Professional services
Law Practice Utilization Calculator
Measures practice utilisation, where in a small practice the owner's unbilled hours are the whole story.
Result
Not all unbilled time is waste. Travel, restocking, training and warranty calls are necessary and will never be zero. The useful question is whether the share is drifting, not whether it reaches 100%.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Billable hours divided by paid hours, with the unbilled time valued at the rate it could have earned. In a solo or small practice the non-billable share is structurally high because one person does the intake, the billing, the compliance and the management as well as the legal work, and none of that can be billed to anyone.
What moves the number
- Administrative load carried by the owner.
- Intake and consultation time on matters that do not retain.
- Business development.
- Whether support staff absorb administrative work.
Where this one goes wrong
The arithmetic that decides a hire in a small practice is whether the administrative hours a support person absorbs convert into billable hours at a rate exceeding their burdened cost, and because attorney rates are high that comparison usually favours hiring earlier than owners expect. What stops it is the assumption that the administrative work is unavoidable rather than delegable. Separate the unbilled hours into delegable and non-delegable before concluding anything.
Before you quote
- Split unbilled hours into delegable and non-delegable.
- Compare a hire's burdened cost against billable hours freed.
- Value unbilled time at the rate it would have earned.
Questions
About this calculator
When should a solo practice hire support?
When the administrative hours a support person would absorb convert into billable hours worth more than their burdened cost. Because attorney rates are high, that arithmetic usually favours hiring earlier than owners expect, and the barrier is assuming the work is not delegable.
Why is solo utilisation structurally low?
Because one person does intake, billing, compliance and management as well as the legal work, and none of it is billable to anyone. The share is high by the nature of the arrangement rather than through poor discipline, which is why delegation is the lever rather than effort.
How should unbilled time be valued?
At the rate it would have earned if billed, which makes the cost of administrative work visible in the terms that matter. An hour of filing costed at an attorney's rate looks very different from an hour of filing costed at nothing.
The formula
utilisation = billed hours / paid hours
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How to use this calculator
- Paid hours per day. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.2.
- Fee earners. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.
- Rate charged per hour ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $250.
- Cost per paid hour ($). Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 22.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to billable share of the day, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid hours per day | 8 |
| Hours that reach an invoice | 5.2 |
| Fee earners | 5 |
| Rate charged per hour | $250 |
| Cost per paid hour | $34 |
| Working days per month | 22 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day main result | 65.0% |
| Unbilled hours per month | 308 |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | $77,000 |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | $10,472 |
65.0% of the paid day reaches an invoice. The rest is 308 hours a month, costing $10,472 in wages and carrying $77,000 of revenue that never happened.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only rate charged per hour, this is what happens to billable share of the day. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Rate charged per hour ($) | Billable share of the day |
|---|---|
| $125 | 65.0% |
| $188 | 65.0% |
| $250 example above | 65.0% |
| $375 | 65.0% |
| $500 | 65.0% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Paid hours per day
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 8.
- Hours that reach an invoice
- A number, between 0 and 24, starting at 5.2.
- Fee earners
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 5.
- Rate charged per hour ($)
- A money amount, starting at $250.
- Cost per paid hour ($)
- Wage plus burden.
- Working days per month
- A number, between 0 and 31, starting at 22.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Billable share of the day | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Unbilled hours per month | A number. |
| Revenue those hours would have carried | A money figure. |
| What the unbilled hours cost in wages | A money figure. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.