Griffith Davison is boutique by design, focusing exclusively on the needs of clients in commercial construction and real estate. The Texas-based law firm has grown rapidly in recent years, opening two additional offices in Austin and Fort Worth. But as of 2018, Griffith Davison struggled with timekeeping. The firm had been using Time Matters for a decade but weren’t getting the functionality they needed.
Challenges
Unintuitive and inconvenient timekeeping
With no mobile timekeeping option, Griffith Davison attorneys had to make handwritten notes and enter them into the tool after the fact. Not only was this a duplication of effort, but it also contributed to billable time not being captured.
“There’s a tendency for many attorneys to underestimate the amount of time they spend on tasks,” explains Kimber Davison, Managing Shareholder and Vice President at Griffith Davison. “They’ll think that something took them just a few minutes, but it actually took them much longer than that.”
A slow, manual billing process
Inefficient, work-intensive processes also held the firm back. Most notable: a month-long billing cycle. Kimber remembers the process of printing, revising, reprinting, and mailing bills.
“Due to our outdated process, it sometimes took us over a month to send out invoices,” she says.
Kimber worried about the impact of delayed billing on clients’ readiness to pay—and their perception of the services performed.
“Clients are more likely to pay promptly when they receive timely invoices,” says Kimber. “It’s human nature: if you visit a doctor, receive good treatment, feel better, and get the bill immediately, you’re much more likely to pay it. However, if the bill arrives six months later, when you barely remember being ill, you’re less likely to pay it promptly.”
For Kimber, it was also a question of maintaining credibility.
“If you send a bill two months late, how can clients trust that you actually spent 18 minutes on this task performed several months ago versus if you sent it to them five days after you did it?” she says.
A barrier to meeting talent expectations
Kimber presumed that the firm’s antiquated time-tracking and billing processes were an obstacle to attracting and evaluating talent.
“The competition for talent is extraordinarily intense right now,” Kimber says. “You need every advantage to assure employees that they have everything they’ll need to succeed here.”
To ensure accurate compensation, Kimber needed the firm’s billing and timekeeping software to provide precise insights into how attorneys were performing.
“We had only rudimentary reporting and had to use our gut instinct. There was a lot more subjectivity in assessing performance,” says Kimber.
Given all the limitations of the firm’s billing and time-tracking systems, Kimber looked for an alternative.
“We wanted something modern and intuitive that would grow with our firm,” Kimber recalls.
Kimber chose Centerbase as the firm’s new management platform.
More than a revamped billing solution, Centerbase offered a complete package for managing firm operations, one that could streamline invoicing and facilitate the accurate capture of attorneys’ billable hours.
Solution
An all-in-one platform for law firms
Griffith Davison uses Centerbase for timekeeping, billing, calendaring, and reporting— including the Centerbase mobile app.
High user adoption
Centerbase is intuitive and easy to use, driving adoption across the firm, from lawyers to paralegals to admin staff.
“Across the board, it’s much better than the previous platform,” Kimber says.
Even new hires are quick to pick it up and use it.
“I can easily teach someone how to make a calendar entry, keep time, or review bills,” Kimber says. “At its fundamental level, it is accessible to everyone.”
But Centerbase goes well beyond basic for more advanced users.
“I like that Centerbase is what you make of it: Not everybody needs to use all the features, but those who do, really enjoy it,” says Kimber.
Accurate, contemporaneous capture of billable hours
With Centerbase, attorneys can easily and accurately capture their billable time in the moment with the Centerbase app, no matter where they’re working. Today, when Kimber is waiting at an airport, she no longer has to pull out her laptop or scrawl a note on a slip of paper before starting work. She just makes a quick note in the app and starts the timer.
“The time is captured contemporaneously, so the accuracy of the timekeeping is just awesome,” says Kimber.
Streamlined billing process
Centerbase has completely transformed Griffith Davison’s billing process.
Printing, revising, and re-printing bills is a thing of the past. Every step takes place on the Centerbase platform, with every part of the process streamlined and facilitated by workflow automation.
“We now review all bills electronically. We print bills on the third business day of the month, and we aim to have them all out no later than the 10th,” says Kimber.
Because clients are billed promptly, the bills themselves are more credible.
“If you send me your invoice in five days, it enhances credibility,” says Kimber.
Satisfying the expectations of top talent
When new talent asks about technology, Kimber assures them that Griffith Davison’s solution is comparable to what they would find at a much larger firm.
“I’m always happy to tell them that we run Centerbase and they’re going to love it,’” she says.
It sends a positive signal to candidates, knowing that Griffith Davison has invested in the technology they need to support their work.
Objective performance evaluation
Centerbase also gives Griffith Davison a better picture of attorney performance, necessary for identifying where attorneys are excelling and where they need support.
It also empowers the firm to be more objective in compensation decisions.
“We can dive much deeper into metrics and see how many full-rate and reduced-rate cases they’re working on—and how that impacts their collections,” Kimber says.
Reporting configured for the firm’s needs
With so much functionality consolidated on one platform, Griffith Davison has new reporting that they use to inform strategic decision-making.
“Customizable reporting has transformed our approach to assessing profitability, revealing opportunities for efficiency gains and process optimization,” Kimber says.
And when clients have questions about their bills, Centerbase's advanced reporting helps Griffith Davison back up their numbers—such as when a client recently asked to review their bills from the past four years.
“We are now capable of analyzing those numbers in so many additional ways beyond their initial requests,” Kimber says. “You aim to enhance credibility with your clients through transparent billing practices. When you substantiate this, it significantly strengthens the client relationship.”
Results
10 more billable hours captured monthly per attorney
Kimber summarizes the platform's impact: “Centerbase provides us with a seamlessly integrated platform, offering a centralized source of accurate information for our timekeeping, billing and calendaring needs. Its user-friendly interface enhances our efficiency significantly."
The greatest gain? Capturing an extra 10 billable hours each month per attorney and opening two new offices.
Attorneys now capture hours more easily using the timer feature.
“There’s nothing more accurate than starting that timer and working on something and then ending it. It does everything for you. There are no estimates,” Kimber says.
Since adopting Centerbase, Griffith Davison has opened two new offices and hired almost three times as many attorneys.
Another impressive improvement? Cutting 22 days from the billing cycle—reducing it to three from 25 days.
“The billing process has gone from multiple months to just a few days, which is phenomenal. The turnaround time for both issuing bills and processing payments has significantly improved,” Kimber says.
Clients pay faster, too: 25% more payments are made in the first 30 days—impossible with mailed invoices and checks.
The faster billing cycle comes without the cost of more admin work. Billing from the Centerbase platform has removed at least five days from the workload of back-office staff.
Kimber feels confident that Centerbase will continue to grow with them as they scale.
“They consistently incorporate our input, providing immediate solutions or enhancing features for future use,” says Kimber.
