CheckMyLawBillCheckMyLawBill

From a real reconciliation

Eight years of legal bills, read line by line.

CheckMyLawBill started with a client's bills. Here is what the reconciliation found when it read them against the firm's own rate notices and records, and what it found that was fine.

Ten years of paying without asking

For ten years, one law firm handled almost everything for this client's businesses and its family trust: tenant disputes, leases, an employment case, estate work. The client's archive holds the firm's statements from 2016 to 2025. The bills came every month, and they were paid, usually $1,000 a month from each of two partnerships, without anyone reading far past the balance.

In 2026 the client asked Xenco Labs to reconcile all of it. We built the reconciliation software and ran every statement, receivables report, rate letter and payment through it. The arithmetic was right everywhere. What took line-by-line work to see was old work priced at new rates, rates from outside the client's schedule, and how payments had been spread across matters and companies when the client hadn't said where they should go.

None of it was visible one bill at a time. You only see a rate billed before its notice took effect, or years of work re-priced, when every bill and every notice sits side by side by date. That's the job CheckMyLawBill does.

  • 46statements in the client's archive
  • 630billed entries
  • 365.40billable hours, $114,157.50 in fees
  • 455/455printed totals that add up to the cent

What the reconciliation found

Seven questions these bills should have raised.

Each is stated the way we'd put it to a billing department: what the bill said, what we checked it against, and the question. We name no client, no firm and no people, and every date is shifted by a year so no entry matches a court record. The rates and dollars are real.

  1. Years of work, re-billed at a new rate

    What the bill said
    In 2022 the firm moved eleven of the client's matters to new matter numbers and re-issued their full history on new statements, priced at its rate at the time: $275 an hour. Most of that work, from 2016 through 2020, had originally been billed at $250 for lawyers and $125 or $150 for paralegals.
    What we checked it against
    The original invoices for the same work. 1,015 of 1,030 earlier entries matched on date and hours, and each one was re-priced holding the hours constant.
    The question to ask
    Which rate applies to work done before the current rate took effect?
    $13,939.25Net across eleven matters: 898 entries went up and 32 went down, and the reconciliation counts both. $82.50 of it is one entry the original printed at $0.00, with no “no charge” note, so it may have been an omission rather than a write-off.

  2. A new rate, three weeks early

    What the bill said
    A partner's April 9 entry is billed at $475. The firm's rate letter raising rates is dated April 20 and takes effect May 1. In the same billing run, the same partner is billed at $400 for April work on another matter.
    What we checked it against
    The rate notice's effective date, and the adjacent invoice from the same billing run.
    The question to ask
    Which rate band does $475 belong to, and why does it appear before the effective date?
    $22.50Small dollars. The point is that a rate notice has a date, and every line can be checked against it.

  3. The new-client rate, ten years in

    What the bill said
    Seven 2024 entries by a partner are billed at $425 an hour. The firm's next rate letter gives the partner rate in force at the time as $400.
    What we checked it against
    Every rate notice the firm sent the client. $425 appears in exactly one: the firm's own 2020 letter, which gives it as the rate it charges new clients, and calls this client's rates substantially lower.
    The question to ask
    This is the new-client rate, not the agreed rate. Which schedule applies?
    $102.504.1 hours at $25 above the noticed partner rate.

  4. A rejected filing, passed through

    What the bill said
    An e-filing charge of $203.40 on a January 2025 statement.
    What we checked it against
    The courier's own receipt, which itemizes it: a $49.95 e-filing the court rejected, a $58.45 filing later that day, and a $95.00 courier run.
    The question to ask
    Who bears the cost of a filing the court rejected?
    $49.95Every other e-filing charge with a courier receipt on file matched it to the cent.

  5. Payments applied where the firm chose

    What the bill said
    In December 2022 the firm applied $116,216.64 it had received, from the client and from one insurer, across 11 matters on its own, after asking the client for instructions and getting no answer.
    What we checked it against
    The firm's payment-application letter and its receivables reports. On the largest matter, payments cleared every dollar of costs and advances before any fees, and one partnership's money paid other entities' matters.
    The question to ask
    Which matter and which entity did each payment go to, and on what instruction?
    $116,216.64Applied, not overcharged. The firm asked first; the client didn't answer. The lesson is to give payment instructions in writing, every time.

  6. Two documents, two balances

    What the bill said
    The firm's reconciliation email put one matter's balance at $6,263.80.
    What we checked it against
    The firm's own statement for the same matter, which says $5,863.80. No statement supports the higher figure.
    The question to ask
    Which document is right? The reconciliation carries the statement: it's the firm's billing record, and the email is about it.
    $400.00The difference between the two documents.

  7. Which company is the client?

    What the bill said
    A 2024 dispute over one partnership's building lease was opened under a different company's client number, one that has never written this firm a check.
    What we checked it against
    The firm's own file: the same lease already sits under the right partnership's client number, on an earlier matter.
    The question to ask
    Should this matter sit under the client number of the entity whose lease it is?
    $0.00The amount is right. The entity decides who pays and who deducts.

What the reconciliation didn't flag

A fair check says when the firm got it right.

A flag is a question, not an accusation. These came from the same bills, and a correct check passes all of them.

  • The arithmetic

    Every one of the 455 printed totals on the 46 statements in the client's archive recomputes to the cent, statement by statement: line amounts, subtotals, timekeeper summaries and running balances. The firm's 2022 re-issued statements, where the re-pricing above lives, are not among them. A column can add perfectly and still be adding the wrong rate.

  • A payment the firm applied exactly as instructed

    The reconciliation questioned where a $5,000 payment landed. The client's own memo on the transfer named that matter. The firm was right, and the question was withdrawn.

  • Expenses that match their receipts

    Every e-filing charge with a courier receipt on file matches it to the cent. The one question is the rejected filing above.

  • Rates below the schedule

    Some 2023 work was billed at $275 after the 2023 schedule took effect. A lower rate than noticed is in the client's favor, so it isn't flagged.

  • Work the firm wrote off

    Twelve entries are billed at $0.00, most of them marked “NO CHARGE,” including the firm's own invoice preparation. That is how it should look.

What we'd tell anyone paying a law firm

Keep every rate notice. A rate is only right on the dates the notice covers. Without the notices, you can't tell a raise from a mistake.

Read the lines, not the balance. The client's balances were always computed correctly. The questions were in the descriptions and the rates.

Tell the firm where every payment goes, in writing. When the client didn't, the firm decided, and where the client did, the firm followed the instructions exactly.

Ask early. A question about one line is a short email. Eight years of unasked questions is a reconciliation.

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