Law firm clients are buying expected results. The way those results are billed for is with time entries. These time entries show the progress towards the results being paid for. Clients are increasingly looking for more visibility and accountability in the progress of their matters. The monthly or quarterly bills are what they are checking now to see that progress.

Clients are starting to check the details of the bills with increasing scrutiny. They are trying to gauge the value of the services given by the firm. For this reason, and a few more that I will spell out later in this article, the way that time entries are done needs to change.

Many firms are realizing that if the timekeepers are entering time once a week, or in many cases once a month, that the time entries are not entirely accurate. Clients are starting to realize this too. Recently I heard from one large firm in New York that during an audit a client asked to see how many of the time cards were entered the same day as the work was done.

The narratives of the time entries are becoming more and more important with clients looking for more detail about the work being done. This is an area where the law firm has the opportunity to show value. Rather than boring vague descriptions about the work performed clients are looking for detailed descriptions about what was done and why it was important that the attorney do that work. It is the place where a law firm can really shine and set them apart from the rest of the pack. Clients are now keeping score cards and the firms that do the best with their time entries in the way of compliance and value are getting more work. This is a trend that will continue to grow.

A wave of law firms are starting to realize the need for contemporaneous time entry and this will also continue as clients start demanding it. The funny thing is that it is resisted by many firms. The benefits are clear to the firm as well as the client. For the law firm they will enter more time per attorney with a smaller average time card. Activities that did not take long are often not recorded, especially those done outside the office. Contemporaneous time entry offers real time data for accruals and budgeting. It gives more accurate data fro the pricing models law firms are now trying to build. It can also be used as a differentiator to market the firm for new or more business.

New tools are being built for both law firms and clients to track and facilitate the change in time entry. Firms can either be at the front of the wave and benefit or wait to be swept up by the wave and lose business because of it.