Bufete Legal Madrid accelerates billing by 60% with abemonFLOW

The challenge

Bufete Legal Madrid is a 45-lawyer firm specializing in commercial and litigation law. Like most firms of its size, its business model is based on hourly billing. And like most firms, it had a chronic problem with time tracking.

Lawyers hate logging hours. It’s an administrative task that interrupts their real work. The result is predictable: tracking gets done at the end of the day (or the end of the week, or the end of the month), from memory, with generous estimates in some cases and conservative ones in others. Industry studies indicate that firms lose between 20% and 40% of billable hours due to incomplete or late tracking.

But the problem didn’t end with tracking. Once hours were logged, the billing process was manual and slow. Administration had to consolidate each lawyer’s records, verify them against matters, apply the correct rates (which varied by client, matter type, and lawyer level), prepare the invoice, obtain approval from the responsible partner, send it to the client, and follow up on collection.

The full cycle, from when work was performed to when payment was received, could take 60-90 days. In a business where working capital is the hours invested by lawyers, a 90-day collection cycle is a financial hemorrhage.

Additionally, the firm had no visibility into profitability by client or by matter type. They knew what they billed, but they didn’t know whether the matters consuming the most time were the most profitable or the least.

The solution

The Blueprint identified three areas of leakage: untracked hours, a slow billing cycle, and lack of profitability visibility. The three Engine layers were designed to address each area in a coordinated manner.

Integration connected the firm’s matter management system, email, calendar, collaboration tools, and accounting system. The connection to email and calendar was key for automatic time tracking. When a lawyer sends an email related to a matter, the system detects it and logs the time. When they have a calendar meeting linked to a client, the system records the duration. When they work on a matter document, the system captures editing time.

The lawyer no longer has to remember to log hours. The system presents them with a summary of automatically captured hours at the end of the day for them to confirm or adjust. From 15 minutes of daily manual logging to 2 minutes of review.

Orchestration automated the entire billing workflow. When a billing period closes, the system automatically consolidates logged hours, applies the correct rates per the client contract, generates an invoice draft, sends it to the responsible partner for approval, issues the approved invoice, sends it to the client, and schedules collection reminders.

The partner receives the draft on their phone, reviews the line items, approves with a tap, and the invoice is issued in minutes. No back-and-forth emails with administration. No lost drafts. No delays due to the partner being on vacation.

Control provided the missing visibility. A profitability dashboard by client, by matter type, by lawyer, and by responsible partner. The managing partner can see in real time how many hours have been invested in each matter, what the effective margin is, which clients fall below the profitability threshold, and which lawyers have the highest ratio of billable to total hours.

The results

Billing cycles accelerated by 60%. From an average of 45 days between period close and invoice issuance, down to 18 days. Workflow automation and mobile approval eliminated the bottlenecks that delayed each step.

Revenue increased by 35% from captured hours. Automatic tracking detected that lawyers were failing to log an average of 1.8 billable hours per day. In a 45-lawyer firm with an average rate of 180 euros per hour, that represented over 700,000 euros annually in unbilled revenue.

Time tracking accuracy went from an estimated 65% to 95%. Lawyers no longer estimate. The system captures and they confirm. Bias disappears because the data comes from the system, not from memory.

The average collection cycle was reduced by 2 weeks thanks to automatic reminders and faster invoice issuance. Collecting sooner improves cash flow and reduces bad debt.

Engine layers used

• Integration: Connectivity with matter management system, email, calendar, collaboration tools, and accounting. Automatic time capture from actual activity.
• Orchestration: End-to-end automated billing workflow. Consolidation, rates, draft, mobile approval, issuance, sending, and collection follow-up.
• Control: Multi-dimensional profitability dashboard, alerts for matters below threshold, productivity KPIs per lawyer, and billable hours ratio.