Do you spend your work days in 6-minute increments?
If you know, you know.
I spent my entire professional career, straight out of college, living my life in 6-minute time increments. So much so, that I would even schedule my weekends like this:
Groceries .8
Pick up dry cleaning .2
Lawn work .7
It’s hard to escape the billable time mindset when you work in a law firm – especially a large defense firm with a strict billable time requirement.
If you’re a timekeeper in a law firm (associate, paralegal, litigation support, etc.) and you have to describe what you did in a billable time entry, this quick tip will help you draft better time entries.
If You Have a Billable Time Requirement
There are some things that you can do to make it easier to draft your time entries. As Ann discussed in the video, you can start by asking the questions that journalists do to know that they have the complete story.
Here are a few more tips:
- Enter your time right away. Don’t wait until the end of the day or at the firm’s weekly time entry deadline.
- Keep an ongoing “Master” list of client restrictions and keywords that typically get flagged for review.
- If you find yourself trying so hard to come up with the words to make the task sound billable, it’s probably not billable.
- Don’t copy and paste another timekeeper’s “similar entry” because it sounds good. That’s the work that THEY did, not the work that YOU did.
Subscribe to the Billable Hour YouTube Channel to get more tips.
Meet the Author
Ann Pearson is the Founder of the Paralegal Boot Camp, and host of the Paralegals on Fire! Podcast Show, and passionate about promoting the paralegal profession.
Ann spent 20 years working as a paralegal manager and a litigation paralegal before opening the Paralegal Boot Camp in 2010.
Ann’s training programs focus on adding immediate value to a paralegal’s career and bridging the gap between what a paralegal learns in school and what they actually do on the job.
Visit the About Us Page to learn more about why Ann started the Paralegal Boot Camp.
