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Legal Invoice Leakage Estimator

Estimate recoverable savings from outside counsel billing guideline compliance and invoice review coverage.

This tool is educational and operational. It is not legal, engineering, or financial advice.

Processed in-browser. Nothing is stored.

Inputs

Optional. Used in the memo output.

$

Use total outside counsel spend for the last 12 months.

%

Percent of spend covered by your billing guidelines and review workflow (start conservative).

%

Estimated avoidable or recoverable percent of in-scope spend due to non-compliant billing, weak scoping, or process gaps.

%

Conservative leakage rate after guidelines, rate card governance, intake controls, and invoice review are installed.

Leakage category shares

%
%
%
%
$

Process, staffing, or tooling cost to implement and run controls.

Results

Enter inputs and click Generate.

Assumptions

  • This is an estimate. Validate with invoice samples from your top firms.
  • Leakage rate is applied only to in-scope spend.
  • Category breakdown is for transparency and does not change total savings.
  • Payback is implementation cost divided by monthly savings.

How to use

  1. Enter outside counsel spend and leakage assumptions using conservative estimates.
  2. Review the savings breakdown and normalize category shares if needed.
  3. Copy or download the memo to align Legal, Finance, and Procurement.
  4. Validate results with invoice samples and update quarterly.

What results mean

Estimated annual recoverable savings is the annual leakage gap on in-scope spend after controls are installed.

Estimated monthly recoverable savings is the annual savings divided by 12 for planning and payback.

Payback period compares one-time implementation cost to monthly savings when provided.

Common pitfalls

  • Using leakage estimates that are not grounded in invoice samples.
  • Allowing in-scope spend percent to drift without enforcement.
  • Not tracking recovered value after disputes are resolved.

Definitions

In-scope spend is the portion of outside counsel spend covered by billing guidelines and review workflows.

Leakage rate is the avoidable or recoverable portion of in-scope spend due to non-compliant billing, weak scoping, or process gaps.

Leakage gap is the improvement from current to target leakage rate after controls are in place.

Change log

v1.0 (2026-01): Latest release