Legal Eagle Practice Companion

§ 02

Three things that go missing every week

Not because you are careless. Because the moment they happen, you are standing up, holding a file, and talking to someone.

01

The corridor call

0.3 on the courthouse steps

You took the call in the corridor, dealt with it in eighteen minutes, and by the time you were back at the office it was gone. The quick-entry bar sits at the bottom of every screen: date, project, hours, description.

02

The honest correction

The timer that ran through lunch

Four hours and ten minutes against a matter you touched for forty. Legal Eagle notices when you leave the desk and asks whether that idle stretch was really worked — before it becomes a number you would have to defend.

03

The date with no paper

The deadline the judge said out loud

No order yet, no email, just a date and a courtroom full of people who heard it. Enter it as a deadline with a lead time and it shows on the month calendar in red, and in a desktop notification when it gets close — if this machine is awake and you are signed in.

§ 03 The argument the whole product rests on.

It sits next to your firm's system. It does not replace it.

The job description, not a gap

Firm systems tend to be rigid, desk-bound and slow to open. That is exactly why the small things never make it in. Legal Eagle is where you catch them — the time, the date, the parking receipt — and then reconcile into the official system when you are back at your desk.

Time exports come out in the shape that system expects: Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther, or a plain layout almost anything will read. The full list of what it doesn't do →

The reports screen showing a monthly billing trend chart above export options for Clio, MyCase, PracticePanther and a plain CSV layout. — **Fig. 02 — Reports & exports** Out in the shape the official system expects.

§ 04

Capture

Get it down in the ten seconds you actually have

Everything here exists because time recorded later is time recorded wrong, or not at all.

Quick-entry bar on every screen — date, project, hours, description. New Client, Matter, Project, Expense and Time Entry are reachable from whichever tab you happen to be on.
A live timer that pauses and resumes without losing the count. Log it to an entry when you are ready; it clears only when you say so.
An idle check, so a timer left running through lunch does not quietly become a billed hour.
Stock phrases for the same twenty narratives, typed once instead of every week.
Optional UTBMS task and activity codes — L110, A103 and the rest — for carriers and corporate clients that require them.
Optional rounding to 0.1, 0.25 or 0.5 of an hour. Always up.
Duplicate a repeat entry. Undo an accidental delete.
A whole day is checked, not just each entry on its own — thirty separate one-hour records against the same date is an impossible day, and it says so before the day becomes a bill.

The time entries list showing date, project, type, hours, rate, amount, UTBMS code, billing status and description for each entry. — **Fig. 03 — Time entries** Every entry, with its rate and code, and whether it has been invoiced yet.

The quick-entry bar: date, project, billable type, hours and description. — **Fig. 03 — Time entries** Every entry, with its rate and code, and whether it has been invoiced yet.

For the keys you will hit fifty times a day

New entry: Ctrl N
Duplicate: Ctrl D
Start / pause timer: Ctrl T
Find in entries: Ctrl F
Search everything: Ctrl Shift F
New invoice: Ctrl I
Save now: Ctrl S
Undo delete: Ctrl Z
Refresh: F5

§ 05 The week you have had and the week ahead, in one view.

The agenda screen listing upcoming appointments, deadlines and court dates with how many days away each is, beside a list of open tasks. — **Fig. 04 — Agenda** Everything ahead of you, and how long you have.

Your week

Hours and dates in the same picture

Hours worked on each day, with coloured dots for what is on: red for deadlines and court dates, blue for appointments, amber for tasks due.
Appointments, court dates, deadlines, reminders and events, with reminder lead times.
Task checklists per project, plus one combined list of everything still open.
Notes against any project or client.
An alert strip across the top of every screen when something is overdue or imminent.
Desktop notifications when something falls due, from an icon in the notification area that keeps watching after you close the window.
A warning when a workday has gone past with no time logged at all.

About those notifications. They are a convenience, never a docketing system. They reach this computer only, while Windows is running, you are signed in, and Legal Eagle has not been exited. Focus settings or a sleeping machine can swallow them, and no notification is guaranteed to be delivered, to arrive on time, or to be seen. Keep docketing where you keep it.

§ 06

Recall

The name is in here somewhere

One box, Ctrl Shift F, across clients, matters, projects, time entries, agenda items, tasks, notes, related parties and expenses. Notes match on their body, not just their subject, so the thing you typed six weeks ago about mediation is findable by the word mediation.

A separate conflict check searches names across everything you have recorded and can save a dated record of the search.

What a conflict check here is and isn't. It searches only the information you have entered into this application. It does not reach your firm's records or any external database. A search returning no results is not a determination that no conflict exists, and is not a legal opinion. You remain responsible for performing an adequate check.

The search window showing one query reaching a note, a matter, a related party and two projects at once. — **Fig. 05 — Search everything** One name, five kinds of record.

§ 07

Structure

The way it already works in your head

A matter is the engagement; projects are the pieces of work inside it; time books to a project. So the total rolls up the way you would explain it to the client.

Rates inherit down the chain — project rate, else client rate, else your firm default — unless you override one at a level.
An optional budget per project.
Annual and monthly billable-hour targets, with a choice about whether paid leave counts toward them.
A holiday calendar computed for any year, plus your own closure days.
Records point at each other by name, so a rename is not one edit — rename a client, matter or project and every record that mentions it follows. Delete one and it tells you first what would be left pointing at nothing.

ClientHarlow Industries
MatterHarlow v. Bregman Construction
ProjectDiscovery
Time entry3.5 hrs — review and analyse document production

Rates fall down this chain unless you stop them at a level.

The matters screen listing matters by client with project counts, hours and amounts earned, beside a detail panel for one project. — **Fig. 06 — Matters** Matters on the left; the selected project's time, tasks, notes and parties on the right.

§ 08 Where a practice quietly loses money.

The numbers

What the work was worth, against what actually went out

Your app already knows both halves. This is the screen that puts them side by side, per client.

Worked: Billable and non-billable hours, valued at their rate.
Billed: What has actually gone out on an invoice.
Uninvoiced: What is still sitting there, unbilled.
Realization: The percentage, and what an hour actually earned.

Invoices save straight to PDF, ready to attach to an email. HTML is still available if you would rather edit before sending.
Recoverable disbursements ride along onto the client's next invoice.
Billed and unbilled are tracked so the same time is never billed twice.
Business and personal expenses, kept strictly apart.
A billing trend chart, and CSV exports throughout.
An issued invoice keeps the lines it was issued with. Reprinting last month's reproduces the document you actually sent, rather than re-deriving one from today's data.

Everything on this screen is calculated from what you entered here. Check it against the official source before it goes to a client.

The Worked vs Billed report showing worked value, billed value, not-yet-invoiced value and realization percentage, broken down by client. — **Fig. 07 — Worked vs billed** The gap between worked and billed, per client.

The four headline figures: worked, billed, uninvoiced and realization. — **Fig. 07 — Worked vs billed** The gap between worked and billed, per client.

§ 09

Your firm already does some of this

So turn those parts off. Switch a module off in Settings and its tab stops appearing.

Billing

On by default

Clients, invoices, PDF output, billed and unbilled tracking. Turn it off if your firm raises all the invoices.

Expenses

On by default

Business and personal, including recoverable disbursements that appear on the client's next invoice.

Trust / IOLTA

Off by default

A second, unofficial trust ledger that drifts from the official one is worse than not keeping one at all. Where enabled, it is a personal reference copy only: not reconciled to any bank account, and it does not satisfy any trust accounting, recordkeeping or three-way reconciliation obligation. Only switch it on if you genuinely run your own trust account.

The expenses screen listing business and personal expenses by category with amounts, payment method and whether each is billable to the client. — **Fig. 08 — Expenses** Business and personal, kept strictly apart.

§ 10

Where your data actually lives

One folder on your computer. No account, no login, no subscription, no telemetry. Legal Eagle never connects to a network of its own accord, and Fortis Collective has no copy of your data. The one thing that can ever leave this folder is a diary you publish on purpose, and that is the next section.

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Legal Eagle Practice Manager\

LegalEagle_Data.json: your live data
LegalEagle_Data.json.bak: the previous save
history\LegalEagle_<date>.json: a dated snapshot each day, 14 kept
safety-<timestamp>.json: taken before any destructive change
activity.log: what the app did, so last Tuesday has an answer
crash.log: written only if something goes wrong

Saved so a crash cannot truncate it

Writes go to a temporary file and are swapped in, so an interrupted save cannot leave you with half a file. Only one copy of the app runs at a time — launch it again and the window you already have comes to the front, rather than a second copy opening and overwriting the first.

You can encrypt it

By default the file is not encrypted. Encryption is optional and off until you turn it on. When you do, lock it to your Windows account — nothing to remember, but it will not open under a different account — or set a passphrase, which travels with the file and resists someone who already has your Windows login.

A log you can read out loud

The activity log records what the app did — a save that was refused, a restore that replaced more than you expected, an import that folded two entries into one. It deliberately holds counts, outcomes, file names and durations and nothing else: no client names, no matter names, no narratives, no amounts. It sits in clear text beside a file you may have encrypted, so it is built to be safe to read out over the phone to somebody helping you.

Snapshots are not a backup

The previous save and the dated snapshots are a convenience against a bad afternoon, not against a lost laptop. Keeping backups adequate to your practice is still yours to do. Settings has Open Data Folder, Back Up Now and Restore.

A forgotten passphrase is final. It is not stored anywhere. Nobody — including us — can open your data without it. If you forget it, your records are permanently unreadable. Encrypting the data file also protects it at rest on that computer; it is not a substitute for full-disk encryption, access controls and physical security of the machine itself.

§ 11 One direction. Nothing comes back.

New in 8.3

The next month of your diary, where your phone can reach it

Legal Eagle can write an encrypted copy of the next thirty days into a folder you already sync — OneDrive, Dropbox, Drive — so something else can read it. It is off until you turn it on, and it is deliberately small.

What travels

Your diary for the next thirty days — appointments, court dates and deadlines.
Client names, phone numbers and addresses, so a hearing can dial or map from the entry.
Matters, projects and open tasks, to say what an entry belongs to.
Your rates and rounding increment, so a figure means the same thing at both ends.

What never leaves

Time entries and their narratives.
Invoices, and the next invoice number.
The trust ledger.
Expenses.
Notes, beyond what is pinned to a calendar entry.

Read this before you turn it on. A publication carries client names, phone numbers, addresses and the titles of hearings — that is enough to identify who you act for. It is encrypted, with a different key from your data file, because the thing it is guarding against is the synced folder rather than someone already sitting at your desk. It travels one way only: nothing a companion produces is ever read back into your practice.

An Android companion that reads the published diary and raises court-date reminders is in development. It is not released, and there is no iOS build yet — so today this publishes for something that is still being built.

§ 12

Before you download

Read this part before you download it

Better you read this now than find out in month three. Where it stops is as much the design as what it does — knowing the boundary is what makes it safe to use quickly.

It is not a system of record.
Not for billing, trust or client-funds accounting, conflicts checking, docketing or calendaring. Your firm's official systems and records remain authoritative.
Notifications are best-effort, and you remain responsible for every deadline.
They are delivered on this computer only, while Windows is running, you are signed in and the app has not been exited. No notification is guaranteed to be delivered, delivered on time, or seen. Do not rely on this as your only docketing system.
The conflict check sees only what you have entered here.
It does not search your firm's records or any external database. A search returning no results is not a determination that no conflict exists, and is not a legal opinion.
The trust ledger is a reference copy.
Not reconciled to any bank account, and it does not satisfy any trust accounting, recordkeeping or three-way reconciliation obligation imposed by your jurisdiction or bar.
Nothing it produces is legal, accounting or tax advice.
Invoices, reports, exports and calculations included. Review the output for accuracy before relying on it or sending it to a client.
One machine, and one direction.
It is a single-user Windows application, and the data file stays on the computer you installed it on. It can publish a read-only copy of your diary to a folder you sync, but nothing is ever read back in, there is no second desktop, and there is no Mac build.
The phone companion is not released.
An Android app that reads the published diary and raises court-date reminders is in development. There is no iOS build. Publishing works today; the thing that reads it does not exist for you to install yet.

§ 13

What you need, and the first five minutes

Requirements

Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit.
Nothing else. The .NET runtime is built into the application, so there is no framework to install first.
About 200 MB of free disk space.

Getting started

Run the installer and open Legal Eagle.
Answer three questions — your name or firm, your usual hourly rate, and your billable target for the year.
Add a client, then a matter, then a project inside it.
Log time against the project from the quick-entry bar, or start the timer.
Put your next deadline in the agenda with a lead time.

Uninstalling does not delete your data folder.

The About window showing the version, the publisher Fortis Collective, and the notice that this is not a system of record. — **Fig. 09 — About** Version 8.3, and the same caveat inside the app.

Start with tomorrow's time

Not last month's. Put tomorrow in, and see whether it is still there on Friday.

Download for Windows What it doesn't do

Version 8.3 · Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit · Entirely offline

§ 15

Questions worth asking first

Does it sync to my phone or another computer?

Not in the way that word usually means. Your practice file is single-user and stays on the machine you installed it on; there is no second desktop and no Mac build. What it can do, if you switch it on, is write an encrypted read-only copy of the next thirty days of your diary into a folder you already sync, for a companion to read. Nothing a companion does is ever read back.

The Android companion itself is still in development and there is no iOS build, so today that publishes for something you cannot yet install.

Does any of my client data leave the computer?

Only if you deliberately publish a diary. Legal Eagle never connects to a network of its own accord: there is no account, no server, no telemetry and no analytics, and nothing is ever transmitted to Fortis Collective or to anyone else. That also means we hold no copy of your data and cannot recover it for you.

If you switch on the phone companion, an encrypted copy of the next thirty days of your diary — client names, numbers, addresses and hearing titles — is written into a folder you already sync. From that point whatever your sync provider does with that folder applies to it. Your time entries, invoices, expenses and trust ledger are never included.

Is the file encrypted?

Only if you turn it on. By default your data is stored in ordinary unencrypted files on your computer. In Settings you can lock the file to your Windows account, or set a passphrase. If you choose a passphrase and forget it, the data is permanently unreadable — it is not stored anywhere and cannot be recovered.

Can my whole firm use one copy?

The licence is granted to you personally, for computers you own or control. It does not extend to a firm, an organization or other individuals unless separately agreed in writing.

Can I replace my firm's billing system with this?

No, and you should not try. It is a personal companion meant to sit alongside the formal system, which stays authoritative for billing, trust accounting, conflicts and any court deadline you rely on. What it does well is capture — and then hand that capture back in the shape your firm's system expects.

What happens to my data if I uninstall it?

Uninstalling does not delete your data folder. It stays where it is under %LOCALAPPDATA% until you remove it yourself.

Your firm's system is at your desk. The work isn't.