How much of a lawyer's day is billable, and what that leaves out

Clio publishes benchmarks from its Legal Trends Report on its Law Firm KPIs page. They come from Clio's own customers, so they describe firms that use Clio and not every firm.

• Vendor usage data, not all firms

  Clio, Legal Trends Report 2025, Law Firm KPIs page, 2025 (https://www.clio.com/resources/legal-trends/benchmarks/): based on aggregated, anonymized data from tens of thousands of firms that use Clio, lawyers capture 3.0 billable hours in an 8-hour day. The utilization rate is 38%.

• Vendor usage data, not all firms

  Clio, Legal Trends Report 2025, Law Firm KPIs page, 2025 (https://www.clio.com/resources/legal-trends/benchmarks/): the realization rate is 88%, which the page gives as 2.6 hours billed. The collection rate is 93%, which the page gives as 2.4 hours collected.

The benchmark follows time through three steps: captured, billed and collected. Each step gives a smaller number than the one before it.

That is the reason firms look at how time is recorded, how it is invoiced and how it is paid, and not only at hours worked.

The gaps between captured, billed and collected time are about billing and collection. They do not say how much time goes to administrative work.

The source gives no measurement of administrative time, so this article gives none. We do not estimate how much of a day that work takes.

The American Bar Association reports on technology use in firms. This figure comes from a survey, so it reflects what firms reported. The release does not state a sample size, and none is given here.

• Survey: what people said

  American Bar Association, 2024 Legal Technology Survey Report, published 2025 (https://americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2025/03/aba-releases-survey-tech-trends/): according to the ABA, 73% of law firms use cloud-based legal tools, and document management and practice management software have the highest adoption.

The same report includes a study Clio ran on its own software. It is not an independent evaluation. It involved a small group of people, and it says nothing about other tools or about our work.

• Vendor's own study, not independent

  Clio, Legal Trends Report 2025, 2025 (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-science-behind-smarter-law-clios-2025-legal-trends-report-reveals-how-technology-is-rewiring-the-way-lawyers-work-302585725.html): in Clio's own study of its software, 63 legal professionals did tasks first with spreadsheets and PDFs as a control and then with Clio. Their active mental effort fell by 72% when calculating billables and by 25% when creating new matters.

• Vendor's own study, not independent

  Clio, Legal Trends Report 2025, 2025 (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-science-behind-smarter-law-clios-2025-legal-trends-report-reveals-how-technology-is-rewiring-the-way-lawyers-work-302585725.html): in the same study of 63 people, emotional strain fell by 16% during intake. 93% of the emotions recorded while using Clio were positive.

Administrative work competes for the same day as billable work. Retyping details into documents, chasing signatures and answering status calls all take the time of the people who bill.

Automation can take some of those steps off a person. We make no claim about how much time that gives back, because it depends on the firm.

• Which tasks do people repeat every day, and who does them?
• Where is time recorded late or not at all?
• Which steps between time captured and money collected take the longest?
• What would the firm measure to know a change helped?