AI can help reduce the administrative work involved in legal timekeeping, but a draft time entry still needs professional review before it becomes a billing record.
For law firms, the useful model is human control over AI-assisted preparation. AI can help capture activity, organize information, draft descriptions, and suggest billing details. The lawyer remains responsible for confirming that the entry accurately reflects the work and is appropriate to release.
What Should Lawyers Review in an AI-Assisted Time Entry?
Before approving an AI-assisted time entry, a lawyer or authorized reviewer should check the core billing information.
A practical review includes:
The correct client and matter
The work that was actually performed
The recorded duration
The billing description
The purpose or subject of the work
Required task or activity codes
Billing status
Relevant client billing guidelines
Any privileged or sensitive information that should not appear in a narrative
AI can provide a useful draft, but the final entry should reflect the lawyer's judgment about the work.
Why Human Review Still Matters
Legal work contains context that software may not fully understand.
A system may identify that a lawyer reviewed a document, attended a meeting, researched an issue, or sent an email. The lawyer may still need to determine which matter the work belongs to, whether the activity is billable, how the work should be described, and whether the client has specific billing requirements.
Human review also helps prevent overreliance on automatically generated text. A billing description should be accurate enough for the firm and client to understand the work without including unnecessary information.
AI Preparation and Professional Judgment
AI is most useful when it reduces reconstruction work.
Instead of asking a lawyer to remember an entire day and manually create every time entry, an AI-assisted system can prepare a structured starting point from captured work activity.
The lawyer can then:
Confirm the activity
Correct the matter
Adjust the duration
Edit the narrative
Apply or confirm billing codes
Merge related activity when appropriate
Approve the final entry
Release it according to the firm's workflow
This approach can reduce administrative effort while preserving lawyer control.
Creating a Review Standard for the Firm
Law firms adopting AI timekeeping should define what a reviewer is expected to check.
The standard can be simple. Every entry should answer four basic questions:
What work was completed?
Which client and matter did it relate to?
How much time was spent?
Is the description appropriate for billing?
Firms with outside counsel guidelines or eBilling requirements may add task codes, activity codes, narrative rules, or other validation steps.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should lawyers approve AI-generated time entries?
AI-assisted entries should be reviewed according to the firm's timekeeping and billing process before they are released. Human review helps confirm matter, duration, narrative, billing status, and any required codes.
Can AI decide whether legal work is billable?
AI can help organize work activity and prepare a proposed entry, but billability may depend on engagement terms, client guidelines, firm policy, and professional judgment.
What should a lawyer check first?
The lawyer should first confirm that the activity belongs to the correct client and matter and that the time reflects work actually performed.
Can AI write legal billing descriptions?
AI can help draft billing descriptions based on work activity and context. Lawyers should review the description for accuracy, clarity, appropriate detail, and compliance with client requirements.
What does human in the loop mean in legal timekeeping?
Human in the loop means AI supports the preparation of a time entry while a lawyer or authorized reviewer remains involved in checking, editing, approving, or releasing the final entry.
How does MIRA keep lawyers involved?
MIRA turns daily activity into structured time entries and drafts billable narratives. Users can review captured time, edit descriptions, and approve entries in Microsoft Teams before syncing them with supported billing systems.
