Time tracking software for lawyers and law firms

Lawyers switch constantly between matters, emails, calls, drafting, research, meetings, and internal work. ManicTime helps legal teams capture billable time more accurately, prepare clearer billing records, and keep sensitive matter data private with cloud or on-premise deployment options.

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Common time-tracking problems for lawyers

Billable time is easy to miss

Legal work is often fragmented across short tasks: a quick client email, a call, document review, research, or a brief internal discussion. When these small activities are not recorded immediately, billable time is lost.

Entering time later leads to vague or incomplete records

Many lawyers record time after the fact. Rebuilding the day from memory makes entries less accurate, less detailed, and harder to defend on invoices.

Matter allocation errors create billing risk

When work is spread across many active matters, it is easy to assign time to the wrong client, matter, or activity. That creates billing issues and administrative cleanup later.

Confidential client work makes privacy and deployment a real concern

Law firms handle sensitive client, case, and document data. If a time-tracking system forces all data into the cloud, it may conflict with internal policy, client expectations, or security requirements.

Billing conventions like six-minute increments add complexity

Many firms bill in 0.1-hour increments. Without precise underlying time data and a consistent way to round it, billing becomes slower, less consistent, and harder to explain.

How ManicTime helps lawyers

ManicTime records activity automatically in the background, so lawyers do not need to rely on timers or end-of-day reconstruction. They can review what actually happened, assign it to the right matter, and produce billing records with more detail and confidence.

Capture legal work with file-level context

ManicTime records applications, websites, and document activity automatically. For firms that organize files by client and case, tracked Office document paths make it much easier to see which matter the work belonged to.

Use a consistent Client -> Matter -> Task structure

ManicTime supports a clean tagging structure for legal work, making it easier to organize time consistently across clients, matters, and tasks while keeping notes that help with invoice descriptions.

Support billable, non-billable, and six-minute billing workflows

Lawyers can separate billable and non-billable work, tag activity precisely, and then round timesheets to 0.1-hour increments when needed instead of guessing after the fact.

Let assistants, paralegals, and billing staff help with review

Captured activity gives support staff something concrete to work from. That makes it easier for lawyers, assistants, paralegals, and billing teams to review time together and prepare cleaner billing records.

Keep sensitive data private

Firms can use ManicTime in the cloud or deploy on-premise, and privacy controls let teams decide what gets tracked, when it gets tracked, and what data is shared with the server.

Track time across the work legal teams actually do

Legal work is rarely one uninterrupted block. ManicTime helps track time across activities like:

Client emails and calls
Legal research
Drafting contracts, pleadings, and legal memos
Document review and revision
Matter and court preparation
Internal strategy discussions
Paralegal and assistant coordination
Administrative and compliance work
Business development
Non-billable internal tasks

This makes it easier to separate billable and non-billable work, attribute time to the right matter, and prepare defensible timesheets and invoices.

Why lawyers use ManicTime

Recover more billable hours

Small activities that are often forgotten become easier to review and include.

Create clearer, more invoice-ready time entries

Lawyers can build entries from recorded activity, structured tags, and notes instead of relying only on memory.

Fit legal billing conventions

Precise capture plus timesheet rounding helps firms support six-minute billing practices without losing the detail behind each entry.

Protect confidential client work

Privacy controls and on-premise deployment options help firms keep legal time data aligned with internal security and confidentiality requirements.

Improve matter and team visibility

Firms get clearer insight into how much time is going into different matters and how work is split across lawyers, associates, and support staff.

Related features

Automatic tracking with file-level context

Capture work activity throughout the day without manually starting and stopping timers. ManicTime can track the document paths of Office files such as Word and Excel, which helps lawyers review exactly what they worked on and assign time to the right client or case based on those file paths.

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Six-minute billing and audit-ready timesheets

Separate billable and non-billable work, round timesheets to 0.1-hour increments when needed, and keep the underlying activity evidence behind each entry.

Learn more ->

Cloud or on-premise deployment

Use ManicTime Cloud for faster setup or deploy on-premise when your firm needs full control over where legal time data lives, how it is secured, and whether sensitive matter data ever leaves your infrastructure.

