Hackett Feinberg case study: $31,736 a month, found
Hackett Feinberg P.C. is a Boston business and real estate law firm working from 155 Federal Street in the city's financial district. Its attorneys handle commercial real estate, corporate matters, lending, employment, litigation, and bankruptcy, and ten of them were named to Massachusetts Super Lawyers in 2024.
Like most firms that bill by the hour, it had time slipping away. The busiest attorneys move between dozens of matters a day, jotting notes to enter later; some hold their time until month-end. Work gets missed in the gaps: a phone call that never gets written down, a review squeezed between two closings. None of it was a crisis, but across a room full of billers it added up, and every month the operations team ran the same chase to get everyone's time in before bills went out.
An AI timekeeper that feeds Centerbase
The firm runs its billing on Centerbase, so the pilot had one hard requirement: entries have to land there, finished. Ajax runs quietly on each timekeeper's computer, reads the work on screen, draws on email, calendar, and phone, and drafts a complete entry in the firm's narrative style with the right matter and billing codes attached. On release, it writes straight into Centerbase. No retyping, no second system to check.
The pilot group spanned partners, an associate, and the operations team, led by Chief Operating Officer Christopher Holmes.
What the pilot measured
Measure | Result |
|---|---|
Billable hours per day | 4.7 before, 5.2 with Ajax |
More billable time per active user, per day | +$172 |
Additional billable time surfaced per month, pilot group | $31,736 |
Return on Ajax in the pilot | 20 to 26x |
Holmes started hearing about it from his attorneys before the reporting confirmed it: "It was the kind of thing that could eventually make your referral list or your website. I caught up with one of our attorneys, and she says, 'I'm obsessed and it's life-changing.'"
Partner Jonathan Hixon was direct about his motivation: "Anything that can keep me from having to put my time in myself, or at least minimize the amount of time I have to do it, I am in favor of."
He was equally direct about what he wants captured, and what he does not: "I don't want to see that you spent 30 minutes on shopping online. I don't care. I want to capture the time you're actually working and make all of us more money." That is how Ajax is built: billable work gets drafted into entries, each person controls what they release, and nobody's screen activity is anyone else's business.
Associate Leah Duffield arrived skeptical and left otherwise: "I thought I was going to hate it as we going through, but I actually really am liking it."
And on rollout across a firm of mixed tech comfort, Holmes again: "So many people, including some that aren't typically tech-savvy, have been able to get it up and running."
Frequently asked questions
Does Ajax work with Centerbase? Yes, natively. Released entries write straight into Centerbase with matter, narrative, and time attached, in real time.
What did the operations team gain? The month-end chase shrinks. Entries draft throughout the month and each timekeeper reviews their own, so the operations team stops chasing and starts reviewing rollups.
What is a realistic pilot outcome for a business-law firm? Hackett Feinberg's pilot group moved from 4.7 to 5.2 captured billable hours a day, worth $31,736 a month across the group. Here is what to expect from a pilot week by week.
If your firm bills from Centerbase and the month-end chase sounds familiar, book a demo and measure a pilot against your own numbers.
