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AI workflow assessment for UK solicitors - HoursBack

AI workflow assessment for UK solicitors - find the non-billable admin draining your fee earners.

One session, 60 minutes, spent on the hours your fee earners cannot bill for - matter intake, AML and client due diligence, time recording, drafting from precedents. Each recommendation comes with the tool named and the setup written out, ordered by what recovers the most chargeable time. If you’d rather we built what it finds, we do that too.

Report in two working daysUK-registered companyMoney-back if we don't find 5+ hours a week
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Sound familiar?

The admin that never makes it onto a chargeable slip.

Your fee earners bill at chargeable rates. Then hours of every week disappear to the work in between: opening a matter and running conflict and AML checks, recording time at the end of a busy day when half of it has already slipped, drafting from precedents you keep rebuilding by hand, and the steady correspondence that keeps every file moving.

None of it is the legal work the client is paying for, but all of it has to happen - and it is the reason the recovery rate slips, the reason the file-opening backlog builds, and the reason your solicitors are doing admin a paralegal-plus-AI could handle. Recovery rates carry that cost quietly: the work was done, the time was never captured, and nothing in the system tells you which files it happened on.

Sixty minutes on the firm produces a plan ordered by what recovers the most chargeable time. Firms hear about case-management modules from every supplier that calls; the admin worth attacking sits around whatever system you already run - intake, drafting, and the time that never got recorded.

What the admin costs

The non-billable admin around every matter - and what it is worth recovering.

There is no benchmark on this page for legal admin. A private-client or conveyancing firm on fixed fees loses time somewhere different to a litigation practice on the clock, and the split between fee earners and support staff moves it again. What repeats across the firms we assess is the list itself: matter intake and conflict checks, AML and client due diligence, time recording, and drafting.

So the session works from your own files rather than from a survey. We take a matter you opened recently and one you have just closed, walk both, and mark every point where a fee earner did something a well-briefed system could have drafted. Whatever that turns up is what the report ranks.

Run your own numbers in the admin cost calculator, or read the full breakdown in the CRM and workflow gaps that cost UK service businesses. If you want to see how that stacks up, here’s what a UK AI workflow assessment typically costs.

The assessment is £799 - and the non-billable hours in it belong to your own files.

What the assessment does for your firm

Your six biggest time sinks - and what we do about each one.

We map your whole firm in the 60-minute session, then work backwards to the drains worth fixing first. Here is what that looks like for solicitors.

Matter intake and conflict checks

Opening a new matter - client details, conflict search, engagement terms, care letters, file setup - before a single chargeable minute is recorded. We time what happens between a client saying yes and the first chargeable minute being recorded, and mark which of those steps come out the same on every matter.

AML and client due diligence

Identity checks, source-of-funds enquiries, PEP and sanctions screening, and the file note that evidences it all - a regulatory must, and a time sink on every new client. We look at where your due-diligence time splits between gathering, checking and evidencing. Gathering and evidencing are paperwork; the check itself is your MLRO's call and stays there.

Time recording and the billable-hour leak

The six-minute units that never got logged, the end-of-day reconstruction from memory, the recovery rate that suffers for it. We compare one fee earner's diary and sent items for a single day against what they actually recorded that day, which is usually the quickest way to see where the leak is.

Drafting from precedents

Rebuilding standard letters, agreements and attendance notes from a precedent bank you half-trust. We go through that bank and separate what is genuinely trusted from what gets rebuilt by hand every time, because only the trusted part can safely feed a first draft. Sign-off stays exactly where it belongs.

Client correspondence and updates

The 'any update?' emails, the routine chasers, the file-note-and-reply that eats a morning. We read a week of outgoing correspondence and pick out the letters that say much the same thing on every file.

File and compliance admin

The Lexcel and SRA housekeeping, file reviews, closing procedures and the audit trail behind them. We follow one file review through and note how much of it was locating documents rather than exercising judgement.

What the assessment is, and what comes after.

The assessment is a diagnostic and a plan. Within two working days of your call you get a passcode-protected report: the AI and automation opportunities we have found for your firm, named tools with costs and setup time, step-by-step recipes, a prompt library, an impact-versus-effort ranking, and ROI worked out on your real numbers. It is written in plain English so you can act on it - no technical background needed.

The report is written so you can act on it yourself. If you’d rather we did the work, we build it: if the report flags something worth building - a matter-intake agent, say - we scope it with you and build it as an automation or an AI agent, in your own accounts (agents start from £949). If you would rather implement the quick wins yourself with someone beside you, an Implementation Session (£349, 90 minutes) is there for that. Once something is live, ongoing support keeps it running.

Most clients start with the assessment. If you already know the job you want built, you can go straight to a scoping call.

Client case studies

The kind of result we publish.

Real clients, in their own words - the full story, what we found, and the measurable change in their week.

Headshot of Joanne South
Joanne South
Co-director, UK Growth Coach

“Knowing something and doing something are completely different things.”

Read Joanne’s story →
Projected~7-8 hrs/week
Identified in the report, achievable once the roadmap is in place

See all case studies

Joanne South case study
Common questions

Questions solicitors ask us.

Is client data safe if we use AI?
Yes. You stay responsible for how AI is used in your firm, and we'll tell you at scoping whether we can take a job on. We don't give legal or compliance advice. Anything we build runs in your own accounts, and before you choose we tell you which AI provider it uses and that it may process data outside the UK.
Can AI draft legal documents safely?
It can draft the first pass from your own precedents and the matter facts - a letter, a routine agreement, an attendance note - but it does not give legal advice and it does not replace a fee earner's judgement. We show you exactly where the line sits between a helpful draft and a decision a qualified person has to own and sign off.
We already run a case management system. Does this replace it?
No - it works alongside it. Your case management system, whether that is Clio, LEAP, Proclaim or another, stays the system of record; the assessment finds the admin around it that still happens by hand, like intake, drafting, time capture and correspondence, and shows where AI takes that off your team. The recommendations are written against your system by name, so none of them depends on you moving off it.
Is £799 worth it for a firm like ours?
At a fee earner's chargeable rate the assessment costs a fraction of a day, and it is guaranteed: if your report does not show at least 5 hours a week worth reclaiming, the £799 comes straight back. The hours behind that came off your own matters, not a benchmark.
Choose your package

One payment. A written plan, a live review call, and someone checking in to make sure it happens.

A diagnostic session, personalised report, a live review call, and follow-up support. One payment for the assessment. Anything we build afterwards is quoted separately, and only if you want it.

Find out where your firm's non-billable hours actually go.

Book a 60-minute diagnostic. Get a report built around your firm within two working days, a live review call where we walk you through it, and follow-up support. Money back if it doesn't show at least 5 hours a week worth reclaiming.

Book your assessment →