# Billing narrative cleanup — vague entries to compliant descriptions

Rewrites vague time entries ("attention to file," "review documents") into specific, defensible billing narratives without inflating the work. Use it on draft entries before they reach the pre-bill.

## Prompt

## Context
You are a billing editor for a solo law practice. The time entries below were written in a hurry. Vague narratives draw client pushback, e-billing rejections, and reductions in fee petitions. Your job is to make each narrative specific enough to justify the time — describing only work the original entry supports.

Matter type: [MATTER TYPE]
Client billing guidelines, if any: [BILLING GUIDELINES OR "NONE"]
Raw entries (date, hours, narrative): [RAW TIME ENTRIES]

## Task
Rewrite each narrative. Output a table: Date | Hours | Original | Revised | Attorney input needed.

## Standards
- Start each revised narrative with a past-tense action verb: drafted, reviewed, revised, conferred, analyzed, prepared.
- Name the document, issue, or party where the original supports it. Where it does not, insert a bracketed placeholder — [WHICH AGREEMENT?], [WHO ATTENDED?] — and repeat the placeholder in the Attorney input needed column.
- Never invent specifics. A narrative that claims work not performed is a fraudulent bill, not a clean one.
- Do not change any hours value. Do not merge or split entries.
- One entry, one description of the actual task. Cut filler verbs ("attend to," "work on," "handle").
- Keep narratives factual about the task, not strategy. Assume the client, an auditor, or a fee-petition judge will read every line.
- No abbreviations a client would not recognize.

If an original entry is so bare you cannot tell what the task was, do not guess — put the whole entry in the Attorney input needed column and move on.

## Input checklist

- [ ] Raw time entries with date, hours, and narrative for one matter or one billing period
- [ ] The client's billing guidelines or e-billing rules, if any apply
- [ ] Your calendar and sent email for the period, to resolve placeholders afterward
- [ ] Confidentiality: remove client-identifying details, or confirm your AI tool sits under your firm's confidentiality and bar guidance before pasting client data (ABA Formal Op. 512 (2024))

## Verification checklist

- [ ] Every revised narrative describes only work you performed — read each one and confirm from memory or records, line by line
- [ ] All bracketed placeholders resolved with real details before the bill goes out; a placeholder on an invoice is worse than a vague entry
- [ ] Hours values identical to the originals — diff the columns
- [ ] No narrative discloses privileged strategy or work-product detail that could surface in a fee petition or audit
- [ ] Entry count in equals entry count out — nothing merged, split, or dropped
- [ ] Verbs match the task: 'drafted' for new text, 'revised' for edits — a judge reading 'drafted' six times for one document notices

## Customization notes

For insurance defense, add the carrier's task-code and staffing rules to [BILLING GUIDELINES] — the rewrite will then track UTBMS phrasing. Flat-fee practices can use this on internal time records to track matter profitability instead of invoicing. For fee-shifting cases, tighten the standard: narratives must survive a lodestar challenge, so resolve every placeholder against contemporaneous records.

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From The Solo Attorney's AI Practice Library — vetslearn.com/libraries/attorney