Turning Lost Time into Law Firm Profit: How Leading Firms Are Unlocking Hidden Capacity

Law firms have never been busier. Lawyers are working longer hours, teams continue to grow and technology investments have reached unprecedented levels. Yet despite these investments, many firms are still struggling to capture their full billing potential.

That was the central theme of a recent Global Legal Tech Talks session, hosted by Netlaw Media in partnership with Progress. The session brought together legal and technology leaders to explore a critical question: Why are so many firms still leaving valuable capacity on the table, and what can they do about it?

The consensus was clear: the problem isn't a lack of effort—it's the inefficiencies embedded within the way work flows through modern law firms.

The Hidden Cost of Invisible Work

According to Lindsay Pinman, Partner at DLA Piper and Head of the UK Technology Sector, one of the biggest challenges firms face isn't necessarily productivity—it's visibility.

Lawyers often spend significant amounts of time on activities that never make it onto a bill. Supervising junior colleagues, resolving version control issues, managing compliance processes, chasing approvals and correcting billing narratives all consume valuable hours that are rarely captured or measured.

This "quiet absorption" of time can have a dramatic impact on profitability.

While many firms set ambitious utilization targets, a substantial amount of lawyer effort never translates into recorded billable time. The issue often isn’t inefficient lawyers—it’s limited visibility into where time is being lost.

The Biggest Efficiency Killer? Administrative Burden

The panel agreed that one of the largest drains on lawyer productivity comes from administrative and compliance-related activities.

Client onboarding, Know Your Customer (KYC) checks, anti-money laundering (AML) requirements, e-billing compliance and matter setup processes can create extensive back-and-forth before legal work even begins.

Many corporate clients require firms to follow highly specific billing guidelines, often with unique narrative requirements, fee caps and coding structures. Lawyers can spend considerable time reviewing invoices to meet client billing requirements.—work that adds little client value but is essential to getting paid.

The irony is that many of these issues could be addressed much earlier in the lifecycle through better process design and automation.

Why Technology Alone Isn't the Answer

For decades, law firms have invested heavily in technology. Yet many lawyers still find themselves navigating multiple systems, disconnected workflows and complex interfaces to complete straightforward tasks.

Emmett Murphy, Principal Solutions Engineer at Progress ShareFile, highlighted a common problem: the gaps between systems.

Information often exists in multiple locations, requiring lawyers and support staff to manually transfer data between platforms. Every handoff, approval, email thread and system switch introduces friction into the process.

The solution isn't necessarily more technology—it’s better integration.

Successful projects tend to focus on simplifying the user experience, reducing clicks and bringing work into the applications lawyers already use every day, such as Outlook, Word and document management systems.

As the speakers noted, adoption rates increase significantly when technology fits naturally into existing workflows.

Start with the Client Experience

A recurring theme was the need to design processes around the client journey rather than internal structures. Many firms focus on internal efficiency but overlook opportunities to streamline information flow between the firm and its clients.

By streamlining how clients submit instructions, review documents and approve work, firms can reduce friction and administrative effort. Many are already combining legal expertise, automation and client feedback to accelerate contract turnaround times and improve service delivery.

The result? Faster delivery, better client experiences and more time available for high-value legal work.

AI: Opportunity with Responsibility

No discussion about legal efficiency would be complete without addressing artificial intelligence.

The panel acknowledged that AI has enormous potential to improve productivity but stressed the importance of applying it thoughtfully.

Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for lawyers, the discussion focused on using it as a tool for enhancement.

Examples included:

• Document summarization
• Contract review assistance
• Information extraction
• Administrative task automation
• Knowledge retrieval
• Content drafting support

However, both speakers emphasized that legal professionals must remain accountable for the final output.

AI-generated work requires supervision, validation and professional judgment—particularly in high-risk legal matters.

As Lindsay noted, AI can be highly effective when used by lawyers with sufficient subject matter expertise to identify errors and challenge outputs. For less experienced practitioners, AI may be more useful as a review and analysis tool rather than a primary drafting mechanism.

The key takeaway was clear: AI should strengthen professional judgment, not replace it.

Don't Wait for the Perfect Solution

Perhaps the most important message from the discussion was that firms should stop searching for a single transformational breakthrough.

Efficiency gains often come from a series of small, targeted improvements rather than one major initiative.

Instead of viewing technology adoption as a one-time event, firms need to treat transformation as an ongoing process. Learning from how lawyers and business services’ teams use new tools, identifying where workflows still create friction and making targeted improvements that help work happen more efficiently over time.

As the panel concluded, even a small increase in lawyer utilization can translate into significant financial impact across a large firm.

The Future of Legal Efficiency

While the legal sector continues to explore the role of AI and automation, the panel agreed that human expertise will remain central to the delivery of legal services.

The firms that succeed will not necessarily be those with the most advanced technology. Rather, they will be the firms that combine technology, process design and people effectively.

By identifying where lawyers spend time on non-legal activities, simplifying workflows, improving data visibility and embracing practical automation, firms can unlock substantial hidden capacity—without increasing headcount.