timekeeping

Carefully Track Time

January 19, 2010

Whether you bill clients at an hourly rate or work on cases with attorney fee awards, you need to keep track of your time very carefully. Many firms have established increments for billing time, and some firms have even assigned increments for certain tasks. However you do it, make sure every entry has sufficient detail [...]

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Clio and Time59 Announce iPhone Apps (Update: Rocket Matter, Too)

December 23, 2009

Clio was the first major player in the online practice management space to sync with Outlook, and now Clio and Time59 announce iPhone compatibility. Neither offer a true iPhone app; instead, both have iPhone-optimized sites (despite Clio’s confusing blog entry). This is a good thing, in my opinion. Gmail’s iPhone-optimized site is better than any [...]

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Google Calendar Rocks

September 23, 2009

Google Calendar is very user-friendly, and very good at helping you manage your days. If you already use another calendar, consider switching over. If you do not already use a calendar—start using GCal immediately—it is that good.
5 Reasons Why GCal Rocks

You can invite people to events or allow them to view your entire calendar with [...]

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Freshbooks: painless customer service

March 24, 2009

It is no secret that I love Freshbooks, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has excellent customer service, too.
I could not figure out how to downgrade my account using the web site (you can’t), so I gritted my teeth and called the customer support number.
Levi picked up after a couple of rings, [...]

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Track time with Windows Notepad

May 28, 2008

Boyd Johnson has an ingenious way of tracking his time throughout the day. Just open Windows Notepad and, when starting a task, hit F5, which stamps the time into your text file. Make a note to help you flesh out the task on your billing sheet later, and off you go. Whenever you switch tasks, [...]

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What I use to manage my practice

April 16, 2008

Note new post: What I use to manage my practice (update), February 6, 2009
As most readers of this blog know, I am in a constant search to find the “best” way to manage my practice. As everyone knows, there is no “best” way to manage a solo or small law practice, but there is always [...]

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Will the billable hour ever die?

January 2, 2008

According to Slate’s Lisa Lerer, the billable hour may be already be under attack by some large clients of the largest firms. But what about solo and very small firms?
Here is how I do things now, and then I will talk about the “fair fee retainer agreement” I have been working on.

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My timekeeping and accounting solution

September 20, 2007

My wife commented yesterday that it has been a long time since she heard me complaining about my timekeeping and accounting software. It’s true. I hadn’t realized how much less frustration I have since I ditched Time Matters and Billing Matters Plus for good. Instead, I am using a combination of spreadsheets and simple but [...]

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