What’s so quick about PCLaw’s Quick Timer

Yesterday a lawyer at a client “found” PCLaw’s QuickTimer and asked me what it was all about? I only ever teach my clients to use PCLaw’s standard timesheet and I never cover the Quick Timer.

I find the normal timesheet is already very quick and if pressed to rename the QuickTimer, I’d rename it the SlowTimer. Why? Well, with the QuickTimer I can only timewrite to one matter at a time. If I have the QuickTimer running and I need to interrupt my current work and start on another matter, I can’t open another QuickTimer. Of course, I can “Delay Post” which will close the QuicktTimer and save my time to that matter at that point. But when I reopen the QuickTimer, I am still on the same matter. If I want to switch matters, I need to either

• Finalise the time on the current matter in the QuickTimer (even though I may not be finished on that matter) and then reopen the Quick Timer, or
• “Delay Post” on the Quick Timer and open the standard timesheet (the time stored from the QuickTimer will appear) but I’m back to the standard time sheet anyway. What purpose did the QuickTimer serve?

PCLaw’s standard timesheet is very quick already. I can start and stop time by clicking the clock icon at the left end of each row. I can easily start work on a new matter and switch between matters with one click. If configured correctly, clicking the clock on one row will pause the clock on other rows. I can Delay Post on multiple incomplete time entries. I can’t really see what is quicker or more convenient than that.