Clients are entitled to a breakdown of our fees, even where you have offered a fixed fee. It is also good practice to append a breakdown of time to all Invoices. As a result, you should record your time using Tracker. It is especially important to use the Tracker when working in teams. Client Owners can require the use of Tracker if they wish.
Tracker is a custom-built time-recording tool that allows you not only to record time, but to view it, write it off and mark it up or (only if it's your own time) down. It has a clock feature to allow you to run timers while you work, or you can enter your time and indeed your rate piecemeal. You can also extract the data from Tracker in a number of helpful ways to report on WIP and time entries. We do not have chargeable targets for lawyers; rather, Tracker is there to help you see your work in progress and that of colleagues working on the same client/matter.
In contrast to the slightly artificial default adopted by most traditional firms of time recording in six-minute units, we record our time simply in hours and minutes. Time spent travelling to and from meetings should be charged at full rate unless agreed otherwise with the client. Travelling time should be charged at the lower rate of a journey from Central Office or the actual journey. You should not charge by reference to travelling from your satellite office, unless expressly agreed. Travelling to a Keystone office is not chargeable. For ease, the Engagement Letter assembly tool and Invoice tool in Keyed-In use the headline rates; altering these rates (if to a lower figure, then the written consent of the colleague in question is required) is simple.
Only Acting Lawyers and Client Owners can see and record time on the file. Colleagues can be added as an Acting Lawyer via the New Matter Form, or after that, by using the Add Lawyer To Matter and the Add Myself to Matter function in Keyed-In. The Client Owner has discretion as to who works on a matter. COLs do not have to be specifically added to a matter. The client needs to be informed in writing of the new colleague's name, contact details, role and status (e.g. solicitor, barrister) and hourly rate before that colleague's time can be billed. This is the responsibility of the Client Owner, unless the Lead Lawyer is running the matter, in which case this falls to the Lead Lawyer. Failure to do so might mean that the new colleague's fees are not recoverable and Central Office may ask the Client Owner and/or the Lead Lawyer to contribute to any loss that results from this omission.