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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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What you get

Pack of 8 files: 5 documents, 3 spreadsheets

Litigation Status Report Template
  • Budget Against EstimateSpreadsheet
  • Deadline CalendarSpreadsheet
  • Task RegisterSpreadsheet
  • Status ReportDocument
  • Budget UpdateDocument
  • Decision RequestsDocument
  • Client Update DeckDocument
  • What This Report Does Not CoverDocument
RiverLitigation Status Report Template

Budget Against Estimate  ·  Ardenwood v. Palliser, quarterly report four

Twenty percent over plan, and every dollar of it names a cause

PhasePlan to dateActualVarianceYou asked forImposed on usOur estimate
L100 Case assessment36,00037,300+1,3004,9000-3,600
L200 Pre-trial motions52,00062,600+10,60004,600+6,000
L300 Discovery96,000120,900+24,9009,30015,100+500
L600 ADR and settlement8,0009,600+1,60000+1,600
Total192,000230,400+38,40014,20019,700+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 assumedWhat the attribution says
Discovery ran away with the budgetResidual 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 fine6,000 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.

One quarter, run through every sheet in the pack

The attribution detail, the Deadline Calendar, the Decision Requests and the Status Report they produce.

Litigation Status Report Template
RiverAttribution

Budget Against Estimate  ·  the two evidence passes

Every row carries a date or a docket number, or it does not go in

Work the client instructed, 14,200

InstructionDatePhaseAmount
Privilege review of the Kestrel acquisition folder14 MarL3006,300
Second-opinion memo on the arbitration clause2 MayL1004,900
Two custodians added after the internal audit19 JunL3003,000

Work an order or a motion forced, 19,700

What it wasDocketPhaseAmount
Palliser's motion to compel, granted in partDkt. 61L3008,400
Corvane's motion to quash the third-party subpoenaDkt. 82L3006,700
Amendment to the protective order after a filing errorDkt. 88L2002,500
The court's own order re-setting the scheduleDkt. 74L2002,100

The subtraction, written out once

estimating error = variance − client-directed − imposed

Run per phase and then totalled. Discovery is 24,900 less 9,300 less 15,100, which leaves 500. Motions is 10,600 less nothing less 4,600, which leaves 6,000. Neither number was chosen and neither moves without a date or a docket entry.

The 4,500 traced to a second preparation session each of the two corporate designees needed, because the noticed topics spanned two business units. Eighteen hours at the blended associate rate.

RiverCalendar

Deadline Calendar  ·  14 events, 11 with a number on them

Three rows are deliberately blank, and each says why

DateEventSet byEstimate
12 OctSecond-tranche production under the Dkt. 61 orderCourt9,400
7 NovDeposition of the 30(b)(6) on the firmware change logParty13,600
15 DecAffirmative expert disclosuresCourt27,000
TBDSummary judgment briefingCourtNo price while the amendment motion is pending
TBDDaubert motionsCourtNo price until expert reports land on 15 Dec
TBDTrialCourtSet at the final pretrial conference

What that produces, and what it refuses to produce

Amount
Spent to date230,400Incurred
Priced remaining, 11 events187,400Each with a written assumption
Committed position417,800Against 330,000 for the same scope, 26.6 percent over
Original allocation to the three unpriced156,000Held separate on purpose
If the three land on that allocation573,800Against 486,000 original, 18.1 percent over

That last line is arithmetic, and the report says so in those words.

RiverDecisions

Decision Requests  ·  options, prices, expiry dates

Three questions, and none of them says please advise

RefOptionsCost nowDownstreamExpires
DR-1Oppose the motion for leave to amend18,50003 Oct
DR-1Consent, and answer the counterclaim6,20054,0003 Oct
DR-2Depose the former quality director in person14,700023 Jan
DR-2Remote deposition instead9,100023 Jan
DR-3Written offer fourteen days before mediation4,800024 Feb
DR-3No pre-mediation offer0024 Feb

DR-2 carries a third option at zero. The 54,000 stays in its own column, because a client shown only the near numbers takes the cheap one every time.

Where the expiry dates come from

Not politeness. DR-2 expires on 23 January because fact discovery closes 20 February and out-of-state service takes three weeks.

And the section nobody writes

Requests that expired unanswered, with what each cost. One this quarter: nobody said whether to narrow the Corvane subpoena, it issued as drafted, and the motion to quash is the 6,700 at Dkt. 82. It is there because it happened.

RiverThe Report

Status Report  ·  procedure first, consequence second

Two sentences per event, and the second one is the one that matters

The motion to compel, Dkt. 61

Palliser asked the court to order broader responses to our second document requests and the court agreed with part of it. In practical terms we are producing an additional set by 12 October, drawn from search terms the court set rather than the ones the parties agreed, and the opposition and hearing cost 8,400.

The subpoena to Corvane Distribution, Dkt. 82

Palliser subpoenaed your former distributor, which moved to quash on burden and confidentiality grounds. We had to brief and appear because the documents matter to the delivery timeline. Neither you nor we chose this, and it cost 6,700.

The revised schedule, Dkt. 74

The court reset the case schedule on its own motion and required a joint status report. Every date in the calendar comes from this order rather than the original one, which is why four of them moved, and it cost 2,100.

What the budget section actually says

Not that the matter is 38,400 over plan and full stop. That number, then 14,200 you instructed on three dates, 19,700 the docket forced, 4,500 ours. Then the finding: discovery came in half a percent off its baseline, and the phase we mis-estimated is motions.

No prediction of outcome, no valuation of the claims, no adjectives on the judge. The report circulates inside the client beyond the legal function, so the assessment of prospects goes out separately.

Edit with AI

What's in the pack

01

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.

02

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.

03

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.

04

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.

05

Budget Update

The arithmetic in full, including the write-off, because a billed figure only means something next to the recorded one.

06

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.

07

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.

08

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Sources

  1. Washington CourtsA lawyer has to explain a matter enough for the client to make an informed decision (opens in a new tab)
  2. Washington CourtsThe scope and the basis or rate of the fee (opens in a new tab)
  3. U.S. CourtsFederal rules of civil procedure (opens in a new tab)

Written by

Chandler Supple

Co-founder & CEO, River

Chandler has spent the last six years working in AI, building tools for millions of users and Fortune 100 companies. In 2025, he co-founded River to build a new kind of operating system for AI agents.

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Reviewed by

Brian Joseff, Co-founder, River

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