Seattle law firm launches free email time-capture tool for Clio users

Hemmat Law Group has released Thyme, a Clio-connected platform that scans email activity and suggests billable time entries for lawyers. The tool is now available at no cost to law firms using Clio, with early users reporting sizable amounts of previously unrecorded work.

Why it matters: - Email is a major source of unbilled legal work, especially for firms that still reconstruct time entries after the fact. - Thyme is aimed at helping lawyers capture that work without changing how they communicate with clients. - The tool is available free to law firms using Clio, which could lower the barrier to better timekeeping.

What happened: - Hemmat Law Group released Thyme, a legal technology platform designed to identify and document billable work completed through email. - The platform integrates with Clio, reviews email activity, creates contextual time-entry suggestions and links correspondence to the relevant client matter. - The product was first built for internal use at Hemmat Law Group before being opened to other law firms at no cost. - Chief Operating Officer John Avi Socha said the idea came from a recurring operational problem: lawyers were giving advice and moving matters forward by email, then having to reconstruct that work later for timesheets.

The details: - Thyme is intended to review email activity and surface entries lawyers can approve before anything is recorded. - Socha said the goal was not to add another timer, but to document work that had already happened. - Thyme reported early-user results showing previously unrecorded billable activity of $24,500 in 30 days for a solo practitioner. - Thyme reported $505,200 in 90 days for a 16-person firm. - Thyme reported $69,800 in 30 days for a four-person firm. - Thyme reported $456,745 in the first 90 days for a 17-person firm. - Thyme said results vary based on firm size, billing rates, email volume and existing time-recording practices. - Microsoft’s Work Trend Index found heavy email users spend an average of 8.8 hours a week reading and writing emails. - In hourly-billing legal practices, that email load can create a time-recording gap when work is logged later.

Between the lines: - The launch fits a broader legal-industry push to reduce administrative work and improve the accuracy of timekeeping. - Hemmat Law Group is positioning Thyme as workflow support, not a behavior change for lawyers or clients. - Socha’s public profile in law-firm operations and legal education suggests the product comes from an operations-first mindset rather than a pure software startup play.

What's next: - Thyme is currently available at no cost to law firms that use Clio. - Adoption by additional firms will likely depend on whether the tool can show consistent time-recapture gains across different practice sizes and billing models. - The company’s next test is whether law firms treat email capture as a useful supplement to existing timekeeping systems.