What this is
Most legal departments report activity. A board is asking a different question: is any of this good? The Legal Scorecard answers it on one page, with five questions and the eight numbers that answer them. This workbook is the fastest way to have a real page this month.
It is the "build it by hand" track from our Scorecard Build Blueprint. A workbook page is trustworthy if you treat it like a system instead of a one-off: one owner, one cadence, a written pull routine, and honest flags on the lines you cannot fully feed yet. Every tab is one record from the Blueprint. The Scorecard tab is the page itself, fed by formulas from the tabs behind it.
The five questions, and the eight numbers that answer them
Are we on top of the whole workload?
Is the business unblocked, and are matters moving?
Are we protected?
Are we growing capacity faster than headcount?
Is spend under control?
What is in the workbook
Ten tabs. One is the page. One holds the bar you set. The rest are the data behind it, each one fed by a report you can already pull.
| Tab | What it holds | How you fill it each month | Board lines it feeds |
|---|---|---|---|
| Start here | How the workbook works, what to type in, and the monthly routine | Read once | None |
| Scorecard | The one page: eight lines, status, trend, confidence, and the read | It fills itself. You write the read. | The board page itself |
| Targets | What good looks like, the watch bands, and last period's values | Set once. Update the prior-period column at each refresh. | Status and trend on every line |
| Requests | Received time, first human touch, how it resolved, who asked, and their Dept ID | From your intake tool, or a log of the shared inbox | Time to first response; Self-serve rate |
| Matters | Open and close dates, native status, last activity, matter category, owner, assigned lawyer | An export or a kept list from matter management | Work in vs. work cleared; Stalled-matter rate; Load |
| Status map | Each native status mapped to one of five standard statuses, with a Map ID and an audit trail | Built once; updated only when a new status appears | Every line that needs one language |
| Critical dates | One row per date: date, type, matter, owner, condition, source | From docketing, court dockets, CLM, calendars, and firm reports | Critical-date coverage |
| Spend | Invoiced-to-date and accrual per matter; the department budget, phased | From eBilling or firm invoices; the budget entered once | Spend vs budget, with forecast |
| Roster | Each lawyer, and whether they are in-house or an outside provider | From your team list, plus your firm contacts | Load per lawyer |
| Shadow demand | The traces you reconcile each period, and the prior count | A reconciliation you run, not a report you pull | Shadow demand |
What to type in, and what to leave alone
- 1Blue cells on the Targets and Spend tabs are yours to set. They are the bar, the period, and the budget.
- 2White and light-blue rows on the data tabs are sample data. Delete them and paste your own export in their place. The formulas run to row 604 on Matters and row 404 on Requests, so pasting more rows just works.
- 3Grey italic columns are calculated. Do not type in them. If you paste over one, copy it back down from the row above.
- 4The read column on the Scorecard is typed by a person. That is the point of it. The number reports; the read thinks, and someone owns it.
The monthly routine
- 1One owner, one cadence. The page is only as current as its slowest pull. Pick a rhythm, hold it, and put one person in charge of it.
- 2A written pull routine. The same reports from each source, the same day, the same steps, so it comes out the same no matter who runs it.
- 3Version control. Before you paste new data, copy this month's driver values from the Targets tab into the prior-period column. Then date this file and keep the last one.
- 4A QA pass before it ships. Check the Matters tab for anything reading "Unmapped", check the Critical dates tab for anything reading "No" under Owned, and check that every line you cannot fully feed carries an honest confidence flag.
Three things that make it stand up to a challenge
Identity, not labels. Every status mapping has a Map ID and an effective date, and every request carries a Dept ID from the Departments list. Names typed by hand cannot be grouped, trended, or audited. The Status map also counts the matters using each mapping and names one, so you can validate a rule instead of trusting it.
The audit trail. Keep the Map ID and Effective From columns current. When someone asks in six months why the stalled number moved, that trail is how you show a mapping changed rather than the work changing.
Declare your capacity basis. Whether outside counsel counts as capacity is a strategic decision, not a formula. Set it once on the Targets tab. The page names the assumption and shows the number both ways, so nobody reads load per lawyer without knowing what is in it.
Four rules that keep it honest
Integrity over completeness
Report what you can trust, and show how much of the picture it covers.
The read never outruns the data
When the data underneath is thin, the read gives a direction, not a false decimal.
Progressive, not perfect
A page you can stand up and trust in a few weeks beats the perfect one you never finish.
Fake precision is worse than an honest gap
The first time someone catches it, they stop trusting the whole page.
The number reports. The read thinks, and someone owns it.
Every matter carries a matter category: Project, Portfolio, or Advisory. Category and status are two separate tags, set independently, so a portfolio matter resting between deadlines never reads as stalled. The Matters tab now offers an optional fourth category, Advice, for departments that keep one-off advice separate. It counts like Portfolio, so it stays out of work in vs. work cleared and stalled-matter.
The sample data is fictional, built for a made-up company called Northwind Industries. It is set up so every line on the Scorecard matches the example page in the ebook, which lets you check the workbook is calculating before you trust it with your own numbers.
Take it with you. Ten tabs, sample data included, no form to fill out.
Download the workbookPart of The Legal Scorecard Series
Three pieces that build on each other. The ebook, How to Build a Board-Level Legal Scorecard, designs the one-page Scorecard and makes the case for it. The Scorecard Build Blueprint turns the design into a build guide on the systems you already have. This workbook is the fastest way to have a real page this month.
All three are free, with no form. Find them on Resources.
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