MIRA vs. MiTimes: Beyond Automated Time Capture

Legal timekeeping has historically asked attorneys to do something they don't want to do: remember, reconstruct, categorize, and describe everything they worked on.

Automated timekeeping changed that equation.

MiTimes describes its approach as “hands off timekeeping,” using integrations with email, phone, practice-management systems, and document-management systems to capture activities and pre-populate timesheets.

MIRA takes this concept further.

MIRA combines activity capture with AI, desktop and browser intelligence, matter matching, billing narrative generation, billing compliance, and legal-system integrations to help transform work activity into billing-ready time.

The difference isn't simply capturing more activity.

It's understanding what happened well enough to produce accurate, usable time entries with less attorney effort.

1. More Complete Capture Through Multi-Source Intelligence

APIs are valuable sources of activity data, but an API doesn't always tell the complete story of what an attorney was actually doing.

MiTimes publicly describes integrations that capture activities including emails, phone calls, appointments, and document drafting. Its NetDocuments functionality can also track document-related activity such as document check-outs. [mitimes.com]

MIRA goes further by combining integration-based data with desktop and browser activity capture.

MIRA can bring together signals from:

• Microsoft Outlook

• Microsoft Teams

• calendars

• iManage

• NetDocuments

• browser activity

• desktop applications

• financial and practice-management systems

Instead of treating each signal as an isolated event, MIRA can cross-reference activity across multiple sources.

An Outlook message may indicate client correspondence. A document event may identify the file involved. Desktop activity may provide additional context about the actual work performed. Browser activity may identify related research.

Combined, these signals can create a much richer picture of the attorney's working day.

Multi-Source Activity Intelligence

This approach helps MIRA improve:

• activity detection

• matter identification

• duration accuracy

• work reconstruction

• AI-generated narratives

MIRA doesn't just capture activity. It cross-references activity across the desktop, browser and connected legal systems to reconstruct billable work more accurately.

2. Two Workflows for Different Practices and Working Behaviors

One of the biggest challenges with firm-wide timekeeping technology is that lawyers don't all work the same way.

Different practice groups can also have very different timekeeping requirements.

MIRA addresses this through two distinct workflows:

Controlled Workflow

The Controlled Workflow is designed for attorneys and practices that want greater visibility and control over the timekeeping process.

MIRA captures and organizes activity while giving users the opportunity to review and control their time before it progresses through the billing workflow.

This model is well suited to practices where attorneys want more involvement in reviewing matters, activities, narratives, or time before submission.

Simplified Automated Workflow

The Simplified Automated Workflow minimizes attorney interaction.

MIRA uses captured activity, matter intelligence, and AI to automate more of the process, allowing attorneys to spend less time managing individual timekeeping activities.

Instead of requiring every lawyer to repeatedly reconstruct and administer their day, MIRA handles more of the process automatically.

One Firm Doesn't Have to Choose One Behavior

This is the important difference.

A firm can have attorneys who want detailed control and others who want timekeeping to be as automated and frictionless as possible.

MIRA can accommodate both.

One intelligent timekeeping platform. Two workflows. Different practices. Different working behaviors.

3. From Raw Activity to Billing-Ready Time

Capturing an email, meeting, or document event is only the first step.

The harder questions come afterward:

Which client?

Which matter?

How much time?

What work was actually performed?

What should the billing narrative say?

Does it comply with the client's billing requirements?

MIRA uses AI and contextual information to help turn captured activity into a more complete time entry.

That includes:

• matter matching

• activity grouping

• duration determination

• AI-generated billing narratives

• task and activity coding

• billing compliance

Instead of simply presenting attorneys with a list of activities to process, the objective is to produce something much closer to a billing-ready entry.

4. MIRA Works Where Lawyers Already Work

Successful timekeeping automation isn't only about technology.

It is about reducing behavioral change.

MIRA is designed around the applications attorneys already use every day, including Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Teams.

That allows intelligent timekeeping to become part of the attorney's existing working environment instead of requiring another application to constantly monitor.

For Microsoft 365-centric law firms, that's an important distinction.

The best timekeeping system isn't another destination. It's intelligence embedded into the way lawyers already work.

5. Built for iManage and NetDocuments

Document activity is particularly important in legal work.

That's why MIRA integrates with both iManage and NetDocuments, bringing DMS activity into its broader understanding of an attorney's work.

