In the billable-hour world of law practice, time management for lawyers is more than just a skill worth developing—it’s a key to survival. Good time management can mean the difference between a thriving practice and one that struggles to get by. When lawyers and law firms manage their time well, they are more productive, work more efficiently, serve clients better, and generate more revenue.
Practicing good time management, however, is easier said than done. There are proven techniques lawyers can use to have more control over their time and practices. Here’s a look at the most important tools and techniques that can help you manage time efficiently.
Why Time Management Is Critical for Lawyers
Law practice is stressful, with reputation and professionalism on the line. Lawyers face unique challenges that require unique solutions; here’s why time management is particularly important for lawyers:
- Urgent Client Matters: Client emergencies are inevitable, but they can quickly derail your workflow and cause you to lose valuable billable time.
- Hanging Deadlines: Dropping the ball on deadlines is not only catastrophic for cases, but it can also harm your reputation and years of hard work building a client base.
- Lack of Process: Without a system in place, it’s easy to get distracted and miss critical case details.
Time management for lawyers has many benefits. For example, when you manage your time well you can research cases better, write better arguments and communicate better with clients. That means better legal strategies and happier clients.
Time management also helps lawyers set boundaries. Practicing lawyers can easily get sucked into the administrative side of the job and neglect their mental and physical health. By learning to manage your time better, you can keep growing without neglecting your personal life.
For law firms, time management is much more than just hours. It’s about being efficient and working smarter, not harder.
Six Time Management Strategies to Improve Your Practice
For lawyers to deliver the best service to their clients, it’s vital to come up with effective time management strategies. Here are some to try.
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Utilize Time-Tracking Tools Effectively
For lawyers, capturing every billable minute matters not only for revenue, but also for understanding how time is spent across tasks.
Time-tracking tools integrated with billing software eliminate manual entries. Tools like TimeSolv allow you to track time from anywhere—PC, Mac, tablet, or smartphone—and no minute goes unlogged. Even offline, TimeSolv’s TimeSync app lets you log hours, and they’ll sync when you get back online.
Beyond logging time, the platform has time entry analytics and custom abbreviations to give insights into your timekeeping habits and make data entry across teams easier. You can run multiple timers at once to switch between tasks without losing focus or accuracy.
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Prioritize Tasks with Time-Blocking
Time blocking is when you assign specific times to specific activities. By breaking the day into blocks for specific tasks, you can eliminate distractions, improve focus, and make sure every minute is used for a purpose.
For example, a lawyer might block the morning for case prep and client meetings, the middle of the day for admin tasks, and the late afternoon for emails. This way, high-priority tasks get done first, and low-priority tasks get scheduled for less busy times.
Here are a few tips to plan things better:
- Categorize and Prioritize Tasks: Use the Eisenhower Matrix to determine which tasks are urgent. Block time for important tasks first so critical work gets done without delay.
- Set Realistic Blocks: Don’t overbook your day. Be honest about how long tasks take and build in buffer time for unexpected things.
- Include Breaks: Work schedules for a lawyer should include short breaks between intense work sessions. Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique (25 minutes of work followed by a 5-minute break) can help you stay energized and focused.
- Manage Interruptions: Schedule specific times for emails and phone calls. Use “Do Not Disturb” during focused work periods.
- Review and Adjust: At the end of the day, review your progress and update your time blocks for tomorrow.
3. Automate Routine Tasks
Administrative tasks like document management, reporting, and billing are part of running a law firm, but they take up so much time and energy.
Tools like TimeSolv have automation solutions to help with these challenges so lawyers can work more efficiently and avoid costly mistakes. For example, TimeSolv helps with document automation to organize files with unlimited folder hierarchies, custom tags, and quick-view features to help you find documents with ease.
Similarly, automated reporting is a bonus. TimeSolv generates 31 different reports within seconds in various formats (PDF, Excel, Word) to give you billable hours, and profitability and resource allocation insights. These reports reduce administrative tasks and enable data-driven decision-making.
For billing, TimeSolv has flexible templates, batch invoicing, and recurring bills to avoid manual errors, speed up invoicing, and comply with LEDES standards.
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4. Delegate Less Critical Tasks
Time management for lawyers can improve by learning to offload low-value tasks such as data entry, scheduling, document organization, initial case research, etc. to paralegals, legal assistants, or junior associates. They are experts at doing these tasks and will do them faster and cheaper than the firm.
Document management is another task that is perfect for administrative staff. Lifting this task off your plate will give you more time to focus on important activities, like developing case strategy, meeting with clients, and preparing for hearings. It will allow your team to function more efficiently as a whole.
The key to delegation is ensuring your support staff is set up for success. This means providing training, communicating often, and staying on top of tasks. Tools like TimeSolv’s document management system help you assign tasks and track progress. When you free your staff from busy work, they’ll appreciate it and your firm will thrive.
5. Streamline Expense Tracking
Tracking expenses manually is, let’s face it, boring and error-prone. Many law firms still use old methods like spreadsheets, paper bills, or crumpled receipts. These processes take up hours of data entry, reconciliation, and error correction—time that could be billable.
That’s where automation tools like TimeSolv’s Expense Tracking come in and address these pain points. With TimeSolv, lawyers can input and manage expenses from any device—online or offline—using the TimeSync budgeting app. So, even when working remotely or in court, expense records are up to date.
Features like expense entry analytics and categorization tools allow firms to track KPIs and categorize expenses by matter or project. Lawyers can also upload and attach digital receipts to entries, so there are no more physical copies to manage. Moreover, larger firms can also sync expense data with QuickBooks to reduce redundancy, which simplifies client billing and time management for lawyers.
6. Automate Trust Accounting
Managing trust accounts is one of the most painful and time-consuming administrative tasks for law firms. Without proper systems in place, manual trust accounting can lead to errors that breach the rules.
TimeSolv’s Trust Accounting Software is the solution to these problems, as it automates the entire trust account process. Lawyers can manage trust transactions in seconds, track funds accurately, and allocate correctly. By automating payments from trust accounts, TimeSolv eliminates the need for manual processing and ensures invoices are paid on time and error-free. One of the best features is to be able to see trust account balances and auto top-ups when they get low so that lawyers can focus on the cases, not the cash.
Streamline Your Workflow with TimeSolv to Save Time and Grow Consistently
Good time management for lawyers means more productivity, better client satisfaction, and more profit. From time-tracking tools and time-blocking to automating tasks and delegating low-value work, these strategies enable lawyers to focus on what really matters: delivering great legal service.
Solutions like TimeSolv play a big part in this. With features like robust time-tracking and streamlined expense and trust accounting, TimeSolv enables lawyers to run their practice more efficiently and make more money. TimeSolv helps lawyers maximize billable hours and stay compliant, all while building trust with clients.
Stop wasting time on non-essential admin. Get in control of your time, streamline your workflows, and make more money with TimeSolv. Start now.
Legal billing terms can be confusing. Download our cheat sheet and get all the information you need!
