The figures below come from 8am's October 2026 report and describe the firms in its dataset. They are not a benchmark for every law firm.
Recording time and billing time are different steps. A firm can log more hours and still bill a smaller share of those hours. The difference is a useful prompt to look closely at how time is reviewed and makes it onto an invoice.
What the October 2026 report found
In the first half of 2026, solo firms in 8am's dataset logged nearly 9% more hours year over year. At the same time, their share of logged hours that was billed slipped from 70% to 69%.
Large firms moved in the opposite direction. They billed nearly 12% more hours while logging fewer overall, raising the share of hours billed from 44% to 49%.
Those figures point to a difference in how recorded time reached billing in this dataset. They do not show why any particular firm's hours were or were not billed, and they do not establish that a software product caused the change.
Who is represented in the data?
The report uses anonymized billing and payment data from more than 60,000 firms using 8am MyCase and 8am LawPay, predominantly in the United States. It compares the same firms across the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2026. 8am says its customer data is not representative of every U.S. law firm. Firm size is based on employee count where available and platform user counts otherwise.
That scope matters. Treat the figures as a view of 8am's customer base, not a universal result or a target your firm should expect to achieve.
Questions to investigate in your own process
- How many hours did the team record, and how many were included on invoices?
- Where do edits, write-downs, or omissions happen between a draft entry and an invoice?
- Are client guidelines and billing increments clear before time is reviewed?
- Do short calls, emails, and task switches make it into the record consistently?
- Can the firm compare the same measures over time using its own billing data?
The right next step is a firm-specific review of your recorded time, approved entries, and invoices. These questions can help locate where to investigate; the report does not answer them for an individual practice.
Where Timekeepr fits
Timekeepr is designed to help law firms prepare time entries from on-screen text and call details (who, when, and how long; no audio). A lawyer reviews and approves every entry. It costs $47 per user per month, includes all listed integrations and setup, has no seat minimum, and is month-to-month. A two-week trial is available without a credit card; A&C Labs sends the installer and helps set up the integration.
Timekeepr does not establish that a firm will bill a greater share of recorded time. Its role is to draft entries for review. See Timekeepr for law firms, legal integrations, and request a demo.
Source
8am, SMB Law Billing and Payments Report: Fall 2026, published October 22, 2026. The report says solo firms' logged hours rose nearly 9% while the billed share slipped from 70% to 69%; large firms billed nearly 12% more hours while logging fewer overall, moving the billed share from 44% to 49%. The findings are for 8am MyCase and LawPay users and are not representative of the entire U.S. law firm market.