Appointed Counsel Vol. 2 - Contemporaneous Time Records

What is a contemporaneous time record and why is it important? According to Rule 13 6(a)(6), attorneys are held to a high degree of care in the keeping of time records supporting claims. In this episode, host Joe Byrd answers questions about the importance of timely recording as appointed counsel in Tennessee. This podcast is primarily for attorneys.

Produced by David Stripling, Administrative Office of the Courts

Transcript

00;00;02;09 - 00;00;30;27
Joe Byrd, Host
Welcome to Appointed Counsel. A podcast presented by Tennessee Court Talk. For those involved in indigent representation. I'm Joe Byrd, lead attorney for the indigent services team of the Tennessee Administrative Office of the courts. Today's episode contemporaneous time records Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 13 governs all claims made by attorneys. Supreme Court Rule 42 governs the claims made by interpreters in rule 13, section 66.

00;00;30;28 - 00;00;51;29
Joe Byrd, Host
It states that attorneys are going to be held to a high degree of care and keeping of contemporaneous time records that support their claim. What do we mean by a contemporaneous time record, and how does it support our claims? Now, when you hear the word contemporaneous, literally, if you look it up in a dictionary definition will be something about happening at the same time.

00;00;52;01 - 00;01;19;06
Joe Byrd, Host
Is that what we mean by contemporaneous time record? Why is it important? How does it impact the activities that we enter into the attorney claims in a cap, or the interpreter claims that are entered into a cap? Now, keeping contemporaneous time records or keeping time records altogether might be foreign to some attorneys, who typically bill flat rates. However, rule 13 is premised on an hourly rate system, and it requires careful keeping of time records.

00;01;19;09 - 00;01;42;17
Joe Byrd, Host
Now, obviously, this can become a great difficulty if you're in General Sessions Court on a very busy docket day, and you're moving back and forth between assistant district attorneys to your clients and to the judge. If you can barely jot down some notes that often will become the primary record, and you will eventually have to transfer that record to some sort of time management system in the next day or so.

00;01;42;17 - 00;02;17;27
Joe Byrd, Host
When you get back to the office, that would sufficiently describe contemporaneous. However, some attorneys want to enter their time directly into a cap and keep their entries in a cap as their time management system warning to you. That is fraught with peril, because if you do not have supporting documentation of time records to support your claim in a cap, the cap claim cannot be supported when an attorney cannot support his or her claim with contemporaneous time records such as supporting documents, or cannot provide a sufficient description, or, as the rule calls it, specificity.

00;02;17;27 - 00;02;44;02
Joe Byrd, Host
In their claim, the EEOC may be required to deny that claim. So often the audit staff will request additional orders or, in the case of an over claim audit, may require the attorney to provide the time records and an affidavit stating that the hours claimed were actually worked. The EEOC is required by the Comptroller's office and statute, to some extent to enforce its rules that process is done by the Indigent Services team reviewing these claims for compliance.

00;02;44;07 - 00;03;07;11
Joe Byrd, Host
So what are we looking for? Well, an attorney claim has to have two elements to it that are important as it relates to contemporaneous time records. First, it has to have a sufficient specificity in the claim. Sufficient specificity means that you give an adequate description of the activity. It's difficult for us to give you a clear definition. It's easier to show.

00;03;07;13 - 00;03;45;01
Joe Byrd, Host
So we have put on the website on our page tncourts.gov. Some examples of what we think are entries that provide sufficient specificity. The second element are supporting documents. Supporting documents can be receipts for your expenses, or can be orders that provide the dates on which things occurred. Oftentimes, auditors will request more information. This information is sometimes needed to determine if a claim is timely, or, in the case of a complex case, that the order certifying the case as complex or extended was actually signed contemporaneously with the court's approval of the claim, as required under the rule.

00;03;45;01 - 00;04;05;09
Joe Byrd, Host
Section 2 E1. In the case of over claim audits, it's a closer look. Whenever there's a claim in which the attorney is saying that they worked more than eight hours in court or 12 hours total in a day. If the claim is under a certain threshold, only a sworn statement from the attorney will be necessary, stating that they did work.

00;04;05;11 - 00;04;28;22
Joe Byrd, Host
The amount of time that they claimed, if the amount claimed, is over that threshold, supporting documentation will be required, such as time records. One final point black billing. At least that's what we call it internally. Time must be kept within tenths of hours if there's ever activities which are less than point one hour, they must be aggregated to the point one hour.

00;04;28;24 - 00;04;49;02
Joe Byrd, Host
This is similar to what happens in the federal system. Black billing for our purposes, is whenever an attorney puts down a quarter or a half or a full hour, the time must be put in tenths of an hour. And that's what we look for. We want to remind you that we have given you some examples and posted them on the website in T and courts.gov.

00;04;49;09 - 00;04;57;19
Joe Byrd, Host
We urge you to take a look so that you can get a good idea of what is contemporaneous time records. From our view here at the AOC.