The simplest time tracking system asks lawyers to estimate the percentage of time they worked on individual matters each time period, such as a week or month (See my post of Nov. 22, 2008: internal time tracking with 16 references.). General counsel adopt all manner of time keeping methods, but whatever the rules, advantages and disadvantages become apparent.
Proponents say that tracking time:
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Conveys a constant message that management and clients care about the efficient use of legal time;
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Captures one measure of productivity;
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Helps match oral reports from lawyers to quantitative data;
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Guides more informed allocations of time by types of matters and groups of clients;
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Provides data to enrich performance evaluations of individual lawyers;
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Gives a perspective on the relationship between internal time and external costs on matters;
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Permits more accurate charge-backs or allocations; and
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May help a general counsel answer questions more quantitatively about what the lawyers do.
Opponents say that tracking time:
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Lowers morale, since lawyers despise doing it;
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Foists on supervisors the unpleasantness of incessantly pushing lawyers to comply;
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Yields a mass of useless data since descriptions are so broad or sloppy as to be meaningless, and matters vary so much;
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Disgorges data that cannot be verified and at best are ballpark estimates or manipulated;
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Requires software and someone to gather, scrub, and analyze the data; and
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Adds another task to the administrative burden of lawyers.