Stop 8 of 8 · Weekly
Billing and Elena's week
Time entries into narratives a client will pay without calling, two routines that bookend the week, and one matter run end to end.
The invoice that generates a phone call
Elena's write offs are almost never about hours. They are about six words. Attention to lease matters, 2.4. The client cannot picture it, so they ring, and the conversation costs more than the entry was worth.
The fix is that Claude has already seen the work. The lease, the issues list, the email to the landlord's counsel and the client note are all in the chat from stop 4. Handed the time entries as well, it can write what actually happened on Tuesday.
Attached is my time export for this week, and the documents and mail behind it. Rewrite each narrative so it names the document or deliverable, what was done to it, and what changed as a result. One sentence, past tense, no adjectives, no reference to how long anything took. Use matter numbers, not client names. Where an entry has nothing behind it that I can point at, leave it alone and mark it for me to write myself. [upload the time export]
Read these narratives as the client's finance manager who has never met me. For each one, say whether you could tell what was produced, and flag any that read as an activity rather than a result. Do not rewrite them, just tell me which ones I would get a call about.
Two routines that bookend the week
Stop 6 put the daily deadline pass at half past seven. Two more, one at each end of the week, and the practice mostly runs itself.
Read my Outlook calendar, my matter deadline calendar and my Clio export in OneDrive. One page: everything due this week by date with the source named on each row, every matter with a deadline this week and no time recorded in the last fourteen days, and every client I have not written to in 21 days. Matter numbers only. Send nothing and reply to nothing.
From my Clio export in OneDrive, list every matter with unbilled time this week: matter number, hours, last invoice date, and the current narrative for each entry group. Flag every narrative that names no document or deliverable. End with total unbilled hours and the three matters I should invoice first. Draft nothing and send nothing.
The backfill you delegate once
Elena's clause library covers six topics. Eleven contracts she negotiated well are sitting in OneDrive with nothing pulled out of them. That is a Cowork task, not a chat: hand over the folder, get the finished comparison back.
In my Negotiated contracts folder in OneDrive, read all eleven files. For each of the six clause topics in my library Project, build one table comparing my current library language against every negotiated version you find, with the file and section for each. Then a summary listing the eight places where a negotiated version is stronger for my client than my library. Redact any name you find. Change nothing and send nothing.