Hone Law case study: all the time in, for the first time
"For the first time in 30 years, when I shut down at the end of the day on Friday, I knew I had all my time in."
That is Jennifer Arledge, an attorney at Hone Law, a commercial litigation and IP firm in Nevada. Three decades of practice, and the constant low-grade anxiety of timekeeping, the certainty that something from the day went unrecorded, ended in her first week with Ajax.
The operational side
Leslie Godfrey, the firm's director of litigation operations, watched a chronic compliance problem resolve in days: "We've been missing that 85% on-time billing goal since October of last year. The first week with Ajax, we hit 95%."
Not a marginal improvement. A goal the firm had chased for months, cleared by ten points in week one, because the entries were already drafted instead of waiting on reconstruction.
Kelly Stout, one of the firm's attorneys, measured the change at month-end: "It cuts down on nine hours at month-end trying to reconstruct time." Nine hours is more than a full billable day, returned to actual work.
And Katrina Hone, director of operations, on why this one stuck where others did not: "Ajax is the first thing I've tried that feels sustainable."
The numbers underneath
Measure | Result |
|---|---|
Extra billable hours per user, per day | +1.1 |
Extra revenue per user, per month | $12,019 |
Recovered per month, across four timekeepers | $48,077 |
Return on investment | 60x |
Litigation work is intense and fragmented: court appearances, depositions, document review, client calls, and opposing counsel correspondence, sometimes all in the same hour. Every transition is a place billable time used to get lost. Ajax captures the work as it happens, drafts entries in each person's voice, and leaves the lawyer a review instead of an archaeology project.
Why this story matters beyond one firm
Arledge's line about 30 years is quoted on our homepage for a reason. The anxiety she describes is close to universal among experienced lawyers, and it is treated as a cost of doing business. It is not. It is a solvable problem, and the solution is not more discipline or another timer app that never gets started. It is a system that watches what you do and tells you what you did.
The peace of mind is the headline. The $12,019 per user per month is the proof it was not imaginary.
Frequently asked questions
What did Hone Law's on-time billing look like before and after? The firm had missed its 85% on-time billing goal for months. In the first week with Ajax it hit 95%, because entries were drafted and ready instead of owed.
Is a 60x return realistic for a litigation practice? Hone Law's was measured against its own billing history: 1.1 extra captured hours per user per day at litigation rates compounds quickly across even a small group of timekeepers.
What does an operations director actually manage with Ajax in place? Released time and rollup reporting, not chasing. Godfrey's compliance metric moved without a single reminder email. More on the review workflow in automatic time tracking for lawyers.
If you have practiced long enough to accept the Friday anxiety as normal, book a demo. Arledge spent 30 years assuming it was normal, and it turned out to be merely unsolved.