Learn more ->

Built for legal teams that need accurate records without giving up control

ManicTime has been tracking billable work since 2008. Over 1 million downloads, 13,000+ customers, and 200,000+ licenses — used by law firms, legal departments, and individual practitioners who cannot afford gaps in their billing records.

Law firms need precise billing records, but they also need privacy, security, and deployment flexibility. ManicTime helps legal teams capture work more accurately while keeping the process lighter, more consistent, and easier to review.

For firms that cannot send sensitive matter data to a hosted system, ManicTime can also run on-premise, so the same tracking and reporting workflow can fit stricter confidentiality and infrastructure requirements.

FAQ

Capture more billable legal work without giving up privacy or control
ManicTime helps lawyers reduce missed time, improve matter allocation, support legal billing conventions, and keep sensitive work data under the firm's control.
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Our customer
opinions
Katie
This software automatically tracks the time you spend on your computer. When you step away from your computer for a certain length of time (set by user), it will prompt you to tag that time. For example, if I'm getting coffee and have a 20 minute chat about the weekend, I tag it as personal. But if I have a chat about an upcoming or existing project, I tag it about that project. For the tasks you do on the computer, it can save screenshots every X seconds (again, set by user), so that you can have a reminder when you go to do your billing what each task was for.
Richard
There is a lot to love about Manic Time. It was easy to use and did way more than I was expecting from it. The reporting was informative. The editing was awesome. Tagging and managing the time tracked is robust, yet simple. It is great at taking the tracking out of time tracking. It just does 90% for you. The last 10% is tagging and validating. It really does an amazing job at showing how much time is wasted on mundane tasks or mindless browsing. I handed in my time to a project manager. He asked how I knew I worked 3.28 hours on a specific task. "Manic Time" was my answer.
Dr Steve Day (podcast)
Time tracking and its importance in business operations are discussed in this episode. Dr. Steve Day shares update on their time tracking policies, including the use of new apps and tools such as ManicTime, particularly focusing on the implementation of screenshot tracking.
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Brenda
I do contract work and manage multiple projects where I bounce between projects on an almost by the minute basis. Once tagging is setup I can easily tag all my activities as I do them and my time accumulates in each project bucket. At the end of the day my timesheet is a breeze. This is the best tool I have found so far for a work style that involves heavy duty multi-tasking. I don't know what I would do without ManicTime. Well designed and thought out product.
Mary
I like this application because with manic time we can verify who does their right job. And we also have better control because we can choose the best workers to increase production works very well and without errors.
Gary
Just renewed my licence for another year Just thought I'd let you know that this is one of the best pieces of software I've ever installed on my computer, free or paid for. I run my own business which principally relies on writing technical reports. ManicTime has made it so much easier to track my time over the various projects and therefore manage my fees and costs. (And your support has been excellent when I have had the odd problem).
Oliver
Just wanted to let you know that I think your software has helped me capture $1000's of dollars in revenue that I just wasn't billing before, as I wasn't doing a very good job of tracking my time. With ManicTime I get it all, and if I were ever to be audited by a client, I could give them every detail. Thanks so much!
Judy
The interface is very intuitive and easy to use. The ability to tag and color-code my work allows me to see at a glance how my day has been going. I can organize and structure things as much or as little as I like. What a great product!
Joshua
ManicTime’s ease of use is unmatched, thanks to its intuitive interface and flexible granularity in time-tracking. The power to dive as deep as you need into data with comprehensive tagging and reporting systems is a significant upside. Its vast number of features like document, application, and activity trackers streamline the process of managing and analyzing time efficiently. Moreover, ManicTime’s advanced search capabilities, coupled with the functionality to annotate tagged time, make it a vital tool for enhancing productivity and recalling information during discussions.
Adam
I like that it tracks inactive time on the computer so that you can remember when you started working and when you stopped, and when you took breaks. Very easy to use, I don't have to remember to log in and the app does everything for me without me even doing anything except installing the program. It shows exactly what page and project you were working on and for how long and when.
Amanda
It provides with useful reports which track and monitor the computer usage of employees, as well as the time spent on each computer program or application. Also the presence of an automatic screenshot feature resulted in an increase in my employees’ productivity. It runs automatically on my computer, great.
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