In a new feature at Legal Geek, we’re profiling the geekiest legals we know in a weekly column: the Legal Geek of the Week. First up is Utrecht-based Clocktimizer.
What stands out about Clocktimizer above all else – what makes them our inaugural Legal Geek of the Week – is how simple everything is for the end user.
Simplicity is the driving force behind Clocktimizer, a 2013 start-up fronted by 35-year-old CEO and co-founder Pieter van der Hoeven which has grown to be a team of seven with between 20-30 clients on their books.
Clocktimizer’s concept is imminently simple: intelligent time-keeping and time-planning technology designed for the legal sector. This enables lawyers to generate time reports at the drop of a hat from both historical and current data whilst also enhancing the accuracy of fee quotes and helping to identify a firm’s most profitable practice areas.
The integration of their technology is also straight forward and can be easily operated alongside a firm’s existing IT systems. Furthermore, it’s natural language processing AI means there is no lengthy onboarding process for staff as Clocktimizer categorises time cards according to the existing narratives provided by lawyers. So even dyed-in-the-wool types can benefit from Clocktimizer technology without changing their time-keeping habits.
Not convinced? How about a free demo? There are currently online demos available on the hour, every hour from Monday to Friday via the company website – another example of Clocktimizer’s simple, and client-led, approach.
“We created Clocktimizer to meet the changing demand from legal clients around fees, transparency and accountability,” says Van der Hoeven.
“Most time-tracking systems at law firms can’t deliver accurate breakdowns of a lawyer’s time – yet lawyers take meticulous time-keeping records. Through our algorithms, Clocktimizer can read through a lawyer’s time keeping records to deliver an accurate account of how time is spent.”
Clocktimizer’s emergence owes a lot to the support and recognition it has received from the law community in The Netherlands and internationally.
Van der Hoeven reserves special credit for his former employer DLA Piper (who he worked for in M&A for 6 years), Clifford Chance’s Amsterdam office as well as Hogan Lovells.
Recognition meanwhile has come from high-ranking opinion formers such as Forbes, who in 2015 named Clocktimizer as one of four disruptors that could make it big in legal services; and that same year Clocktimizer scooped the Legal Tech Start-up Award 2015 at the annual PLEIT conference.
Success such as this is why Clocktimizer was able to raise a total of of €300,000 investment capital across two funding campaigns in 2015 and 2016.
Their upwards trajectory shows no sign of dipping either with Van der Hoeven, and his co-founder Bram Fokke, constantly looking for ways to make their algorithms “smarter”.
As Van der Hoeven says himself “anyone who says their software is finished is about to be surpassed. Software is never finished.” For their dedication to keeping things simple and for the company’s rapid rise so far, Clocktimizer is our Geek of the Week.
