Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/30285
WHITHER TIME ENTRY? (OF DINOSAURS AND BUGGY WHIPS) improvement designed to thrive in today’s competitive environment and address the needs of modern timekeepers and business stakeholders. It must embody an approach rooted in automation, inference and detailed intelligence. Software must provide non-invasive monitoring; integrated, cross- referenced information; and a means of access and consumption by lawyers that facilitates their legal practice, rather than slowing it down. Delivering this is no small engineering feat. Great technological progress has been made in recent years, and as a growing community of firms and lawyers are reaping the rewards of true, comprehensive time-capture, these organizations are also building a data foundation that will enable significant management visibility and business growth as the legal industry continues to evolve. ILTA the demands of shifting client specifications. It was, quite simply, maddening. I was being judged on how well I completed the puzzle, and the client had reasonable expectations of knowing how I was getting along. Manual tracking and reporting was the only solution on hand for accommodating this expectation, but its intrusiveness into the process and the resulting inefficiency were profound. All of the little enhancements to time-entry software over the years have been introduced in an effort to minimize this disruption; but they have not completely solved the problem because they haven’t fundamentally changed the task. Note-taking, enlisting the help of secretaries, following narrative templates, etc. are making the accounting less burdensome for lawyers. Timers, calendar views and passive time- capture are also helping to make data more complete; however, there is still not a comprehensive solution that eliminates the need for manual tracking and reporting. It strikes me as extremely useful to have those who are developing solutions to these challenges experience some of the real pain lawyers feel. ILTA www.iltanet.org Financial Management 19