The Saturday Morning Problem: Solving Time Entry Chaos with AI

The (not so) Hidden Cost of OCG Compliance

It’s the same every weekend. A partner wakes up early on a Saturday, tiptoes downstairs, and opens their laptop. Waiting for them is a pile of time entries to review across multiple clients, each with its own Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs). It takes hours—yet one in three invoices will still be rejected.

And here’s the catch: none of that work is billable.

This is the Saturday Morning Problem—a recurring cycle where people who should be focused on high-value, billable work spend hours manually fixing time entries just to get paid for work already done.

The longer this continues, the worse it gets:

• Non-billable hours pile up

• Burnout rises

• Revenue slips away

It’s a hidden cost that erodes both firm profitability and partner satisfaction.

The Anatomy of the Saturday Morning Problem

1. Time entries are submitted

Attorneys log their hours. The narrative may be light; phrasing may be off—but it’s entered.

2. Invoices are generated and sent to clients

Client-side OCG-compliance tools scan for violations—banned words, block billing, vague descriptions—and reject non-compliant lines.

3. The invoice gets sent back

The firm now has two choices:

• Fix the flagged entries—manually rewrite, resubmit, and wait.

• Or write off the flagged amount and move on.

Neither option is ideal. If partners invest their time fixing entries, they’re spending non-billable hours on admin. If they ignore it, they risk payment delays or write-offs.

That’s the dilemma.

• Unpaid admin work.

• Or lost revenue.

And the worst part? It’s predictable. It happens every month—and firms still handle it manually.

The Impact: Burnout, Bottlenecks, and Revenue Loss

Burnout at the Top

Partners and senior associates aren’t just billers—they’re rainmakers, mentors, leaders. When compliance review falls on their shoulders, they’re stuck rewriting time entries instead of closing deals or deepening client relationships. Weekends and late nights spent on non-billable grind lead to burnout.

Bottlenecks in the Billing Cycle

When flagged entries hit a partner’s inbox, everything stalls. The invoice can’t move forward until those entries are corrected, delaying billing and cash flow. One partner’s delay can slow an entire invoice; multiply that across multiple partners and clients and the impact spreads firm-wide.

Revenue Left on the Table

Every flagged time entry is a potential write-off. If a partner doesn’t have the time—or energy—to review and rewrite, it’s easier to cut the flagged line items and move on. The result? Real revenue lost for work already done.

Traditional Fixes Don’t Work

Adding More Billing Staff

Billing teams can help catch OCG violations—but only after time entries are logged. By then it’s too late. Most corrections still fall to the partners who know the work best. More staff means more overhead, but the manual bottleneck remains.

Training Timekeepers (Again and Again)

Firms spend hours training attorneys on OCG guidelines, billing best practices, and client preferences. With hundreds of clients and thousands of guidelines, it’s impossible for every team member to get it right every time.

Relying on Time-keeping System Rules Engines

Most time-keeping software (Intapp Time, iTimekeep, etc.) has basic compliance features like keyword blockers or banned phrases. But these blunt instruments don’t understand nuance, can’t interpret different OCGs across clients, and certainly don’t rewrite entries. Errors slip through, bills get flagged, and partners still spend weekends fixing them.

How Antidote Solves the Problem Upstream

Antidote stops the Saturday Morning Problem before it starts.

Instead of waiting until invoices are drafted—or, worse, rejected—Antidote reviews every time entry within minutes. As soon as a lawyer logs their time, Antidote reads the narrative, checks it against the client’s OCGs, and flags any issues right then and there.

Real-Time Compliance, Built Into Your Workflow

• Block billing? Antidote catches it.

• Prohibited phrasing? Flagged instantly.

• Missing detail? Antidote highlights it before the entry is saved.

This happens alongside your existing timekeeping system—no need to replace your stack or change how lawyers log time.

Suggested Rewrites—Ready to Go

Antidote doesn’t just flag problems; it suggests rewrites aligned with each client’s specific OCGs.

• Original entry: “Call with client, reviewed contract, internal meeting.”

• Antidote rewrite: “Consulted with client on contract terms; analyzed contract provisions for client deliverables.”

Lawyers can accept, edit, or override these suggestions—but the heavy lifting is done. No need for partners to spend hours rewriting entries after the fact.

No More Billing Bottlenecks

By the time a pre-bill is generated, compliance review is already complete. Partners aren’t stuck fixing time entries, billing cycles move faster, and cash flow improves.

Manual fixes waste time. Write-offs waste money. Antidote solves both—before the damage is done.

Give Partners Their Saturdays Back

Partners aren’t paid to rewrite time entries, but that’s exactly what they’re doing—late nights, weekends, over coffee on a Saturday. Antidote stops that:

• No more unpaid admin

• No more weekends lost to billing compliance

• More time for billable work—or no work at all

Less stress. Faster payments. More revenue recovered.

Burnout drops. Talent stays. Cash flows.

Conclusion

The Saturday Morning Problem? Solved.

Antidote automates compliance at the source—so invoices go out clean, fast, and in full.

Give your partners their weekends back. Protect your revenue.

See Antidote in action—book a demo today.