This report looks closely at how lawyers at major law firms track their billable hours and other hours worked. The study helps its readers to answer questions such as: how often do lawyers record their billable and other hours? What are the penalties for tardy or non- submission of timesheets? How do lawyers record time while on the road and how does this differ from their practices while in the office? What percentage of lawyers use paper, or laptops, desktops, tablets or smartphones to record time? How often do they underestimate billable hours for fear of over-billing clients when they lose track of hours worked? What is the economic cost of such actions? What are the most popular billing apps and software programs? What do lawyers recommend to their peers, in terms of apps, software and firm-wide time tracking and billing policies?
Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:
• 70.67% of lawyers tracked all work time; 22.6% just billable time, and 2.88%, neither.
• More than 53% of lawyers age 60 or older used paper to record their billable and other work hours while only 12.24% of those from 30-39 did so.
• The more proficient a lawyer believed themselves to be in handling information technology, the less likely they were to believe that their firm’s required them to submit timesheets every day.
• 51.91% of men and 67.53% of women in the sample say that they have deliberately underestimated time spent on a billable legal task to err on the side of caution when they lost track of time.