Time capture expert Ray Deck authored a new white paper for the Institute for Time Capture to help educate the legal community on the benefits of automating the time capture process. This white paper is in a series describing ways to make time capture a zero-click experience for attorneys. You can download more white papers from the Institute at http://www.timecaptureinstitute.org

Law firms have deployed document management, case management, client relationship management and other systems to capture and distribute the knowledge of members and associates. These systems have been major investments, both in the technology itself, and in the setup and training to make it part of the firm.

The key to realizing this value is getting the attorney to provide data to the system. This is actually two challenges: the attorney (or in some cases an assistant) must input data in the first place, and the attorney must populate the fields in the system with useful information that will help the later retrieval or reporting.

An integrated time capture system should accommodate these needs seamlessly, requiring input on the back-end of what version and type of KM systems are deployed, and allowing changes on the fly, so that all the potential time is captured with zero clicks on the part of the user, and minimal input required by information managers.

With automatic time capture, taking the extra ten seconds to attribute the time to the proper client-matter is reaped immediately in appropriate assignment of that time for every time he/she works on that document from then on.

The firm realizes a similar immediate benefit in the form of additional hours captured. The more the timesheet is filled out with useful context, the less the attorney has to ask “what was I doing last week” or “and what client was that for?”

Read the full paper! http://www.element55.com/publications/white-paper-capture-billable-hours-with-km

The paper was written for the Institute for Time Capture, a non-vendor-specific organization for promoting awareness and use of technology to automate the time capture process. The web site is http://www.timecaptureinstitute.org.