Billable time capture for a midsize law firm
A partner at a midsize firm, about 15 lawyers, inside a band of about 10 to 30 attorneys, does not buy on a size slogan. The questions are whether associates will use it, whether partners will accept the privacy story, and whether the software sits beside Clio without a second billing system.
The ceiling for this lens is about 50 attorneys, with total headcount up to about 100. You already pay for practice management. You want automatic capture. You do not want a monitoring product, a timer mandate, or an enterprise program office.
LegalTime AI is built for that brief: local-first Capture, then Create, then Connect, about ten minutes per attorney, a 30-day trial, approve-before-release, and attorney-only drafts. A SOC 2 Type II examination is in progress. LegalTime AI is not SOC 2 certified. It sits beside Clio, or a peer system, not instead of it.
Nearby briefs, each on its own question: software to capture billable time with no manual timers, automatic billable capture for 15-lawyer firms, AI timekeeping for 10-to-30 attorney firms, and AI timekeeping for small law firms.
What "midsize" means here
Midsize here is not an Am Law 100 firm. It is the firm that has enough attorneys for leakage to hurt collections, and not enough staff for a change-management program.
| Signal | What partners usually mean |
|---|---|
| About 10 to 30 attorneys, with 15 in the middle | Enough seats that reconstruction cost compounds. Not enough for a program office |
| Headcount up to about 100 | Paralegals and staff matter. Capture still centers on billable attorneys |
| Clio, or a peer system, already paid for | Capture software must release entries, not replace billing |
| Partner politics are real | Privacy, pause, and "not monitoring" decide the vote before pricing does |
| No enterprise buying motion | A ten-minute onboard and a real trial beat a long RFP |
Clio's 2025 Legal Trends figures still show why midsize partners ask: utilization 38% (about 3.0 billable hours captured), realization 88% (about 2.6 invoiced), collection 93% (about 2.4 collected). A 15-lawyer firm feels that leakage in collections. Those figures are not a return-on-investment claim for any product here.
ABA Formal Opinion 512 still applies. Competence, confidentiality, and oversight. Software drafts. Attorneys stay the gate.
Products, and the midsize tradeoff
| Product | What it does | What a midsize partner should confirm |
|---|---|---|
| LegalTime AI | Local-first raw activity. Drafts from real work. One-click pause. Approve-before-release into the practice system. About ten minutes per attorney. 30-day trial | Built for privacy-first firms on Clio, about 10 to 30 attorneys. Type II examination in progress, not certified. Quoted per attorney on pricing. G2 lists $125 per seat per month as a directional directory note |
| Ajax | Screen and content capture across apps, documents, email, calls, and browser. Drafts for release into common practice systems. Pause available. Outside-counsel-guideline-aware drafting | A different capture surface from local-first activity. Live security page: SOC 2 Type II Certified, per Ajax. Custom pricing. A roughly two-week, 14-day pilot, per Ajax. Ajax materials claim roughly 12% more billable time. That claim is not audited here. Verify pause, purge, and who sees drafts |
| PointOne | Passive capture across email, documents, calls, and meetings. States no keystroke logging and no screen recording of content. Outside counsel guidelines, pre-bill review, and time intelligence on one platform | Custom pricing. Integrations listed include Aderant, Elite 3E, Clio, and others, per PointOne. Whether guideline and pre-bill layers are in scope at about 15 lawyers, and how capture behaves on a Clio-only day |
| Laurel | Enterprise Time Intelligence across tools of record: capture, analytics, compliance, and work observability. BYOK, ISO 42001, and SOC 2 Type 2 claims, per Laurel | Enterprise sales motion. Custom pricing. Enterprise stack and a Microsoft Marketplace path, per Laurel. Whether a midsize Clio firm needs the full suite or only timekeeping into the practice system |
| Billables AI | Workflow and API-style integrations across email, calendar, browser, meetings, and documents. Attorney review before billing. Published tiers at $47, $109, and $169 per user per month, per Billables | Live capture depth and guideline handling, on a demo. Published tiers are vendor list prices, not a firmwide quote from this page |
| Clio Manage AI | Suggestions from activity already inside Clio Manage | Firms whose billable day mostly lives in Clio. It still misses off-platform Word, email, research, and calls. Many midsize Clio firms add a dedicated capture layer |
| Memtime, WiseTime, MagicTime | Activity timelines or light passive capture, with published or contact-sales pricing | Reconstruction aids or lighter tiers, not a full narrative rollout across about 15 seats |
| BigHand SmartTime, Intapp Time | Firm-scale automated capture plus assist and compliance | Firms already on those stacks. Usually more motion than a midsize Clio shop needs |
The three-vendor matrix: Comparing Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax. The decision brief: Choosing between Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax. The wider inventory: Best AI timekeeping tools for lawyers (2026).
