Solo legal work turns small time entries into revenue decisions. Everhour connects tracked hours to budgets and billing workflows.
Track billable vs. non-billable time and see your real utilization rate and revenue potential in seconds.
Working hours in the period
Admin, meetings, internal work
Industry average is 75–80%
The calculator gives you the number — Everhour takes it from there.
One click and you're timing. Start a timer, add an entry, edit the details. This is exactly how it feels in Everhour.
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Measurement
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A billable-hours calculation answers how much client-chargeable legal work is worth before payment, tax, and collection adjustments. For hourly work, the core formula is billed hours multiplied by the applicable hourly rate. For a solo practitioner, that number supports an invoice, a matter budget check, or a profitability review when the client fee is fixed, flat, estimated, or contingent.
The result is not the same as every hour worked. Clio's 2025 law-firm benchmark puts utilization at 38%, equal to 3.0 captured billable hours in an average eight-hour day. The remaining 62% is not captured as billable time, including administrative work, billing, collections, and business development. That gap matters more in a solo practice because the same person does the client work and the overhead work.
For hourly legal work, calculate the billed amount as hours times hourly rate, using the fee basis or rate communicated to the client in writing for a new client-lawyer relationship, subject to ABA Rule 1.5's limited low-cost exception. If a solo attorney captures 26 approved billable hours at $285 per hour, then writes down 2 hours before invoicing, the invoiceable hours are 24.
The pre-tax invoice amount is 24 hours times $285, or $6,840. If the practice tracks collection separately, Clio's 2025 benchmark of 93% collection would turn a $6,840 invoice into $6,361.20 collected. Do not use collection rate to reduce the billable-hours total itself. Use it to forecast cash receipts, aging risk, and whether the matter's effective return is worth repeating.
Solo practitioners often use the billable-hours total even when the client does not pay by the hour. Clio's 2026 solo and small firm report press release says 71% of clients prefer fixed or flat fees. In that setting, the billable-hours calculation becomes an implied-rate check: fixed fee divided by actual billable hours shows whether the matter priced well.
Rounding is a separate control, not a pricing shortcut. A common legal billing increment is 0.1 hour, equal to 6 minutes. The Northern District of California CJA chart maps 1-6 minutes to 0.1, 7-12 minutes to 0.2, and 55-60 minutes to 1.0. ABA Formal Opinion 93-379 allows actual time plus disclosed minimum-increment rounding, not billing more time than actually spent.
A calculator is enough for a one-off invoice check, a fee quote review, or a quick comparison between hourly and flat-fee economics. Enter approved hours, subtract write-downs, apply the agreed rate, and add any jurisdiction-specific tax input only when the service is taxable. The United States has no federal VAT/GST or single national sales-tax rate for billed professional time.
A managed workflow is better when the same solo practice needs matter budgets, recurring periods, budget alerts, and protection against continuing work past a fee limit. Everhour Project Budgeting supports time and money budgets, recurring budget periods, 75%, 90%, 100%, or custom email alerts, and budget protection that can stop timers or prevent extra logging after a budget is exceeded.
This content is for general information only, may not be fully up to date, and is provided without any warranty or liability.
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Add approved client-chargeable time, subtract write-downs or non-billable entries, then multiply the invoiceable hours by the agreed hourly rate. For U.S. legal work, the fee basis or rate should be communicated in writing for new client-lawyer relationships, subject to ABA Rule 1.5's limited low-cost exception.
Yes. A flat-fee matter still needs tracked hours to measure profitability. Divide the fixed fee by actual billable hours to get the implied hourly rate. If a $3,600 flat fee takes 18 billable hours, the implied rate is $200 per hour before any taxable-service input or collection adjustment.
Use actual time plus the disclosed minimum billing increment. A 0.1-hour increment equals 6 minutes, while a 0.25-hour increment equals 15 minutes. ABA Formal Opinion 93-379 says a lawyer billing by time may not bill more than the actual time spent except for minimum-period rounding.
No. The United States has no federal VAT/GST and no single national sales-tax rate. Sales tax treatment is state and local. A U.S. billable-hours total should use a jurisdiction-specific tax input only when the legal service is taxable in that location.
The biggest mistake is mixing captured time, invoiced time, and collected time into one number. Utilization measures billable work captured, realization measures billable work invoiced, and collection measures invoiced work paid. Keep those figures separate so write-downs and unpaid invoices do not distort the hourly value of the work.
Everhour Project Budgeting lets a solo practitioner set hour-based or money-based budgets for matters, including recurring budget periods for ongoing clients. Budget alerts can notify selected admins at 75%, 90%, 100%, or custom thresholds before work exceeds the planned fee or hour limit.
Set matter budgets before work starts, track approved hours against each limit, and use Everhour Project Budgeting to catch overages before they become unpaid work.
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