by Sarah White, Senior Litigation Paralegal, Ragsdale Liggett, PLLC
Paralegals sit at the intersection of legal strategy and business management. The accuracy and clarity of their timekeeping directly influence a firm’s financial health. Yet, exceptional work can lose value when billing entries are vague, miscoded, or combine administrative and substantive tasks. The result often is cuts, appeals, and lost revenue.
This article highlights essential principles for effective timekeeping—what constitutes substantive paralegal work, how to draft defensible time entries, how to manage authorization requirements, and why contemporaneous entry remains one of the most effective habits a paralegal can develop.
What Makes Paralegal Work “Substantive” (and Billable)
Start with the baseline: paralegals are qualified professionals performing delegated substantive legal work for which a lawyer is responsible. Substantive work requires recognition, analysis, and communication of relevant facts and legal concepts. That’s the litmus test for billability.
Examples of billable paralegal tasks include: legal research and analysis; drafting and responding to discovery; preparing and revising pleadings and memoranda; reviewing case management and scheduling orders; communications with clients, experts, court staff, and opposing counsel when tied to a concrete legal purpose; summarizing depositions or document productions; assisting with witness prep; and building trial notebooks and exhibit/witness lists (with careful wording—more on that below).
By contrast, purely clerical or secretarial activities are not billable. Think copying, scanning, routine scheduling and docketing, serving documents, and basic filing. Many carriers will accept zero‑time entries for these—so they see the effort without being charged—while some firms push more of this work to legal assistants.
Sometimes, there are large, complex matters requiring paralegals to take on high‑volume document organization that looks administrative but actually demands legal judgment (e.g., indexing pleadings and exhibits in large, multi‑party litigation cases). In those situations, seek prior authorization and be explicit about the legal need: identification, evaluation, and organization to support trial or deposition readiness.
The Words That Save (or Sink) Your Time Entries
Insurers and clients scrutinize narratives closely. Vague or block‑billed entries will get cut; clear, specific, purpose‑driven narratives will (usually) survive. A helpful formula for communication time entries is: What you did + with whom + why. Example: “Telephone all with trial court administrator regarding courtroom technology logistics for upcoming trial.” The formula for drafting is: Whose document + what it is + to whom/for what purpose (e.g., “Defendant’s memorandum in opposition to plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment”).
Avoid vague or red-flag terms such as “preparation”. Instead use “identification,” “evaluation,” or “selection” of exhibits to support a motion or for use at trial. That framing better reflects the analytical nature of the work.
Avoid large, undifferentiated time blocks; if you spent hours on medical records or document productions, break the entry up by provider or production set and include page counts, if necessary; identify parties or providers in multi‑party cases; and separate trial prep into distinct tasks (witness lists, exhibit admission charts, jury instructions, motions in limine, notebook assembly).
Codes, Cheat Sheets, and a Smarter Workflow
Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) codes exist to make time categorizable for both client budgeting and firm analytics—use them consistently. Many paralegals maintain a one‑page cheat sheet of L/A/E codes, tenth-hour conversions, and carrier-specific rules. Keep these at your fingertips.
A simple but powerful habit, if you do not have case management software, is to create an Excel time‑capture sheet with dropdowns for dates, matter numbers, and codes; enter brief narratives throughout the day; then post into your billing platform before you sign off. This reduces omissions, improves capture, and helps you spot missing entries when you scan your email or notes that evening.
E‑Discovery and Medical Chronologies
In e‑discovery, most work is billable: uploading client data to a review platform, coding for relevance/privilege, and redacting for production—as long as the narrative ties each step to the legal purpose (e.g., “for review and coding prior to production” or “including redaction of confidential information in preparation for production”). For medical chronologies, cite the provider name and page counts. If you batch multiple small sets in one time entry, name each provider and state the total pages reviewed in the block.
Managing Carrier Authorization
Authorization requirements vary and carriers modify them frequently. Common triggers include motion projects exceeding a time threshold (e.g., more than two hours including hearing), multiple‑attorney attendance at depositions, and large‑scale indexing/linking projects in complex matters.
Beyond time entry, Excel can help you track carrier‑rules. You can create templates using the assignment date or prior report dates to auto‑calculate reporting and authorization deadlines and add checkboxes for authorization requested/approved with approver name and date. When you later bill the task, mirror that authorization detail in the narrative (“Authorization approved by Jane Doe, Claim Specialist, 9/10/2025”). Missing that line is a top reason for cuts.
Avoiding Reductions and Strengthening Appeals
Common reasons for time reductions include missing authorization in the narrative for tasks that required it; excessive time without explanation of complexity; lack of documentation for expenses; duplication (two people billing for the same task) without explaining distinct roles; or attorney‑rate tasks lacking justification for why attorney involvement was necessary instead of a paralegal.
When appealing, detail is your best friend. If the work truly demanded attorney or paralegal involvement or exceeded norms for legitimate reasons, say so plainly and concisely and tie it to legal necessity, complexity, or court directives.
Utilization, Realization, and the Case for Contemporaneous Time
Two key metrics reflect billing performance:
- Utilization Rate: Billable hours divided by total working hours.
- Realization Rate: The percentage of billed time that converts into collected revenue.
The single most powerful way to improve both is contemporaneous time entry. Waiting until month‑end invites the black hole. Delayed recording leads to lost increments that accumulate significantly over time.
For example, if five paralegals each lose two billable hours per month, that’s 110 hours per year across the team. At a $120/hour billing rate, the firm would lose roughly $13,000. Conversely, if each paralegal improves daily capture by 0.5 hours (about a 10% boost over a 5.45‑hour billable target), the firm would yield approximately $72,000 in additional annual revenue—just by tightening time discipline and narratives.
Practical Habits for Immediate Implementation
1. Capture time continuously. Use timers or incremental entries throughout the day and reconcile against emails and calendars daily.
2. Maintain narrative precision. Apply the “What + With Whom + Why” structure and include identifying details.
3. Refine language. Replace “preparation” with analytical terms such as “evaluation” or “selection.”
4. Segment complex tasks. Record distinct components separately for clarity.
5. Track authorizations. Record and mirror approval details in narratives.
6. Use zero-time entries. Documents administrative support in a transparent manner reflecting work being performed but not paid.
7. Support appeals with detail. Cite complexity, volume, authorization, or court requirements.
In summary, effective billing and timekeeping require more than accuracy—they reflect professionalism, communication, and the value the legal team brings to every case. Precision in narrative, consistency in coding, and discipline in real-time entry transform daily tasks into measurable contributions to the firm’s success.
Download: Time & Billing Cheat Sheet
This article is adapted from the 2024 Fall Seminar Paralegal Practice Group Breakout Session.