MiTimes also supports NetDocuments, including document activity tracking and automatic filing of certain emails associated with timesheets. [mitimes.com]

With MIRA, however, document activity can become one of several signals.

Rather than relying on a document event by itself, MIRA can correlate that activity with desktop, browser, email, calendar, matter, and other contextual information.

The result is not simply document tracking. It's another source of evidence for understanding billable work.

6. Designed Around the Firm's Existing Financial Ecosystem

Firms shouldn't have to replace their established financial platform simply to modernize timekeeping.

MIRA is designed as an intelligent timekeeping layer that connects the applications where lawyers perform their work with the systems where their time ultimately goes.

This includes connectivity with major legal financial and practice-management environments such as:

• Aderant

• Elite

• MATTEROOM

• Clio

• MyCase

• Juris

That creates a straightforward modernization strategy:

Keep the systems your firm depends on. Modernize the timekeeping experience around them.

7. Billing Compliance Begins When the Time Is Created

Recovering missed time solves only part of the profitability problem.

A captured time entry isn't useful if it later requires substantial cleanup or doesn't comply with the client's billing requirements.

MIRA brings intelligence into this stage as well.

Its AI-powered billing compliance capabilities are designed to help apply billing requirements and outside counsel guidelines earlier in the process.

That creates a more intelligent workflow:

Work performed → Activity captured → Matter identified → Narrative generated → Compliance applied → Billing-ready time

The objective is to get the entry right before it reaches the bill.

8. Zero Professional Services Required

Sophisticated timekeeping technology shouldn't require a sophisticated implementation project.

MIRA is designed for zero professional services for standard deployment.

Supported integrations are built into the platform instead of requiring the firm to commission separate integration development.

And automation doesn't stop once the software has been configured.

MIRA incorporates pre-deployment and post-deployment training into the system, helping firms prepare users for rollout and continue adoption after deployment.

The implementation experience becomes:

Connect. Configure. Deploy. Adopt.

Less outside consulting.

Less custom integration work.

Less burden on internal IT.

Less manual coordination around training and adoption.

For firms evaluating total cost of ownership, this matters just as much as the software's feature list.

MIRA vs. MiTimes at a Glance

Capability	MiTimes	MIRA
Automated activity capture	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
Controlled Workflow	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Simplified Automated Workflow	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Dual workflow model	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Email & calendar capture	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
Microsoft Teams activity	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
Desktop activity capture	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Browser activity capture	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Multi-source activity cross-referencing	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Matter matching	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓ AI-assisted
AI-generated billing narratives	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Microsoft Teams user experience	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Native Outlook workflow	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Delegated timekeeping	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
iManage integration	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
NetDocuments integration	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
Financial-system integration	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
Aderant / Elite integration	🟢 ✓	🟢 ✓
OCG / billing compliance intelligence	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓ AI-powered
Built-in integrations	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Zero professional services required	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Automated pre-deployment training	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓
Automated post-deployment training	🔴 ✕	🟢 ✓

MiTimes' published materials confirm automated activity capture and integrations across email, phone, practice-management, and document-management systems, including NetDocuments.

The Real Difference: From Time Capture to Timekeeping Intelligence

MiTimes and MIRA start with the same fundamental observation:

Lawyers shouldn't have to reconstruct their day manually.

Where MIRA goes further is in what happens next.

MIRA doesn't simply collect events from connected systems. It is designed to cross-reference multiple activity signals, understand context, identify matters, construct billing narratives, apply billing requirements, and deliver better time into the firm's financial ecosystem.

And MIRA recognizes that automation isn't one-size-fits-all.

For practices that want greater control:

Controlled Workflow

For practices that want maximum automation:

Simplified Automated Workflow

Both run on the same intelligent platform.

Combined with desktop and browser capture, Microsoft 365 integration, iManage and NetDocuments connectivity, AI-generated narratives, billing compliance, built-in integrations, automated training, and zero professional services for standard deployment, MIRA represents a different approach to legal timekeeping.

MIRA: More signals. Better context. More accurate time.

One intelligent timekeeping platform for different practices, different lawyers, and different ways of working.

What changed

I replaced the previous passive/contemporaneous framing throughout with the correct Controlled Workflow and Simplified Automated Workflow terminology. I also positioned the distinction around control versus automation, which better communicates why a firm would want both workflows rather than presenting them simply as two methods of recording time.