P2P

48 P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | W I N T E R 2 0 2 4 specific clients and matters to following UTMBS standards. This becomes time-consuming and frustratingly inefficient for professionals managing high volumes like insurance work or transactions. Re-assigning the same type of work with the same kinds of codes over and over again may be the new definition of insanity. Simplifying these steps is critical to freeing space for more valuable, billable tasks. Good billers are not born overnight. Billing is a mix of art and science. The best billers know it is not just about time captured but how the time entries are bundled, categorized, and described to clients to achieve high realization rates. Good billing behaviors require a lot of word-of-mouth knowledge transfer or tacit learning - both things that take a lot of time and energy from billing partners. While nice in theory, outside counsel guidelines are often ignored in practice. Associates and lawyers need a way to bring these best practices directly into their billing process smartly and seamlessly. AI-DRIVEN BILLING AUTOMATION Traditional billing software has often fallen short of true automation. However, AI has now reached a sophistication level that allows it to handle many of the tasks previously managed by human billers. AI can interpret nuanced tasks, make context-based decisions, and adapt to billing preferences over time. Humans are not timers, nor should they be. Manual timekeeping places an unnecessary burden on professionals. As expected, people often forget to bill time - especially if work happens outside the office or in ad-hoc instances while context switching. Employing start-and- stop timers also requires continuous user action. This constant interruption undermines the deep focus necessary for strategic, high-impact work. Studies estimate that interrupted work costs businesses over $500 billion annually in lost productivity—a clear signal that time-tracking methods need a transformation. Rinse and repeat: good for bathing, bad for your sanity. Billing practices often rely on repetitive, manual processes, from assigning entries to Automating these back-office tasks can free attorneys from administrative burdens while ensuring no billable time slips through the cracks. Frankly, this is the work that lawyers despise. After all, as fans of Suits might recall, we never saw Harvey and Mike painstakingly logging their hours. And while it might not make for compelling television, the hidden potential in AI-driven time-tracking is substantial. THE PROBLEM WITH BILLING TODAY Time-tracking is a cornerstone of legal billing. Yet, it remains one of the profession's most manual, tedious tasks, which makes billing an ideal candidate for AI-driven efficiency gains. Some of the key problems that exist in today's billing processes:

• Cover