How Rai Duer Cut Timekeeping Effort and Improved Accuracy with Ajax

Highlights

• Accuracy in picking matters increased 47% in just 2 weeks as Ajax learned our practice

• 100% adoption across our pilot group of 6 partners, associates, and paralegals.

• 13x ROI by capturing previously-unbilled work. Even our most disciplined biller - our partner, Blake - told me on day 2 of the pilot that Ajax found him a full hour of time he otherwise would have missed.

The situation

I’m Tom Duer, a partner at Rai Duer, a construction-defect and insurance-defense firm in Phoenix. Timekeeping was a burden. We use Clio and live by UTBMS codes and strict carrier billing guidelines. 

We knew we were leaking time. I myself was sometimes guilty of waiting days to enter my time, and as everybody knows, billing on a 3-day lookback is bound to miss some .1s.

What we tried before

Our old manual process in Clio meant a scramble at the end of each month. Even our best timekeepers weren't foolproof, and we always suspected we were leaving money on the table.

Why Ajax

We piloted Ajax because it ran in the background and drafted entries for us, which we hoped would solve our time leakage. 

Ajax wasn't a generic product. Their team tuned the AI to our specific practice needs. They ingested our billing guidelines, customized narratives to our firm’s style, and configured our UTBMS codes - all before the pilot even kicked off. 

The seamless Clio integration and hands-on support from their founders gave us confidence.

Implementation and adoption

Our Director of Legal Ops, Michele, coordinated a two-week pilot with a cross-section of our firm: partners, associates, and a paralegal. 

A one-hour kickoff with interactive breakouts got everyone comfortable. Then the Ajax team held 1-1 support calls with each person on the team, helping them to understand the product and further tuning the system to their feedback. 

We used Ajax exclusively during the pilot and then, after seeing results, rolled it out to 10 users.

Results

Our time entries became more complete, capturing nearly an hour of previously missed work per person, per day.

• +$2.7k per timekeeper per month, reflecting previously unbilled work

• 13x return on investment on our monthly subscription.

• Even our most disciplined partner found an extra hour of billable work on day 2

Life after Ajax

Instead of piecing together activities from memory, our time is now drafted and waiting for review. Narratives are better because they’re created in the moment. There’s no more friction or end-of-day scrambles. Our team just works, then reviews their Ajax dashboard to edit and release entries to Clio. In a competitive hiring market, offering a tool that makes life easier is a real benefit.

Why it beat our alternatives

• It’s truly automatic.

• It’s tunable to our specific billing rules.

• The support is phenomenal and direct from the founders.

• It learns from our edits and gets more accurate daily.

Feedback from our team

"It’s starting to adapt to how I do my time…now it’s wording it the way that I would word it”

• Francis Espiritu, Associate, day 3 of pilot

"It makes it easy, which is really nice. Especially with how little time we want to spend trying to get this stuff in."

• Victoria Sakakibara, Paralegal

"It's been really clean and easy."

• Aaron Gushin, Associate

What we’d tell peers

Commit to the pilot and use it exclusively for a couple of weeks so the AI can learn. Give direct feedback; the Ajax team is quick to make adjustments. The more you put into the partnership, the more you get out.

I’d encourage any firm that wants to make timekeeping easier to see what their own numbers would look like.