How LexUnits Works: A Step-by-Step Guide for New Users

April 2026 · 12 min read

LexUnits is an AI-powered legal billing platform that converts meeting recordings, transcripts, emails, and documents into professional billing entries formatted in 6-minute units — the standard billing increment used by Australian and New Zealand law firms. Rather than replacing your practice management system, LexUnits handles the "last mile" of billing: turning raw work product into structured time entries that you review, edit, and then export to Actionstep, LEAP, Clio, Smokeball, or push directly to Clio via API.

According to the Clio Legal Trends Report, lawyers spend an average of 6 hours per week on billing administration. LexUnits reduces that to minutes by automating the most time-consuming part — writing the billing descriptions and calculating the time units. This guide walks through every feature so you can start generating billing entries from your first login.

Getting Started: Signup and Free Trial

LexUnits offers 10 free lifetime credits with no credit card required. Visit lexunits.com and click "Start Free Trial" or "Sign In." You can sign up with an email address and password or use Google OAuth for one-click registration.

Once signed in, you will see the main interface with three billing input tabs at the top: Record & Bill (audio/video upload), Summary to Bill (paste transcript), and Docs & Emails to Bill (document upload). Below these tabs, you will find quick access cards for popular AI tools: Meeting Minutes, Contract Review, Document Summary, and Draft Legal Letter.

Your credit balance is displayed in the top navigation. Each credit corresponds to one AI operation — one file upload, one document analysis, or one tool use. Polish operations are always free.

Core Feature 1: Audio and Video to Billing

The Record & Bill tab is the flagship feature. It converts meeting recordings into structured billing entries in two steps: transcription (powered by Google Gemini) and billing generation (powered by Claude AI).

How to use it: Click the Record & Bill tab, then drag and drop or browse for your audio or video file. Supported formats include MP3, MP4, WAV, M4A, WebM, and most common recording formats. Files up to 20MB are accepted. Click "Generate Billing Entries" and wait approximately 60–90 seconds for transcription and billing generation.

The AI generates a set of billing entries, each containing a professional billing description written in Australian legal billing conventions (e.g., "Attending upon client to discuss…"), time recorded in 6-minute units, a confidence score (high, medium, or low), and classification as either an attendance entry or a follow-up work entry.

Session Context: Before generating, you can fill in the Session Context panel above the Generate button. This includes matter number (e.g., "MAT-2024-0532"), date of the meeting, timekeeper name (which auto-applies the correct billing rate), and client name. When filled in, these details are injected into the AI prompt and appear in every generated entry, saving you from manually editing each one.

Multi-language support: The transcription engine handles mixed-language audio, including Mandarin/English bilingual conferences — common in Australian immigration and commercial practices serving Chinese-speaking clients.

Core Feature 2: Paste Transcript to Billing

The Summary to Bill tab is for situations where you already have a text record — meeting notes, a Teams/Zoom transcript, or dictated notes — and want to convert it into structured billing entries.

How to use it: Click the Summary to Bill tab, paste your text into the input area, optionally fill in the Session Context (matter, date, timekeeper, client), and click Generate. The AI processes the text and generates billing entries in the same format as the audio workflow. Cost: 1 credit.

This is particularly useful for lawyers who take handwritten notes during meetings and type them up afterward, or who receive automated transcripts from Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other conferencing platforms. The AI transforms unstructured notes into professional billing descriptions with correct time allocations.

Core Feature 3: Documents and Emails to Billing

The Docs & Emails to Bill tab processes uploaded documents — contracts, letters, emails, affidavits, expert reports — and generates billing entries for the work of reviewing them.

How to use it: Click the tab, then drag and drop one or more files. Supported formats include PDF, DOCX, XLSX, and TXT. Each file uses 1 credit. The AI reads the document content and generates entries such as "Perusing and considering correspondence from [party] dated [date] regarding [topic]" or "Reviewing affidavit of [name] sworn [date] comprising [X] pages."

Multi-file support: You can upload multiple documents at once — for example, an entire set of discovery documents or a batch of client emails. Credits are deducted per file, not per request, so uploading five documents uses 5 credits but generates billing entries for all five in a single operation.

Reviewing and Editing Entries

After generation, all billing entries appear in a results panel. Each entry is editable — you can click on any field to modify the description, time units, date, matter number, or rate. The interface is designed for rapid review: scan the entries, adjust anything that needs correction, and move to export.

Confidence scoring: Each entry has a coloured confidence indicator — green (high), amber (medium), or red (low). High-confidence entries are generated from clear, unambiguous source material. Low-confidence entries may involve interpretation or estimation, such as when the recording is unclear or the document references are ambiguous.

Thorough vs Conservative mode: The toggle at the top of the results panel lets you switch between Thorough (shows all entries including medium and low confidence) and Conservative (hides medium and low confidence entries). This is a front-end filter only — no additional API call or credit charge. Use Conservative mode for a quick, high-reliability export; use Thorough mode to review every potential entry and decide which to keep.