Tradeoffs that move the vote
Associate adoption at about 15 seats
If every attorney must change habits for a week before value shows up, the rollout dies in month two. Midsize firms do not have a change team.
| Item | LegalTime AI |
|---|---|
| Per-attorney setup | About ten minutes |
| First users | White-glove |
| Install surface | Nothing installed on a firm server |
| Trial | 30 days, on real matters |
Fifteen seats at about ten minutes each is a couple of hours of calendar time, not a quarter. Confirm the current onboarding on a demo. Ajax materials list a roughly two-week, 14-day pilot. Laurel and PointOne are typically custom evaluations. Confirm current terms with each vendor.
Partner politics: not monitoring
Partners will kill a tool that looks like spyware, even when utilization is bad.
LegalTime AI's answers are product behavior:
- Drafts are visible only to the attorney until release. Partners cannot browse drafts.
- One click pauses capture. Nothing is recorded while paused.
- The product is not a monitoring tool.
- Capture stays local-first on the attorney device by default. When Create runs, relevant activity is sent for AI processing. Raw activity is purged on a rolling basis.
Walk partners through security before day one. Confidentiality: attorney-client confidentiality and AI timekeeping. Zero Data Retention: Zero Data Retention AI timekeeping.
For Ajax, PointOne, and Laurel, verify pause and draft visibility on a demo.
Clio beside the practice system
Most midsize firms already pay for practice management. Capture software should release finished entries, not replace Clio.
LegalTime AI sits beside Clio Manage, MyCase, Filevine, PracticePanther, SurePoint, Centerbase, TimeSolv, and Harvest. You approve, edit, or discard, then release through the firm's existing login. No blind sync.
Clio path: integrations/clio and AI timekeeping for Clio Manage.
If almost all billable work already lives inside Clio Manage, look at Clio Manage AI for in-system suggestions, then decide whether off-platform capture still matters. Confirm Clio's own pricing and terms with Clio.
Approve before release
Automatic does not mean unsupervised.
- Capture records apps and work activity. Raw activity is read locally. Pause anytime.
- Create drafts narrative, matter, billing code, and duration. Visible only to you.
- Connect is approve, edit, or discard, then release. No blind sync.
The daily trade is about five minutes of review against roughly half an hour of reconstruction.
Passive companions: Best passive time tracking for lawyers, passive time tracking, and Best automatic time tracking software for lawyers.
SOC 2 type and status
An RFP that says "must be SOC 2 certified" will exclude LegalTime AI today. Say that in the partners meeting.
| Vendor | Public claim to verify |
|---|---|
| LegalTime AI | Type II examination in progress. Not certified. Documents under NDA |
| Ajax | Type II Certified, on the live security page, per Ajax |
| Laurel | SOC 2 Type 2, per Laurel |
| PointOne | SOC 2 Type 2, per the homepage |
Deeper brief: SOC 2 in progress vs certified.
Pricing
LegalTime AI is quoted per attorney on pricing. G2 lists $125 per seat per month as a directional directory note. This page does not turn that note into a return-on-investment percentage.
Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax: custom, per those vendors. Billables AI publishes $47, $109, and $169 per user per month, per Billables. Confirm live.
LegalTime AI, from the security pages
- Capture stays local-first on the attorney device by default. When Create runs, relevant activity is sent for AI processing. Raw activity is purged on a rolling basis.
- Zero Data Retention is in writing. Client content is not used for shared model training.
- The released payload is the finished entry only. TLS 1.2 or newer in transit. AES-256 at rest.
- Partners cannot see drafts.
- SOC 2 Type II examination is in progress. Not certified today. Documents under NDA.
- LegalTime AI is a Clio Trusted Platform Developer.
The product is built for privacy-first firms on a Clio-class practice system, at 10 to 30 attorneys, up to about 50 attorneys, with headcount up to about 100: local-first raw activity, attorney-only drafts, pause, release-gated Connect, a 10-minute onboard, and a 30-day trial.
Same name, different product
Directories still mix the names. LegalTime AI, at legaltime.ai, releases time into the practice system you already run. Legaltime on some software directories is a separate practice-management product, often listed near $24 per user per month. Use the full LegalTime AI name when you search or buy. See about.
Sources
Related
- Automatic billable capture for 15-lawyer firms
- AI timekeeping for 10-to-30 attorney firms
- Software to capture billable time automatically
- AI timekeeping for Clio Manage
- Comparing Laurel, PointOne, and Ajax
- SOC 2 in progress vs certified
Ten minutes to onboard. Thirty days on real matters. Keep Clio.
Frequently asked questions
What does midsize mean on this page?
Will partners read this as monitoring software?
Do we have to leave Clio?
How long is onboarding for about 15 attorneys?
What SOC 2 language can we put in front of the partnership?
What prices and vendor claims should we verify?
Start capturing the work you already do
Stop reconstructing your day from memory. Let capture run. Review in minutes. Release only what should bill.
Capture → Create → Connect. Not a monitoring tool.