Litigation Status Report Template
A client report that puts the budget beside the substantive update, attributes every dollar of variance to a dated cause, and prices every decision.
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Budget Against Estimate · Ardenwood v. Palliser, quarterly report four
Twenty percent over plan, and every dollar of it names a cause
| Phase | Plan to date | Actual | Variance | You asked for | Imposed on us | Our estimate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| L100 Case assessment | 36,000 | 37,300 | +1,300 | 4,900 | 0 | -3,600 |
| L200 Pre-trial motions | 52,000 | 62,600 | +10,600 | 0 | 4,600 | +6,000 |
| L300 Discovery | 96,000 | 120,900 | +24,900 | 9,300 | 15,100 | +500 |
| L600 ADR and settlement | 8,000 | 9,600 | +1,600 | 0 | 0 | +1,600 |
| Total | 192,000 | 230,400 | +38,400 | 14,200 | 19,700 | +4,500 |
The last column is a residual, so it cannot be talked down
Variance less what the client instructed less what the docket forced. A row leaves it only when somebody produces the date or the docket number that moves it.
| What everyone assumed | What the attribution says |
|---|---|
| Discovery ran away with the budget | Residual of 500 on a 96,000 plan. 98.0 percent of that phase’s 24,900 traces to one instruction and four docket entries |
| Motions were fine | 6,000 of estimating error on 52,000, and the only phase the firm got wrong |
37.0 percent instructed, 51.3 percent imposed, 11.7 percent ours.
The difficult conversation about a legal bill is almost never about the amount. It is about an amount that arrived with no cause attached. So the budget section here splits every dollar of variance three ways. Work the client instructed, with the date. Work an order or a motion forced, with the docket number. Then the residual, which is the firm's own estimating error and is whatever the first two do not explain. A row leaves that residual only when somebody produces the instruction or the entry that moves it.
Ardenwood Fabrication v. Palliser Controls is the matter worked through here, in its fourth quarterly report. Spent 230,400 against a 192,000 plan, 20.0 percent over. Attributed: 14,200 the client asked for on three dates, 19,700 forced by four docket entries, and 4,500 that is the firm's. Discovery carries 24,900 of the variance and 98.0 percent of it is attributable, so the phase actually mis-estimated is pre-trial motions, at 6,000 on a 52,000 plan. The same phase codes carry through the motion in limine pack before trial and the appellate record pack after judgment.
The forward calendar then refuses to price what it cannot price. Fourteen events remain, eleven with a number and three with a reason instead. Every open question carries options, costs and an expiry worked back from the court's own date. A lawyer has to explain a matter enough for the client to make an informed decision, and changes in the basis or rate of the fee have to be communicated. The same discipline runs through the discovery budget pack that sets the phase estimates, the docket tracker underneath it, and the settlement and mediation pack.
What's in the pack
Budget Against Estimate
The phase table with three attribution columns, plus the line-item detail behind two of them. Every row adds across and every column adds down.
Deadline Calendar
Every remaining event with its date, who set it, and either a price with the assumption behind it or the dependency that stops it being priced.
Task Register
Open and closed tasks with estimate to complete, the calendar event each feeds, and which decision request the blocked ones are waiting on.
Status Report
Procedure first for the lawyer and consequence second for everybody else, with the attribution carried into prose rather than left on a sheet.
Budget Update
The arithmetic in full, including the write-off, because a billed figure only means something next to the recorded one.
Decision Requests
Options as actions, a fee number on each, an expiry worked back from the court date, and a two-sentence recommendation. Plus what expiries cost.
Client Update Deck
Six slides built from the report rather than beside it, carrying the same caveats in shorter form because the deck is what gets forwarded.
What This Report Does Not Cover
Which matters are excluded, which costs sit outside the fee estimate, and which figures are estimates against written assumptions.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Hand River the docket, the time detail, the scheduling order and the client instructions, or take the Word documents and CSV sheets from the template library.
- 2
Build the period record first
Docket entries split by whether they generated work, recorded time against billed, and every client instruction with its date. Reconcile the three, and the entries that map to none of them are where the work is.
- 3
Attribute, then subtract
Two evidence passes, then the residual falls out. Read the phase distribution before writing a word, because the finding is almost never the total and is usually a phase nobody was watching.
- 4
Price the calendar and the decisions
Estimate what depends on nothing unresolved, name the dependency on what does, and give the client the committed position rather than a single number that quietly priced a trial nobody has scheduled.
Frequently asked questions
Is this free?
The download is free and needs no account. Edit with AI creates a free River account and installs the same pack as a private space with the agent primed to work through your docket and your time. Both buttons point at the same pack, and the free download is the complete one.
What does Edit with AI actually do?
It reads the docket, the pre-bills and the client emails you upload, prices the work each docket entry and each instruction caused, and fills the phase table so the residual falls out of the subtraction. It quotes the time narrative behind every attributed row rather than summarising it.
Why three variance buckets instead of budget against actual?
Because two numbers and a difference tell the client only that the firm was wrong by that difference, which is usually false. In the worked quarter 88.3 percent of the overrun traces to the client's own instructions and to four docket entries, and saying so is what makes the remaining 11.7 percent credible.
Is it not safer to leave the write-off out?
It reads as safer and it costs you the rest of the page. Recorded time, billed time and the difference is three numbers, and a client who can see the firm absorbed 4.9 percent of what it recorded reads the attribution columns differently. Nothing else in the report buys that much credit for so little.
Why leave three calendar events with no price on them?
Because pricing them means guessing. Summary judgment briefing cannot be estimated while a motion to add a counterclaim is pending, and trial cannot be estimated before the court sets it. Three blanks with reasons age better than one confident total, and the pack gives the committed position instead.
Does the report say what the case is worth or how it will come out?
No, and that is deliberate. This document circulates inside the client beyond the legal function, so an assessment of prospects goes out separately and the report says one is coming. Where a decision request weighs a cost against what it avoids, that is arithmetic about fees rather than a prediction.
Does a court deadline move if the client asks?
Not on request. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b)(4) a schedule is modified only for good cause and with the judge's consent, and most state schemes track it. That is why the calendar marks who set each date, and why clients who understand the distinction answer decision requests faster.