LegalFree
Legal Matter Budget and Fee Estimate
River builds the estimate from your own closed matters, in the code set the client bills in, with every branch that moves the number priced.
River reads your closed matters and the profile of the new one, and returns a budget priced from what comparable work actually cost you. Every line carries the matters behind it, so a partner asking where a number came from gets an answer rather than a defence. The estimate arrives as a range with named branch points instead of a single figure, because the matters it was built from resolved at different stages and a single figure hides which one you quoted.
The rows are the code set the client's billing system reads, not a generic phase list. That is what makes budget against actual a report rather than a monthly reconciliation, and it changes where the hours land. Reading documents to learn the facts, reading them for privilege before production, and loading them into a database are three different codes in the standard. Document review is therefore not a line at all, and any budget carrying one has already lost the comparison.
The events that break a budget are a short list and most of them are somebody else's decision. Each one is priced from the matters where it happened and dated against the schedule, so a capped fee has a stated edge rather than a hope. It runs on the same matter record as the intake that opened the file, and where the work is discovery it is priced against what validating a production actually takes.
Where the hours land is defined
The litigation code set is five phases and twenty-nine more granular task codes, published by the ABA in 1997 and still what e-billing systems parse. Granularity is the client's call. The standard's own guidance says some clients require the task codes while others prefer the less granular phases, and some do not ask for activity codes at all. So the first question of a matter budget is which codes this client accepts, and every generic phase list on the market answers it wrong by construction.
The definitions draw hard boundaries and they are not where a spreadsheet puts them. Reviewing documents to learn the facts is case assessment. Reviewing them for privilege and effecting production is discovery. Populating the review database is a third code, and the vendor building it is an expense rather than a fee. Trial preparation is stranger still: the phase commences when lawyer and client determine that trial is sufficiently likely and imminent, so its start is a decision rather than a date on the schedule.
The assumption list is not decoration. In California a fee contract has to be in writing wherever it is reasonably foreseeable that total expense to the client, including fees, will exceed one thousand dollars. That contract has to state the general nature of the legal services to be provided. Failing any provision of the section renders the agreement voidable at the client's option. What you quoted for is a term of the engagement, so the branch list defining its edges is the part worth writing carefully.
How it works
Hand over the history
Your closed matters with their time records, and the profile of the one being quoted.
Comparables get chosen
Matched on what drives cost, then split by how each one actually resolved.
Phases get priced
Each code carries its own hours, rate mix and the matters the figure came from.
Branches get costed
Every event that would move the number, priced separately and dated against the schedule.
What you get
- Every line priced from the closed matters behind it, named and countable on the row
- Rows in the code set the client's billing system reads, at the granularity it wants
- Document time split by why it was read, because the standard splits it that way
- A range with named branch points, not a mean of matters that ended differently
- Each trigger event priced from the matters where it happened, and dated to the schedule
- Vendor and hosting costs kept out of the fee line, where the code set puts them
Common questions
What if our time records are not task coded?
Most are not below the phase level, and the budget is still built. Entries are read and assigned by what the narrative describes, with the confidence of each assignment recorded so a thin narrative never quietly becomes a precise number. The mapping is reusable, so the second matter costs a fraction of the first.
How many closed matters does it need?
Enough that each resolution path has more than one matter in it, which in practice is a handful rather than a hundred. A path with a single matter behind it is shown as a single matter rather than as a median. Where a path has nothing, the estimate says so instead of interpolating.
Does it work for transactional and advisory work?
Yes, and the code set changes with it. Litigation has its own phases, and there are separate published sets for projects, counseling, bankruptcy and mergers. The method is identical: rows in the client's code set, priced from your own closed matters, with the branch points named. Only the row labels differ.
How does this help a fixed or capped fee?
By making the cap deliberate. The cap is written against a stated scenario, and each branch carries the date it stops being hypothetical, so a revision conversation happens the week the trigger fires rather than the month the write-down lands. Scope decisions like which claims to keep run through the register that grades every fact.
What about the vendor and hosting costs?
They sit in expenses, not fees, because the code set puts the work of outside vendors building litigation support databases there. Budgets that fold hosting into the review line overstate fees, understate expenses, and get bounced by e-billing. The privilege work itself is fee time under production, which is what proving each claim to its elements costs.
How often should it be rerun?
At every branch point and whenever a phase closes. Each rerun uses the same comparables plus whatever has now happened, so the revised figure shows which branch fired and what it cost, rather than presenting a new total with no explanation. The actuals feeding it come from entries checked against the client's guidelines first. That record rolls up into the department's own quarterly report.
Legal Matter Budget and Fee Estimate
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