hour is a

“universal input metric,” writes Peter

Zver, president of Tikit NA, in Legal

Timekeeping Manifesto: 10 Truths.

This value is “multidimensional” and

becomes a “source for conducting good

business.”

“The billable hour remains the DNA

of law rms,” says Ryan Steadman,

chief revenue ofcer of Zer0. It’s just a

question of how to present the billing