Time keeping

Contemporaneous time records, and receipts, must be maintained.

Contemporaneous time records should include the date the work was performed, a description of the work completed and the amount of time it took to complete the work. Time records need not be submitted to our office with your billings, but must support your time slip and be provided to ACD upon request. Attorneys must keep time records and receipts for at least three years, after submitting the invoice, to resolve questions the SPD may have about an invoice. Failure to maintain these records may result in non-payment or removal from SPD certification lists. See Wis. Admin. Code § PD 1.03(5)(e) & (f).

By submitting a time slip, an attorney is certifying that the entries are accurate.

Time slips must contain sufficient information to allow the SPD to perform its auditing and review responsibilities. The description should be detailed enough to allow the auditors to determine if the time is reimbursable.

Attorneys may bill only for the time actually spent providing professional legal services on an SPD case.

If court is conducted via audio or video conference, the wait time is not reimbursable. The expectation is that attorneys are able to perform other work while waiting for hearings.

In-court and out-of-court time must be separated on the time slip. For example: In-court time would include an evidentiary hearing. Out-of-court time would include meeting with your client before or after the court hearing.

Time records and time slip entries should be supported by work product in the client’s file. Work product may include notes, correspondence, phone message slips, pleadings, etc.

Companion Cases

Companion cases proceed during roughly the same time frame, and belong to the same case type group (see table below). Generally, SPD policy calls for an attorney to bill their time and expenses for all companion cases on one invoice and submit invoices for $0 for the other cases.

An exception to this policy is when an attorney is appointed to companion cases during periods when the hourly rate is different. If you are representing a client on companion cases, but those cases were appointed when the hourly rate was different, the time and expenses for those cases should be tracked separately and reported to the SPD separately to the best of your ability on more than one invoice. If companion cases that were appointed when the hourly rate was different are combined on one invoice, the attorney invoice will be returned for corrections.

SPD File #: 21P-13-F-S0#### (The letter in the middle, in this case F, is the case type code)

Case type groups are as follows: