Russell Alexander case study: a 60x return on found time
Russell Alexander Collaborative Family Lawyers is one of Ontario's largest firms devoted exclusively to family law. Founded in 1998, it has grown from a single office into a team of nearly forty lawyers, mediators, and law clerks serving families across the Greater Toronto Area and throughout Ontario. Its founder has practiced family law for more than twenty-five years and written four books on the subject, including one on artificial intelligence and the legal profession.
So when this firm evaluated AI timekeeping, it did not take anything on faith.
Measured against the firm's own history
Family law runs on small, frequent increments of documented work: a call about a support payment, an email confirming a court date, a review of a parenting schedule. Each is worth a tenth of an hour, and each is easy to lose in a busy day. Across a firm this size, the tenths that never reach the file add up to real, recurring revenue.
The firm ran a structured pilot across a group of its lawyers and law clerks, and evaluated the results the only way that would convince it: against each timekeeper's own billing history from the month before Ajax. The firm's finance and legal-talent teams tracked adoption and return across the group.
Measure | Before Ajax | With Ajax | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
Average billable dollars per timekeeper per day | $1,240 | $1,712 | +$472 |
Extra billable dollars per timekeeper per month | $10,853 | ||
Total added billable per month, pilot group | $54,266 |
Recovered billable time paid for Ajax roughly sixty times over.
What the firm heard from its own people
Michelle Mulchan, a senior managing lawyer: "Where I have found the most value is in my non-billable time. So I'm actually catching a lot more of my management and my non-billable time, because usually I'm so busy I'm not even docketing for those little things, but Ajax is catching it."
Law clerk Michelle Snoek: "I would usually have to then go back through my sent folder and make sure that what I had done was posted. So I am appreciating that Ajax is catching that kind of stuff and then populating the time posting for me."
Margie Primero-Pimentel, a managing associate lawyer and mediator: "I think it's made for people like me who forget to bill, because I'm finding it's capturing a lot more of the things that I didn't think."
And Mulchan again, on the narratives themselves: "I really like all the detail you guys get because we don't have the time or the energy to list all the things that were talked about in the call, like support and equalization and the sale of the home. I really like that your system is adding all of that."
The switch story
Anna Polito, a lawyer at the firm, had used Billables.ai before Ajax. Her verdict after switching: "Billables added more to my plate and Ajax simply took matters off of my plate." She saw the benefit in under an hour, not weeks.
That difference comes down to what each tool can see. Ajax reads the actual work on screen and drafts complete, matter-matched entries in each person's own voice, so review takes minutes instead of becoming its own chore.
Frequently asked questions
Does Ajax work for Canadian firms? Yes. Russell Alexander runs Ajax across its Ontario offices. For the security and data residency details Canadian firms ask about, see Ajax for Canadian law firms.
How does Ajax handle a firm with dozens of timekeepers? Each timekeeper gets an individual calibration, and Ajax learns each person's narrative voice from entries they wrote before. The firm-level rollout is measured against real billing history, the same way Russell Alexander did it.
What did the pilot actually cost the team day to day? Ajax runs quietly in the background while people work. Each person reviews drafted entries and releases what they approve; management never sees anyone's screen, only released time.
Family law firms are where Ajax finds some of the most missed time. If that sounds familiar, book a demo, or read how law firms stop losing billable hours.
