---
license: apache-2.0
task_categories:
- text-classification
- zero-shot-classification
- feature-extraction
language:
- en
tags:
- legal
- finance
size_categories:
- 10K<n<100K
pretty_name: Time Entries and Phases
dataset_info:
  features:
  - name: EntryID
    dtype: int64
  - name: Narrative
    dtype: string
  - name: PhaseName
    dtype: string
  - name: PhaseDurationDays
    dtype: float64
  - name: EntryDurationHours
    dtype: float64
  - name: Timekeeper
    dtype: string
  - name: Rate
    dtype: float64
  - name: Position
    dtype: string
  - name: Partner
    dtype: int64
  - name: Firm
    dtype: string
  - name: Date
    dtype: string
  - name: Docket
    dtype: string
  - name: SourceDocumentZip
    dtype: string
  - name: SourceDocumentName
    dtype: string
  - name: QuerySlug
    dtype: string
  - name: Length
    dtype: float64
  - name: Pages
    dtype: int64
  - name: Court
    dtype: string
  - name: DocketEntry
    dtype: string
  - name: Link
    dtype: string
  - name: LinkEx
    dtype: string
  - name: TextMatter
    dtype: string
  - name: DaysFromStart
    dtype: float64
  - name: Matter
    dtype: string
  - name: Cleaned
    dtype: int64
  - name: Confidence
    dtype: string
  - name: Analysis
    dtype: string
  - name: __index_level_0__
    dtype: int64
  splits:
  - name: train
    num_bytes: 9834936
    num_examples: 12417
  download_size: 694278
  dataset_size: 9834936
configs:
- config_name: default
  data_files:
  - split: train
    path: data/train-*
---
---


# Litigation Billable Hours: Time-Entries and Phases Dataset


**AI-ready, real-world time-entries mapped to litigation phases.**  

A datset of hours billed to 31 different litigation matters, with the names of the timekeeper, 
narrative description, duration, date, and other meta-information.

 

## Why release this data?

* **Establish an open-source baseline.** Time entries are typically confidential. Open data accelerates research.  
* **Public provenance.** Every row comes from an exhibit to a  Motion for Attorneys’ Fees, these are public time entries.  
* **Encourage reproducible benchmarks.** A common dataset lets the community compare narrative classifiers and cost models.
* **Teach.** Useful for classroom demos on legal operations data.
* **Down-stream Products** Seed data for proof-of-concepts.



### Brought to you by

<img width=125 src=https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/62fc7878c776fd8821b28ce8/Y2BZOdOQuiAi5yAGqY-Ro.png>

Created by **LexPipe**, which sourced time entries from public records. LexPipe found examples of full attorney invoices
as exhibits to Motion for Attoneys Fees. The result is the first set of public royalty free time entries for research and 
commerce. 

Whether you’re a law firm, ALSP, or researcher, email hello@lexpipe.com to: 
* advise on bespoke benchmarks
* provide clean public data, or 
* integrate your private data securely.

No cost consultation: https://www.lexpipe.com/meetings/lexpipe/meet-us


---

## Time Entry Dataset at a Glance

* **31 litigation matters**
* **≈13k unique time entries**
* **≈20k hours of billed time**
* **4 phases labeled**: Pleading, Discovery, Pretrial, Trial



Law firm invoices were OCRed with tersseract 3.0, LLMs extracted time entries, with manual data cleaning. 
Source PDF documents available on request.


### Sample: New York Commercial Contract Case
Time entries for an example matter are shown for a New York commercial contract dispute: 

| Title | Cowen and Company, LLC v. ReShape Lifesciences, Inc. |
|------|-------------------|
| Docket | 654817/2021 | 
| Court | New York State, New York County, Supreme Court |
| Link | [NYSCEF Link to Docket](https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/DocumentList?docketId=3wCXmzuTkcsA66wmK09fdA==&display=all&courtType=New%20York%20County%20Supreme%20Court&resultsPageNum=1) | 
| Summary | Cowen and Company, LLC alleges that ReShape Lifesciences, Inc., breached a 2019 financial advisory agreement by failing to pay $1.35 million in fees after a merger. |
| Phases | The case advanced through pleading from August 2021, discovery until June 2022, and pretrial motions leading to a money judgment on May 11, 2023, after which it was disposed. |

Time entries for the case can be seen below, with the time coded according to the phase.

<img width=700 src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/674c3ac8df62f20ecb6c5885/O9fz_Rh-iPOM6xZcI2Xh7.png" alt="image/png"/>

#### Sample Rows

<img width=700 src=https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/62fc7878c776fd8821b28ce8/lnfgc2NnrTaLsu7-pJ16d.png>


---

# Detailed Usage


This repository contains both raw and cleaned data. 
- Cleaned data [CSV file direct download link](https://huggingface.co/datasets/LexPipe/time-entries-and-phases/resolve/main/cleaned_time_entries_and_phases.csv)
- Detailed walkthrough in [data analysis notebook](https://huggingface.co/datasets/LexPipe/time-entries-and-phases/blob/main/notebooks/explore_time_entry_data.ipynb) 
- Raw data for experienced users accessible via Huggingface:
```python
from datasets import load_dataset
repo_id = "lexpipe/time-entries-and-phases"
dataset = load_dataset(repo_id)
```  

Each time entry has an associated duration, and (when available) a name for the phase of legal proceedings. 
The associated duration is the amount of time logged by the person filing the time entry. 


