Time in phase: the simplest number your firm is not tracking

Ask most firm owners how their cases are doing and you will get a feeling, not a number. Some files are moving, a few are stuck, and the stuck ones tend to be the ones the attorney remembers. Time in phase replaces that feeling with something you can measure.

What it measures

Time in phase is the number of days a case spends in each stage of its life: intake, treatment, records and bills, demand, negotiation, settlement, and disbursement. Your case management system already records when a case changes phase. Subtract one date from the next and you have it.

Why it matters

Totals hide problems. A firm can close a healthy number of cases each month while dozens of files quietly age in records collection. Time in phase shows exactly where the work slows down, which is where the next hour of effort will pay off most.

The phase where cases sit the longest is usually where the next fix belongs

How to start

• Pull every case that changed phase in the last six months.
• Calculate the days spent in each phase.
• Use the median, not the average, so one unusual file does not skew the picture.
• Sort phases from slowest to fastest and look hard at the top two.

In Filevine, phase change dates live in each project’s history, and a report can collect them across the whole firm. Once the report exists, reviewing it takes a few minutes a month.

What to do with it

Pick one slow phase and ask three questions. Who owns this step? What is the case waiting on? What would have to be true for it to move in half the time? The answers usually point to a missing owner, a missing reminder, or a request that goes out too late.