AI Polish: Click the sparkle icon (✨) on any individual entry to polish the billing description — improving the language, expanding abbreviations, and ensuring compliance with Australian billing conventions. Polish is always free, no credit deduction. You can also click "Polish All" to batch-polish every entry at once.

Exporting to Your Practice Management System

Once entries are reviewed and polished, you have two export paths.

XLSX Export: Click the Export button and select your PMS platform — Actionstep, LEAP, Clio, Smokeball, or Generic. LexUnits generates an Excel file formatted specifically for your platform's import template, with the correct column headers, date formats, and field mappings. Download the file and import it into your PMS using the standard bulk import function. For detailed import instructions, see our PMS import guide.

Push to Clio (Direct API): If you use Clio, you can push entries directly from LexUnits to your Clio account with one click. First, connect your Clio account via the sidebar (Settings → Connect Clio → Authorize). Once connected, the green "Push to Clio" button appears next to the Export button. Click it, and entries are sent to Clio as activities with the correct matter assignment, time quantity (in seconds), and rate. For setup details, see our Clio integration guide.

AI Legal Tools

Beyond billing, LexUnits includes a suite of AI legal tools accessible from the sidebar. Each tool uses 1 credit unless otherwise noted.

Meeting Minutes: Upload a recording or paste a transcript to generate structured meeting minutes with attendees, agenda items, discussion summaries, action items, and deadlines. Transcription costs 1 credit; generating minutes from an existing transcript is free.

Contract Review: Upload a contract (PDF or DOCX) for AI analysis. The tool identifies key terms, risk areas, unusual clauses, and missing provisions, with references to relevant Australian and New Zealand legislation including the Australian Consumer Law and NZ Consumer Guarantees Act.

Document Summary: Upload any document to receive a structured summary — useful for quickly digesting expert reports, lengthy affidavits, or discovery documents before a detailed review.

Draft Legal Letter: Generate professional legal correspondence including without prejudice offers, section 62 notices, and cease and desist letters. Input the key facts and the AI drafts a letter in proper Australian legal format.

Witness Statement Drafter: Create affidavits, witness statements, or statutory declarations from text instructions, uploaded documents, or audio recordings. The tool formats output according to court rules for your jurisdiction (Australian or New Zealand).

Research Memo: Generate legal research memoranda on specific questions, with references to Australian or New Zealand case law via AustLII or NZLII integration.

Precedent Generation: Create legal document templates across 10 categories — from contracts to trust deeds — customised for Australian legal conventions.

Case Law Search and Legislation Lookup: Search Australian and New Zealand case law and legislation databases directly from LexUnits, with links to AustLII and NZLII.

Billing Organiser

The Billing Organiser (accessible from the sidebar) is for lawyers who already have pre-written billing records in documents — perhaps from a secondment timesheet, a clerk's notes, or a legacy system export — and need to parse them into structured entries.

Upload a DOCX, PDF, or TXT file containing billing records, and the AI parses the content into individual entries with matter references, descriptions, and time units. The tool handles chunking by matter boundaries, deduplication of repeated entries, and JSON salvage for truncated responses. Cost: 1 credit per file.

Plans and Pricing

LexUnits offers three subscription tiers, all including access to every feature. The tiers differ only by credit allocation.

Starter — A$19/month: 50 credits per month. Suitable for sole practitioners handling a moderate volume of billing.

Pro — A$29/month (Best Value): 150 credits per month, plus priority support. Suitable for busy sole practitioners and small firms.

Premium — A$49/month: 400 credits per month, plus priority support and early access to new features. Suitable for firms with multiple fee earners or high document volumes.

Credits reset monthly with your billing cycle. All plans include all features — there are no feature gates or premium-only tools.

How many credits does each LexUnits feature use?

Audio/video uploads use 1 credit per file for transcription. Document and email uploads use 1 credit per file. Paste transcript uses 1 credit per generation. AI Polish is free with no credit charge. Meeting Minutes generation from an existing transcript is free. All AI legal tools (contract review, document summary, research memo, witness statements, etc.) use 1 credit each. Free accounts start with 10 lifetime credits.

Does LexUnits store my files or client data?

No. LexUnits does not permanently store uploaded files. Audio recordings, documents, and emails are held in temporary storage only during processing and are automatically deleted within minutes. Client data is never used for AI model training. All transmissions are encrypted.

Can I push billing entries directly to my practice management system?

LexUnits currently supports direct API integration with Clio — you can push entries to Clio with one click. For Actionstep, LEAP, and Smokeball, LexUnits generates platform-specific XLSX export files formatted for each system's import template. An Actionstep API integration is in development.

Last verified: April 2026.