Friday Focus - Parsing

What Is Parsing?

A core function of our LSA system, which powers the Compliance and Pricing Decoder engines, is the ability to parse multi-task work narratives in invoice entries.  Parsing allows the Compliance and Pricing Decoder engines to break apart multi-task (or multi-line) work narratives and analyze those “parts” individually.  This provides more accurate analysis and deeper insights from legal billing data.

How Does It Work?

As stated above, the parsing function analyzes a work narrative to see if it is indeed a multi-entry narrative.  The entry below is a multi-task work narrative:

Review and comment on filed applications (0.6); correspond with J. Smith regarding filed applications (0.3); Email to J. Smith regarding XYZ application (0.1).

The entry has 3 parts to it with work hours appended at the end of each task.  The parsing function looks at each line part and runs it through the thousands of rules in the Decoder engines.

The Compliance Decoder engine analyzes each line part as an individual work entry and analyzes the entire entry for billing compliance issues. The Pricing Decoder also analyzes each line part and categorizes the line parts based on the narrative which provides a granular level of categorization to give precise information when pricing legal matters. 

Why Parsing Is Important

Legal billing data can be messy and timekeepers will often put a few days or a week’s worth of work into one time entry.  Valuable information can be hidden in these multi-task/multi-line entries.  Being able to parse through voluminous billing data is essential to surfacing insightful and accurate information.

If you would like more information about Legal Decoder’s services and products, contact us at info@legaldecoder.com