Why State Tax Law Switched from WiseTime to Ajax

Why State Tax Law Switched from WiseTime to Ajax

Highlights

• We piloted Ajax with 5 timekeepers that had tried WiseTime and hated it; after trying Ajax, 80% of them wanted to keep using Ajax. We’re now rolling it out firm-wide.

• We found $3.3k in previously uncaptured time per timekeeper, per month

The situation

I’m a partner at State Tax Law, a tax boutique in New York. We live in Clio, and for a long time, timekeeping was our biggest operational headache. The pace is fast, and we were consistently failing to capture the small stuff - a quick call, a short email, a five-minute review.

For me and my team, the end of the month meant a painful day or two of finalizing our timesheets to begin our billing process. It was a miserable process that delayed our bills and cost us money.

Our experience with WiseTime

We knew we needed an automated solution, so a year and a half ago, we brought in WiseTime. 

WiseTime tracked my activity, but it wasn't that smart. It created a long list of tasks that you still had to manually sort through. The review process was tedious, but for me, it was better than nothing. That said, it was better than keeping time manually - for me, at least.

The real problem was adoption. After a year and a half, I discovered that half my team had simply given up on it. The best tool in the world is useless if your people won't use it.

Why Ajax

Ajax got my attention because they promised what WiseTime failed to deliver: intelligent grouping of tasks, well-written narratives, and an instantaneous integration with Clio. What sold me was the personalization. Our firm has very specific billing requirements - no block billing, a specific way of referring to my Professional Reading time, particular formats for names in narratives, and more.

During our first calls, Jack (one of the Ajax founders) wrote custom rules live on the call to make the AI’s output match our exact style. That level of responsiveness and the feeling that the tool would adapt to us, not the other way around, is what drove adoption.

Implementation and adoption

We started with a two-week pilot for five of us. Jack and Hanna at Ajax ran individual 20-minute calibration calls with each person to dial in their personal preferences. That personal touch was key. People saw right away that this was a tool built for them. Four of the five of us converted immediately, including one of our most senior lawyers who was historically one of our worst timekeepers. We’re now rolling it out to the entire firm.

Results

When your team actually uses their timekeeping tool, you find money you were missing. We found an average of $182 in uncaptured time per person, per day.

That number comes directly from the high adoption during our pilot. People found it so easy to use that they just… used it. All those little tasks that used to evaporate were finally being captured.

• +$3,835 per timekeeper per month in captured time that was previously lost

• 80% adoption by our pilot group, because the platform is intuitive and easy to use.

• Decrease in admin time we spend on timekeeping and billing

• Within its first week, Ajax learned our matter codes better than WiseTime did in over two years. The learning is real and immediate.

Life after Ajax

My end-of-day routine is now just a few minutes in Ajax. The system presents a short list of clean, well-described entries that are already 95% correct. I make a few tweaks, click release, and I’m done. The constant anxiety of falling behind on time is gone because the tool is so frictionless that it’s easy to make it a daily habit.

Why it beat our alternatives

• It’s intuitive, not a chore. The clean interface and smart grouping mean less review time, which is why people actually use it daily.

• Ajax learns from my edits. The system gets smarter with every entry I release. WiseTime never did.

• They have real-time support from their core team. When I used the in-app chat, I got one of the Ajax founders making custom adjustments for us in minutes.

• The Clio integration is flawless. It’s a true two-way sync that feels like a natural part of our core system.

What we’d tell peers

Stop paying for tools your team won’t open. Pilot Ajax with your skeptics. Do the short calibration calls and make the tool match your billing rules. When it fits the way you work, people use it, and you make more money.

If you’re considering Ajax, run a pilot that includes your most skeptical attorneys. The individual calibration calls make a huge difference. Let your team see that the tool adapts to them, and they will use it. It’s that simple.