Ajax's PracticePanther Integration: Everything You Need to Know
Firms running PracticePanther already have the system for matters, billing, and invoicing. What's leaking hours are the small billable moments that rarely make it into a time entry: the five-minute reply to opposing counsel, the quick case-law search between calls, the ten-minute client check-in before lunch.
We built our PracticePanther integration to close that gap. Ajax watches the work as it happens, drafts an entry in your voice, attributes it to the right matter, and syncs it into PracticePanther. You review and release.
What is Ajax?
Ajax is an AI timekeeping tool built for lawyers. It runs as a native desktop application that reads what's on your screen, pixel by pixel, and drafts time entries across every application you use.
Screen capture is the primary input. We supplement with API connections to email, calendar, Zoom, Teams, VoIP, and your practice management system, which means mobile work counts too.
A natural concern when you hear "reads your screen," so here's how we handle privacy:
Rolling, automatic data deletion. Screen content is processed, used to generate entries, and deleted. We don't hang onto your data.
No model training. We don't use your data to train our models.
No downstream vendor retention. Our infrastructure providers (including the AI providers underneath us) are contractually prohibited from retaining or training on anything that passes through.
Ajax is SOC 2 certified.
Individual silos. Every lawyer's Ajax is private to them. Nobody else at the firm sees activity, not even managing partners.
Ajax has deep two-way sync with Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, SurePoint, Centerbase, Filevine, and Actionstep, and supports most other billing systems. This article is about the PracticePanther integration specifically.
What is PracticePanther?
PracticePanther is a cloud-based practice management platform built for law firms. If you're reading this, you're almost certainly already using it for the core of your operations: case management, billing and invoicing, calendaring, client communication, and document storage.
PracticePanther also includes built-in time tracking through manual timers and after-the-fact entry. Those work fine if you remember to use them. Most lawyers don't, consistently. The gap between doing the work and logging the work is where firms lose billable hours, and that's the gap our integration closes.
What the Ajax + PracticePanther integration does
The integration is a two-way sync between Ajax and PracticePanther. Release an entry from Ajax and it appears in PracticePanther. Edit an entry in PracticePanther and the change reflects in Ajax. Add a new entry in PracticePanther and it shows up in Ajax. Change a matter name or activity code in PracticePanther and Ajax updates the corresponding entries.
The sync covers matters, time entries, activity codes (both Custom and UTBMS), users, narratives, and calendar events. Changes flow in both directions.
Many AI timekeeping integrations are one-way push. Entries flow into the billing system and the data flow ends there. Edit something later in your billing system and that change stays put; over time the two systems drift apart. Our integration runs both ways, so an edit anywhere shows up everywhere.
We also built a side-by-side view that puts your existing PracticePanther entries next to your Ajax drafts in a two-column layout. From there, you can:
Merge an Ajax draft directly into an existing PracticePanther entry
Edit PracticePanther entries from inside Ajax
Release new entries to PracticePanther
All without switching tabs or windows.
Ajax does not replace PracticePanther. It handles the capture-and-draft stage so that by the time entries reach PracticePanther, they're already written in your voice, attributed to the correct matter, and coded with the right activity codes. PracticePanther stays your billing system of record. Ajax fills in the part of the workflow it was never built to handle.
How the integration works, step by step
The integration runs in four stages: data pull, real-time drafting, attorney review, and sync back to PracticePanther. Three of them are fully automated. The only one that needs your attention is the review, which takes a few minutes a day.
Step 1. Ajax pulls your matter data from PracticePanther
When you connect Ajax to PracticePanther, we import your matters and case data, your existing time entry history, activity codes (Custom and UTBMS), users across the firm, narratives, and calendar events. This gives us the full picture of how your billing is structured.
We also read your prior PracticePanther entries to customize narrative output to match your firm's style. If your timekeepers usually write "Review and respond to correspondence from Opposing Counsel re: discovery deadlines," that's what your Ajax-drafted entries look like. If they usually write "Email w/ OC re discovery," that's what they look like.
We don't train models on your data. We build a set of plain-English rules that describe how each timekeeper likes their narratives, then handle the source data under our rolling deletion policy. Think of it as a written style guide that Ajax follows, customized per person.
Once setup is complete, Ajax runs silently in the background for about two days before your firm's official kickoff. By the time you sit down on day one, real entries are already waiting.
Step 2. Ajax drafts entries as you work
While you switch between email, documents, calls, research, and calendar throughout the day, Ajax captures your screen activity, calendar events, emails, and calls in real time. Draft entries land about 45 seconds after you finish an action.
Intelligent grouping. If you spend 20 minutes reviewing a motion before your 10 a.m. call, 45 minutes researching it after lunch, and 15 minutes editing at end of day, Ajax combines that into one 1-hour-and-20-minute entry with a coherent narrative.
Matter attribution. Ajax identifies names, addresses, and case-specific keywords from your screen content. Even when opposing counsel's paralegal or a property address isn't in your PracticePanther contacts, we pick it up from the documents and emails you're working with. Our matter prediction runs at about 92% accuracy. When Ajax can't confidently attribute something, we flag it for you to assign and learn from the correction.
