Law firm scheduling without the admin.

Law Firm Scheduling: Recovering Billable Hours From Administrative Overhead

Law firms bill by the hour and lose revenue every hour that attorneys, paralegals, and administrative staff spend on scheduling-related tasks instead of billable work. At a law firm where attorneys bill at $300/hour and support staff costs $40/hour, the economic math of scheduling administration is stark: 10 hours per week of scheduling admin across a 5-attorney firm costs $2,000/week in staff time — $104,000 annually — in tasks that scheduling automation can handle at a small fraction of the cost. But the more significant cost is the attorney time: the 5 hours per attorney per week spent on scheduling-related communication represents $1,500/week per attorney in unbilled capacity — across a 5-attorney firm, that's $390,000 annually in potential billable hours consumed by scheduling overhead.

Confidential Intake for Client Matter Screening

Law firm client intake serves two simultaneous purposes: gathering the information needed to assess the potential matter, and conducting the conflicts check required before representation can begin. Schedly's intake forms can be designed to collect: client identification information for conflicts checking, matter type and adverse parties (essential for conflict screening), a brief factual summary, and any documents the client has related to the matter. This intake information — collected before the consultation, not during it — allows attorneys to complete conflicts checking and preliminary matter assessment before meeting with the client, converting what was previously a 30-minute preliminary call into a focused, prepared consultation that delivers immediate value.

Client Portal Alternative: Managing Matter-Related Scheduling Within Schedly

Law firms managing ongoing client matters require more scheduling sophistication than a single consultation booking flow. Different matter phases require different meeting types: initial consultation, strategy session, deposition preparation, settlement conference, post-closing review. Schedly's event type architecture supports all of these as distinct booking types — each with appropriate intake, duration, billing codes, and attorney assignment. Clients in active matters can be given a direct booking link for appropriate meeting types, enabling self-scheduling of follow-up meetings without requiring the attorney or paralegal to manually propose times. The combination of event-type specificity and client self-scheduling creates a matter management scheduling system that operates without administrative intervention.