8 ASIAN LEGAL BUSINESS – INDIA E-MAGAZINE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2024 You’ve just gotten into a cab home after 12 long hours at your law firm, a day that’s included three calls with clients that have gone on way longer than they needed to and collaboration with two other law firms, including one in a different time zone. This is all over transaction documents that need to go out “as of yesterday,” that you quickly modify after the said calls, and then pushing clients to approve. But just as you sit back to take a breath, you hear the dreaded ding of an email alert. You’ve been avoiding your timesheets, the subject line tells you. The often-cruel nature of law firm life as an associate begs one to question the need for time tracking. When the work is getting done, and the client is “happy” and your partner is happy, why does one need to be put through this mind-numbing ordeal? Well, timesheets are for much more than putting together a bill for an hourly mandate, or just to show your clients how many hours you’ve put into their matter. Law firms are investing a significant amount of money in building technology and infrastructure to collect this valuable data, that links directly to their profitability, attorney productivity, hiring and client development. Tracking time is directly linked to resource allocation, workload management, and calculating the profitability of mandates, say Legal League Consulting’s founder, Bithka Anand, and CEO, Nipun Bhatiaa. Sabiana Anandraj, founder of professional services aggregator Cuerate and former chief operating officer at top Indian law firm Trilegal, explains that it is next to impossible to calculate profitability without tracking the hours their attorneys are spending on mandates, particularly to check for scope creep – going beyond the original scope of work and time agreed with a client. Time tracking becomes more relevant as law firms get larger. Firms depend on their attorney productivity data to determine where hiring is required, both in terms of practice areas and the level at which a legal resource needs to be brought in, Bhatiaa explains. INCENTIVISING LAWYERS It then becomes crucial to incentivise your attorneys to fill in their timesheets, without it becoming too much of a burden on their fully-packed workdays. Bhatiaa explains that some attorneys feel tracking measures can be intrusive and create a sense of being micromanaged, leading to decreased morale and job satisfaction. So, what is the right way to go TIME IS MONEY For decades, timesheets have been the bane of junior lawyers, as law firms almost uniformly use them to track productivity. But recent moves are seeking to make them less burdensome – as well as incentivise lawyers to complete them. BY NIMITT DIXIT Image: ChunnapaStudio/Shutterstock.com
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