## Narratives

Each time entry has a "narrative", a textual descriptions of the work that was conducted by the timekeeper making the entry. Narratives
vary in length and detail. In the cleaned data, the narratives have been processed with named entity recognition, with names of people and 
organizations scrubbed and replaced with "PERSON". The real names of the timekeepers are kept in the respective column.

Certain phrases occur often in the narratives, and can be indicative of the phase of the legal matter. Word size indicates
frequency of occurrence in the narratives:  


<img width=800 src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/62fc7878c776fd8821b28ce8/8CKcQ007Eefn6OgISA84b.png">

## Data Columns


For a description of the columns in the processed data, please see the [exploratory data analysis notebook](https://huggingface.co/datasets/LexPipe/time-entries-and-phases/blob/main/notebooks/explore_time_entry_data.ipynb) 

The (raw) dataset comprises the following columns:

| **Column**   | **Column Name**        | **Description**                                                | **Data Type**   |
| ------------------- | ---------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | --------------- |
| 1                   | **EntryID**            | Unique identifier of the entry.                                | Integer         |
| 2                   | **Narrative**          | Description of the work performed during the time entry.       | Object (string) |
| 3                   | **PhaseName**          | Name of the phase in the legal proceedings.                    | Object (string) |
| 4                   | **PhaseDurationDays**  | Duration of the legal phase in days.                           | Float64         |
| 5                   | **EntryDurationHours** | Total duration of the legal services for the entry (in hours). | Float64         |
| 6                   | **Timekeeper**         | Name of the person logging the time entry.                     | Object (string) |
| 7                   | **Rate**               | Hourly rate of the timekeeper.                                 | Float64         |
| 8                   | **Position**           | Position or role of the timekeeper (e.g., associate, partner). | Object (string) |
| 9                   | **Partner**            | Is the time keeper a partner in the firm or not                | Bool            |
| 10                  | **Firm**               | Law firm name associated with the time entry.                  | Object (string) |
| 11                  | **Date**               | Date of the time entry.                                        | Object (string) |
| 12                  | **Docket**             | Unique identifier for the case in the docket system.           | Object (string) |
| 13                  | **SourceDocumentZip**  | Name of the .zip file containing the source document.          | Object (string) |
| 14                  | **SourceDocumentName** | Name of the source document (PDF).                             | Object (string) |
| 15                  | **QuerySlug**          | Unique identifier or slug for the data entry.                  | Object (string) |
| 16                  | **Length**             | Length of the document in tokens.                              | Integer         |
| 17                  | **Pages**              | Pages containing the time entry data.                          | Object (string) |
| 18                  | **Court**              | Court presiding over the matter.                               | Object (string) |
| 19                  | **DocketEntry**        | Text of the specific docket entry.                             | Object (string) |
| 20                  | **Link**               | Link to the docket entry or relevant document.                 | Object (string) |
| 21                  | **LinkEx**             | External link related to the time entry.                       | Object (string) |
| 22                  | **TextMatter**         | Full or cleaned text related to the matter.                    | Object (string) |
| 23                  | **DaysFromStart**      | Days from the start of the case to the time entry.             | Float64         |
| 24                  | **Matter**             | Identifier or name of the legal matter.                        | Object (string) |
| 25                  | **Cleaned**            | Has the entry been cleaned or not.                             | Bool            |
| 26                  | **Confidence**         | Confidence score for the extracted data.                       | Object (string) |
| 27                  | **Analysis**           | Additional analysis or notes on the time entry.                | Object (string) |


### Statistics of data columns

| Column Name | Mean | Median | Range (max minus min) | Cardinality |
|-------------|------|--------|-------|-------------|
| **PhaseDurationDays** | 365.15 | 367.00 | 2023.00 | 31 |
| **EntryDurationHours** | 1.49 | 0.70 | 17.60 | 172 |
| **Rate** | 578.78 | 590.00 | 1507.00 | 180 |
| **Length** | 268666.61 | 201498.00 | 571675.00 | 46 |
| **DaysFromStart** | 449.63 | 435.00 | 1942.00 | 613 |


## Data Splits

No predefined splits for machine learning purposes have been made, users may create splits (e.g., train/test/validation) as needed.

If treated cross-sectionally, predictive perforamnce of time entry narrative to phase name label drops progressively. From roughly ~2000 narratives predictive performance is adequate.

<img src="https://cdn-uploads.huggingface.co/production/uploads/674c3ac8df62f20ecb6c5885/CdfBO8OezPeeoj-a5GRy0.png" alt="image/png" width="600"/>


## Contributions

* Michael Sander, CEO / Founder, LexPipe, Inc.

* Ruud van den Brink, Principal Data Scientist, LexPipe, Inc.

## Additional Information

*Released under Apache-2.0, which gives broad commercial & research rights. Please attribute “LexPipe” and link back to this repo.*


[https://lexpipe.com](https://lexpipe.com/)