Hacking Billable Hours

Billing is an essential aspect of running a successful law practice. It is how your law firm gets paid for its work, takes care of overhead bills, pays employees, and how you compensate yourself. If done incorrectly, your billing practices can threaten the very existence of your firm. Tracking and billing time to clients – whether it is hourly, flat fee, value or some hybrid thereof – is an important part of working in a law firm. Even in a contingency case you need to make sure your firm is reimbursed for costs.

Too often over the years, I have heard the excuses from attorneys about why they have not done their billing. Usually, the excuse is “I am too busy – I will get to it when I can.” Bluntly put, that is a poor excuse. If your firm is that busy, outsource your billing. The benefits of outsourcing your billing work and getting paid regularly will far outweigh the cost of outsourcing. My attorney/clients have a less than 5% AR.

This book was written to help attorneys understand that billing needs to be a regular part of the process of handling a client’s case. This will result in being timely paid for your work, and as I like to put it, “not get stuck holding the money bag”. The billing guidelines will enable attorneys to bill their clients every 30 days, reconcile their trust accounts on a regular basis and keep the cash flow coming in on a regular basis.

What you’ll discover in Hacking Billable Hours…

• What Billable Hours Are
• Sound Practices For Legal Billing
• Why Every Billable Hour Needs Accounted For
• What You Need To Know About Retainer Agreements
• Avoiding Common Missteps
• The Quickest Way To Get Paid
• Flat Fee Versus Value Billing
• Pitfalls In Trust Accounting
• Promissory Notes and Collections
• Duties and Responsibilities

Liz Miller has been working as a Law Practice Management Consultant since 2015 and has over 30 years of experience working with lawyers. She began her career in New York City as a legal secretary in January, 1979. Two years later she obtained her paralegal certification from the Paralegal Institute of New York. In 1985, she moved to Tampa, Florida where she continued with her career until 1988 when she opened Paralegal Professionals. She worked as an independent paralegal for lawyers specializing in plaintiff’s personal injury work and medical malpractice.

Liz believes that lawyers sacrifice billable hours when they handle administrative functions. Most law firms do not need a full-time administrator. Liz helps lawyers focus their time and energy on practicing law and taking care of their clients and the lawyer/client relationship, while she takes care of managing the business of practicing law.