Time Tracking
Legal Time Tracking That Catches What You Miss
Studies show lawyers fail to capture 10-40% of their billable work. Every missed time entry is revenue that never reaches your invoice. Barristr combines one-click active timers with passive background tracking and AI-powered unbilled time recovery to ensure every minute of client work is captured, categorized, and ready to bill.
One-Click Timers for Focused Legal Work
When you sit down to draft a motion or prepare for a deposition, start a timer with a single click. Select the matter, add an optional description, and go. The timer runs in the background while you work — visible but unobtrusive. Pause it when you take a break, resume when you return. When you stop the timer, the time entry is automatically created with the correct matter association, date, and duration. Multiple concurrent timers let you switch between matters throughout the day without losing track of where your time went.
- Single-click timer start with matter selection and optional description
- Pause, resume, and split timers for breaks and task switches
- Multiple concurrent timers for attorneys juggling several matters
- Automatic time entry creation when the timer stops — no double entry
Passive Background Time Capture
Not every billable task starts with a conscious decision to start a timer. You answer a client email, review a document, or hop on a quick phone call — and the time evaporates uncaptured. Barristr's passive tracking monitors your work patterns in the background: time spent in documents associated with specific matters, email correspondence with clients, and calendar events tied to cases. At the end of each day, the system presents a summary of detected activity and suggests time entries for your review and approval.
Passive tracking is never automatic billing — it is automatic detection. Every suggested entry requires your explicit approval before it becomes a billable time record. You remain in full control of what gets billed and what does not. The goal is simple: surface the work you did so you can decide whether to bill for it, rather than letting it disappear into the unrecoverable past.
- Background detection of document editing, email, and calendar activity
- Daily activity summary with suggested time entries for attorney review
- Explicit attorney approval required — no automatic billing of passive time
- Privacy controls: configure which activities are tracked and which are excluded
AI-Powered Unbilled Time Recovery
Even with active timers and passive tracking, some billable work falls through the cracks — especially short tasks like reviewing a quick email, leaving a voicemail, or scanning an incoming court filing. Barristr's AI recovery engine analyzes your activity patterns, matter timelines, and historical billing data to identify gaps where work likely occurred but was never recorded. It then generates specific, detailed time entry suggestions with matter associations, descriptions, and estimated durations. Recovery suggestions are based on concrete evidence — email timestamps, document access logs, calendar events — not guesswork. Every recovered entry requires attorney approval before billing.
- AI analysis of activity patterns, matter timelines, and billing gaps
- Evidence-based recovery: email timestamps, document logs, and calendar events
- Specific suggestions with matter, description, and estimated duration
- Attorney approval required for every recovered time entry before billing
AI Billing Narrative Enhancement for Time Entries
When you are deep in legal work, timer notes tend to be shorthand: "research re: MSJ" or "call JG." These notes are sufficient for your memory but insufficient for a client invoice. Barristr's AI narrative enhancement transforms terse timer notes into clear, professional billing descriptions that communicate the value of your work. The original note is preserved, the enhanced version is shown for your approval, and both are stored in the time entry record. The AI learns your firm's billing style over time, producing narratives that match your voice and your clients' expectations.
LEDES Export & Electronic Billing Compatibility
Corporate clients increasingly require electronic billing in LEDES format. Barristr maps your time entries to UTBMS task codes and activity codes, validates entries against common billing guidelines, and exports in LEDES 1998B and LEDES XML formats. Pre-submission validation catches block billing, vague narratives, and rate compliance issues before your invoice reaches the client's legal operations team — reducing rejections and accelerating payment.
- LEDES 1998B and XML format export for corporate and insurance clients
- UTBMS task and activity code mapping for each time entry
- Pre-submission guideline validation to reduce invoice rejections
Attorney Utilization & Productivity Reporting
Understanding where your time goes is the first step to improving profitability. Barristr's utilization dashboard shows billable vs. non-billable hours by attorney, practice area, and client. Track realization rates — the percentage of billed time that actually gets collected — and identify patterns. See which matter types take longer than expected, which clients have the highest write-down rates, and where your firm's time is most profitably spent. Weekly and monthly utilization reports are generated automatically and can be delivered to managing partners by email.
- Billable vs. non-billable hour breakdown by attorney, practice area, and client
- Realization rate tracking from billed to collected across all matters
- Automated weekly and monthly utilization reports for firm management
- Trend analysis to identify which matter types and clients are most profitable
Capture Every Billable Minute
Active timers, passive tracking, and AI recovery work together to ensure no billable work goes uncaptured. Start your free trial and see the revenue difference.
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