nQ Zebraworks 50 User Law Firm Case Study – Bloemfontein Litigation

Bloemfontein Litigation Cost Recovery at a 94% Ratio

Bloemfontein litigation cost recovery reached a 94% average ratio at this Free State practice within months of going live. The firm was founded in Bloemfontein in 1930, employs more than 50 people including a 12-person litigation team, and implemented nQ ZebraWorks in August 2025. Recovery has risen from R660,000 at implementation to R800,000 in FY2026.

Why litigation is the hardest practice area to recover properly

Litigation generates more recoverable output per matter than almost any other discipline, and it generates it in the least predictable pattern. A trial bundle can run to thousands of pages assembled over a few days, discovery produces repeated reproduction of the same documents in different configurations, and the timing is dictated by the court roll rather than by the firm.

That combination defeats manual capture in a specific way. The problem is not that anyone forgets in normal conditions. It is that litigation output peaks precisely when the team has least capacity to record it, so the largest and most recoverable volumes are the ones most likely to go unallocated. Firms with strong litigation practices often have the worst recovery gaps for exactly this reason.

A specialist team inside a larger firm

Twelve litigators inside a fifty-person multi-disciplinary practice creates a second issue. The litigation team’s output profile looks nothing like the rest of the firm’s, so any firm-wide recovery target either flatters the other departments or unfairly penalises litigation. Useful Bloemfontein litigation cost recovery has to be measured at team level before it is consolidated.

Automated capture makes that separation possible without extra administration, because output is already tied to a matter and matters already carry a practice area. The reporting split is a by-product rather than a project.

From R660,000 to R800,000 a month

The practice has averaged a 94% cost recovery ratio since going live in August 2025, with recovery rising from R660,000 at implementation to R800,000 in FY2026 and a net fee increase reported on top. A 94% ratio is at the upper end of what is achievable, and reaching it quickly usually indicates that the firm already had good billing discipline and was simply missing the capture layer.

It is worth being measured about a result this recent. The figures cover the first year of operation, and the more important question is whether the ratio holds through a full litigation cycle with its seasonal peaks. On the evidence of longer-running deployments in comparable firms, the ratio tends to hold once capture is embedded at the device rather than requiring ongoing effort.

What litigation-heavy firms should measure

Report the recovery ratio for litigation separately from the rest of the practice, and track output against the litigation calendar rather than the accounting month, since trial preparation does not respect month ends. Watch reproduction volumes during discovery, as repeated copying of the same documents is both legitimately recoverable and frequently absorbed, and confirm scan is captured as courts move to electronic filing.

Related South African case studies

Another firm in the same city appears in our Bloemfontein law firm cost recovery case study, and a KwaZulu-Natal practice with a litigation and dispute resolution focus is covered in the KwaZulu-Natal case study. For the platform behind these results, see nQ ZebraWorks and how it compares with PaperCut.

The underlying platform is built by Zebraworks, and Khwezi Holdings deploys and supports nQ ZebraWorks for law firms across South Africa and the region.