It’s a standard practice for attorneys to bill their time for work they’ve completed on behalf of their clients. Attorneys charge their clients based on a variety of factors including practice area, experience level, location, and case needs. Although all attorneys charge differently based on these circumstances, many attorneys are stuck with consuming administrative tasks. To combat the strain that administrative tasks have on daily operations, attorneys should have legal practice management software in place to help manage day-to-day tasks, so more time can be spent focusing on handling clients’ matters. PracticePanther is the perfect solution to help attorneys greatly reduce non-billable hours and streamline their case management in one centralized place — here’s how.
The Difference Between Billable and Non-billable Hours
It’s essential to identify what types of tasks are associated with billable hours and non-billable hours. Studies have shown that attorneys spend less than 3 hours on billable work in an 8-hour workday. Non-billable hours may include repetitive administrative tasks like timekeeping, client intake, errands, invoicing, or even office management. Without a doubt, administrative tasks can be tedious and time-consuming, yet, they are foundational to the success of the business. On the other hand, billable hours include the time an attorney spends working on a matter or even thinking about the matter.
Administrative Tasks (Non-billable Hours) Can Be Automated With PracticePanther
PracticePanther’s case management has you covered from end to end with automated features to help greatly reduce the number of non-billable hours for attorneys.
Matter & Contacts in Sync
Instead of sifting through all the cases from a pile of matters, PracticePanther gives attorneys a holistic view of all cases and access to information whenever and wherever they are.
By clicking “Matter”, attorneys can view all vital information including, contact, billing, and more in one place. Instead of manually updating information on paper multiple times, attorneys can update information once, and have it reflected across case documents, making the process more smart and efficient.
Automated Activities and Workflows
On top of syncing matters and contacts with one step, attorneys can also create automated workflows in the “Activities” tab to have PracticePanther run and do all the heavy lifting of administrative tasks for your law firm. Instead of sending a client an email regarding an upcoming appointment, attorneys can easily automate the process by creating a workflow to set up email reminders for any upcoming appointments, events, or court dates.
Invoicing with Existing Templates
Creating invoices is no doubt complicated work. To save time, use PracticePanther’s built-in invoice templates to quickly draft an invoice and send it to your clients directly.
Whether you’re creating a one-time invoice, multiple invoices, or setting up a payment plan for a client, you can easily navigate it through PracticePanther and customize each invoice based on your law firm’s rate or client’s needs.
Better yet, attorneys can have the opportunity to choose invoice templates based on pre-determined or previously created invoice templates saved in PracticePanther. Attorneys may also include time entries, flat fees, and expenses to further customize and detail the work that was done for a specific client.
Streamlined Client Intake
Conducting client intake is almost as tedious as creating invoices. It’s common for law firms to have several practice areas with multiple in-house attorneys, due to this, intake forms may vary depending on the case. Avoid racking up non-billable hours by creating unique intake forms with specific questions in advance and sending them to clients whenever you need to.
PracticePanther automatically syncs returned or new clients to a matter within the software. So attorneys can skip the hassle of double checking whether the information is synced or eliminate the need to spend more miscellaneous time on finding misplaced client information.
Reduce Your Non-billable Hours and Rack Up Your Billable Hours With PracticePanther
A large amount of non-billable hours can not only hinder a team’s productivity and efficiency but can also lead to revenue loss for your law firm. Stay on top of the competition in the industry by adopting legal practice management software like PracticePanther to streamline your administrative tasks and increase your team’s productivity.
If you’d like to see how PracticePanther can help reduce your non-billable hours in a customized demo, contact our team today and see what it can do for your firm.