Step 3. Review and approve in the side-by-side view
Ajax surfaces your draft entries in a two-column layout. Ajax drafts on the left, your existing PracticePanther entries on the right. From this view you can merge an Ajax draft directly into an existing PracticePanther entry, edit narratives in place, and approve and release with a click.
By the time you sit down to review, the entries are already written. Most users spend a few minutes here per day.
Step 4. Approved entries sync to PracticePanther
Once you release an entry, it's in PracticePanther ready for invoicing. Any edits you make afterward in either system stay in sync. You won't end up with duplicate entries or need to copy-paste between systems.
What doesn't sync (and why that's intentional)
PracticePanther contacts and CRM records don't pull into Ajax. That's by design.
Ajax builds its own case-specific dictionary from screen content. Names, addresses, and keywords that appear in your emails and documents become the attribution signal. This catches the people who tend to be missing from a firm's CRM:
Judges and court staff
Opposing counsel's associates and paralegals
Property addresses and case-specific locations
Jurors, witnesses, and peripheral parties
On any active matter, that's most of the people involved. Reading the screen is what makes Ajax's attribution work where API-only tools struggle.
How to get started
The setup is light and we handle most of it:
Install the Ajax desktop app for each timekeeper
Connect PracticePanther through a one-time OAuth flow (your admin approves)
Walk through a billing-guidelines intake with our onboarding team so we can write the narrative-style rules
Let Ajax run silently for about two days before your firm's kickoff
Lean on white-glove support during the rollout
Pricing is $200 per seat per month. Pilots are available so a small group inside the firm can try it before a broader rollout. On average, Ajax pays for itself in about 11 days of recovered billable time.
The firms that benefit most are the ones whose work spans email, documents, calls, and research throughout the day. That's most PracticePanther firms.
Troubleshooting common integration issues
Most issues fall into four categories.
Authentication timeouts. OAuth tokens can expire after extended inactivity. If Ajax stops syncing, re-authenticate from Ajax's settings. Draft entries are stored locally and won't be lost.
Duplicate entries. Usually caused by a manual entry created in PracticePanther before Ajax synced. Use the side-by-side view to spot the overlap and merge the Ajax draft into the existing PracticePanther entry.
Permission scoping. Ajax needs read/write access to time entries, matters, activity codes, and users in PracticePanther. If your firm restricts API permissions by role, your PracticePanther admin can verify the connecting account has sufficient access in the API settings panel.
Sync delays. Entries typically sync within seconds. Occasional delays happen during PracticePanther maintenance windows; force a manual sync from Ajax's settings.
Anything outside these four, our support team handles directly. No need to contact PracticePanther separately for issues on our side.
How we keep your client data secure
The privacy protections we covered above (rolling deletion, no model training, no downstream vendor retention, SOC compliance, individual silos) apply equally to data flowing through the PracticePanther integration. Connecting the two systems doesn't create new exposure.
A few PracticePanther-specific notes:
Data pulled from PracticePanther (matters, activity codes, prior entries) is used to customize your narrative output, then handled under the same rolling deletion policy as screen content.
Entries you release from Ajax to PracticePanther travel over encrypted connections. Once they're in PracticePanther, they're governed by PracticePanther's own security policies.
The OAuth connection between Ajax and PracticePanther can be revoked from either side at any time.
ABA Model Rules 1.1 (competence with technology) and 1.6 (safeguarding client information) are foundational. Our architecture is designed to support both.
Common questions about Ajax and PracticePanther
Does Ajax replace PracticePanther?
No. Ajax drafts time entries that flow into PracticePanther. PracticePanther stays your billing system of record. The goal is to make time entry easier and help you find extra .1s while you keep the system your firm already runs on.
What about manual entries I've already made in PracticePanther?
They show up on the right side of the side-by-side view. If an Ajax draft overlaps with one you already created, merge them with a click and the duplicate goes away.
Does this work with Custom activity codes, or only UTBMS?
Both. Custom and UTBMS activity codes sync from PracticePanther into Ajax, and either applies to the entries Ajax drafts. Whatever your firm uses, Ajax uses.
Does Ajax see my PracticePanther contacts?
No, by design. Ajax builds its own case-specific dictionary from your screen content. The architectural choice is what lets us catch the people who aren't in your CRM, which is most of them on any active matter.
What doesn't Ajax capture?
Handwritten notes, in-person sidebars, pen-and-paper brainstorming. Anything that never touches a screen and isn't picked up by one of our API connections is outside what Ajax can see. We've never claimed otherwise.
Final thoughts
Across the firms we've onboarded, the ones recovering the most billable time share a single move: they removed the friction from the process entirely. Two-way sync with PracticePanther is what makes that work in practice.
You keep the system you already know. The entries land there ready to invoice.
On average, Ajax pays for itself in about 11 days of recovered billable time. If you want to see what that looks like with your own PracticePanther workflow, book a demo and we'll walk you through it.
