Glossary
Write-down risk
The risk that a billed amount will be reduced or eliminated — proactively before invoicing or in response to client objection — because an entry is vague, duplicative, or hard to justify.
Definition
What is write-down risk?
Write-down risk is the risk that a firm will reduce or eliminate a billed amount — either proactively before sending an invoice or in response to client objection after. Write-downs occur when an entry is vague, duplicative, excessive, or difficult to justify to the client. They directly reduce realization: the percentage of billed time that is actually collected.
Why it matters
Why write-down risk matters for firm profitability
Write-downs represent lost revenue on work already performed. Unlike unbilled time — where the lawyer simply did not capture it — a write-down means the work was captured but the entry could not be defended at invoice review. The firm delivered value that the client either would not accept or the firm itself chose not to bill in full.
Write-down risk is influenced directly by the quality and specificity of time entries. Entries with clear, complete billing narratives are less likely to be reduced — there is a substantive record of what was done and why it was billable. Entries that are vague, thin, or reconstructed from memory are more likely to be challenged, questioned, or proactively cut before the invoice is sent.
This is why billing capture timing matters at the firm level, not just at the individual lawyer level. Consistent entry quality across timekeepers reduces the firm's aggregate write-down exposure.
CaseClock
How CaseClock reduces the conditions that create write-down risk
Better capture timing and stronger billing narratives reduce the underlying conditions that create write-down risk. Voice-first capture in the moment produces more specific and defensible entries than end-of-day reconstruction — because the detail was present at capture and preserved in the draft. Nothing is inferred or estimated after the fact.