Eleven calls and emails on Tuesday, and four of them made the bill.
How familiar does this sound? Tuesday you took a call from opposing counsel in the courthouse parking lot, answered a client's email about her hearing date between two meetings, called the probate clerk back, and spent ten minutes at 4:40 settling down a client's mother. Friday afternoon you open the week's time entries and Tuesday has four. The rest is gone, or it's a guess, and a guess written three days later gets rounded down because you can't swear to it.
None of it was lost on Tuesday. The call is on your phone's log with its length. The email is in your sent folder with the matter in the subject line. The clerk's call is there too. What's missing is the ten minutes at the end of the day to turn them into entries, and that is the ten minutes that never happens.
A word about the software you already have. Most practice software now offers some of this, and some firms get it working on their own. The part I'd do is the setup and the tuning: which mailbox it may read and which matters it must never touch, written down for you to check; how your firm phrases an entry; what counts as billable at your firm. Then I'd run it, with a practice day through it every week and a look at the numbers with you once a month: what was captured, what was billed, what was collected.
What I'd set up
Every evening, your sent email, calendar and call log become a list of draft time entries in your practice software: the matter, the time, a plain description in your firm's words, and where each one came from. The drafting is the AI's job; approving is yours, one tap each from your phone. Nothing is billed until you do. Invoices go out on your schedule, and an unpaid one gets a reminder with the link, on your schedule. Once a week I run a practice day through it to make sure nothing broke, and you get a text if something did. Once a month we look at what was captured, billed and collected.
The rules it follows
- You approve every entry. Nothing goes on a bill that you didn't tap.
- It reads your sent mail, your calendar and your call log, and nothing else. A matter you name, it never touches.
- It never adds time that wasn't worked, and every draft says where it came from.
- A reminder says the invoice is open and gives the link. It never says anything else about the account. Asked if it's an AI, it says so.
- Once a week a practice day runs through, start to finish, and cleans up after itself. No client ever sees it. If something broke, you get one text.
What's billable, what each entry says and what goes on the bill stay with you.
Working demo
One Tuesday, from your call log to the bill.
Put your firm's name in, then follow one Tuesday: the drafts waiting at 6:30, your four taps in the parking lot, Ron's reminder two weeks after the invoice, and the Sunday practice run that proves nothing broke.
The firm, the clients and the matters are made up. The replies were written in advance and play back in your browser. Nothing you type leaves this page, and the pay link is a drawing.
It signs every text here, and never leaves this page.
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Tuesday
After your last call, before you leave.
Your Tuesday, as time entries
Eleven drafts. Nothing is billed until you say so.
Tuesday's drafts
11 entries, 4 matters, 2.7 hours
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Gentry v. Ridgeway BuildersHours: 0.2
Call with opposing counsel re: deposition dates.
Drafted from: Call log, 9:12 AM, 11 min
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Estate of WhitakerHours: 0.3
Email to probate clerk re: letters testamentary.
Drafted from: Sent mail, 11:40 AM
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State v. DunnHours: 0.2
Call with client's mother re: court date.
Drafted from: Call log, 4:40 PM, 10 min
8 more, 2.0 hours.
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Tuesday
Your phone, walking to the car.
Nine approved, one edited, one dropped
One tap each. The entries post to their matters, and the bill waits for the 1st.
Tuesday, approved
Done by 6:44
- Approved as drafted
- 9.
- Edited
- Whitaker. The clerk email drafted at 0.3. It was two lines, so you made it 0.1.
- Dropped
- A six-minute call with your CPA. Not billable, and it won't draft that number again.
Status
- Ten entries posted to their matters, 2.4 hours. Each one says what it came from.
- On the bill when invoices go out on the 1st, not before.
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Friday
Two weeks after the invoices went out. Ron's is still open.
Ron's reminder, and his payment
An open invoice gets one reminder on your schedule, with the link.
- Bledsoe Creek Law OfficeHi Ron, it's Bledsoe Creek Law Office. Your invoice from the 1st is still open. Here's the link if that's easier than a check: Pay this invoice. If it's already on the way, ignore this, and thank you.
- Ronoh sorry, thought carol sent that. paying now
- Bledsoe Creek Law OfficeNo problem, Ron. It came through, and your receipt's on its way to your email. Thank you.
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Sunday
Every Sunday, before anyone's in.
A practice day, every Sunday
If something broke, you get a text.
Sunday's practice run: passed
A made-up day, cleared at 6:04
- Drafts
- Three emails in, three entries out.
- Approve
- Done from the practice phone.
- Bill
- Built, reminder queued, deleted.
Status
- All three passed. No client touched.
The text you'd get if it failed
Bledsoe Creek Law Office Sunday practice run: the drafts never reached the approve list. Drafting on hold until a person clears it. No entry affected.
What the calls nobody wrote down cost you
Put in your hourly rate and how many hours a week of calls and emails never make it onto a bill, and the figures change with them.
The starting figure is an example. Change it to yours.
Count last Tuesday from your call log and sent folder, then count the entries you made for it. The gap is the number.
Work done and never billed
- A week
- $500
- A month
- $2,167
- A year
- $26,000
Rough math: the week times 52 for the year, divided by 12 for the month. There are vendor studies with bigger numbers. Your own call log is the one to trust.
How you'd set this up yourself
Five steps, and the first one is a page of writing, no software at all.
Decide what it may read
Write down the three sources: your sent folder, your calendar, your call log. Not the inbox, not attachments. Name any matter it must never touch. That page is the scope, and it's the firm's to decide and to check against your bar's guidance.
Give the AI your last fifty entries
A business AI account with training off, and your own entries as the pattern: how a call is rounded, how you phrase a letter to the clerk, what you never bill. It drafts into your practice software and never posts.
Match by what's already there
The matter name in the subject line, the number on the client card, the event on the calendar. Where it can't match, the draft says so and waits for you.
Approve from your phone, at the same time every day
One list at 6:30, one tap per entry. Approved entries post as time. Nothing reaches a bill until the invoice run you already do.
Turn on the reminders, then run a practice day weekly
Your practice software likely has invoice reminders. Set the days and write them yourself. Then once a week, a made-up day on a practice mailbox and a practice matter that runs through and deletes itself, with one text to you if something broke.
If you'd rather not build this, I'll set it up in the practice software you already have, with what it reads written down for you to check, tune it the first weeks to how your firm writes an entry, run a practice day through it every week, and go over captured, billed and collected with you once a month.
