Five WIP blind spots quietly inflating your legal spend

Legal budgets tend to rise the most during work in progress (WIP), when routine decisions about staffing, review, and scope pile up. Experienced legal teams know this thanks to guidelines, panels, and billing visibility. 

And yet, forecasts still go sideways, and conversations with firms don't happen until everyone's already dug in. With 79% of in-house teams feeling pressure to cut outside counsel spend, the bar for oversight and accountability is already sky-high. But here's the kicker: more than half say they're not consistently tracking or quantifying the savings from their billing reviews.

That creates a frustrating loop. By the time decisions get questioned, the invoice has landed, options have narrowed, and the conversation is 10 times harder to navigate.

It doesn't have to be this way. WIP is where you can actually have discussions about scope, staffing, and cost while work's still happening—while you can still do something about it. It shows you how the small decisions are playing out in real time: who's jumping in, how often things are getting reviewed, how far the instructions are stretching.

Teams that keep an eye on WIP stay aligned on value, protect their pricing assumptions, and keep trust intact with their firms.

So what should you actually be watching for? Below are the key flags that signal when legal spend is starting to move off course.

Key takeaways:

• Most legal budget overruns begin in legal WIP, as small decisions around staffing, review, and scope stack up.
• Reviewing legal WIP while work is underway keeps conversations focused on roles, scope, and pricing, instead of scrambling to explain things during billing review.
• Teams that connect intake assumptions with in-flight visibility manage legal spend more predictably and with less friction.
• The goal is not to police firms, but to spot issues early enough to respond and save everyone time and energy.

#1. Senior time moving into execution work

This is often one of the first issues to show up in WIP, and one of the easiest to justify in the moment.

A partner steps in to keep things moving. A senior associate stays closer to the detail than expected. Extra oversight is added because the matter feels sensitive or the deadline’s tight. Each decision makes sense on its own.

But over time, it is the combined effect of those decisions that shapes your cost and value.

Most work starts with a clear understanding of roles, like where senior input matters and where execution should live. Pricing is built on that understanding, whether you're working with hourly rates, blended rates, or an alternative fee structure.

And as legal WIP builds, you can see whether that balance is holding. When time gets tracked by role, seniority, and activity in a system like Apperio, it becomes much easier to spot when senior input shifts from oversight and judgment into execution mode.

Watch for:

• Senior lawyers spending more time on operational tasks
• Review time increasing without any actual change in scope
• High-cost resources doing work that was supposed to stay at a lower level

If this goes unchecked, your pricing assumptions start to crumble. By the time it shows up on an invoice, the conversation's already boxed in. But with continuous visibility into spend, you've still got room to course-correct. Here’s how:

Early response:

• Reconfirm where senior judgment is genuinely required, versus where execution should move without additional oversight
• Reset expectations on review and involvement before senior time becomes the default delivery model
• Use in-flight visibility to course-correct roles while the matter is still moving, not after positions have hardened
• Protect the original pricing assumptions by addressing role drift early, without questioning intent or quality

#2. Review loops that add little value

A document circulates one more time. Another senior set of eyes is added to be safe. But comments pile up instead of getting resolved, and each step feels cautious, maybe even responsible.

The cost? That shows up later.

Most work starts with a clear picture of how the review should work, including where you need senior judgment and where execution should just keep moving. Pricing is built on that balance, whether it's hourly rates or an alternative fee.

WIP makes it easier to see when review starts eating into progress instead of enabling it.

Watch for:

• Multiple senior reviewers touching the same work
• Review time is ballooning without any real change in risk or scope
• Round after round of revisions that don't actually change the outcome

When review time is visible in WIP by role and activity, things like this are easier to spot early. In a system like Apperio, where you're watching in-flight WIP by seniority and task, those endless review cycles become obvious while you can still do something about it. That timing is what protects both value and trust.

Early response:

• Pause to clarify what senior review is meant to achieve at this stage of the matter, and what decisions actually require escalation
• Streamline review paths so additional eyes are adding judgment
• Reconfirm how many review cycles were assumed, and whether risk or scope has genuinely changed
• Use WIP visibility to keep review proportional to value, before it starts slowing delivery or inflating cost

#3. Internal firm coordination shows up as client work

A handover between teams. A call to align internally. Time spent looping in another office. Each entry looks reasonable, and often it is.

The problem is how fast this time adds up and starts chewing through your budget.

Most pricing assumptions build in some room for internal coordination. But past that point, alignment work becomes overhead—not something the client's actually benefiting from. When it grows quietly in the background, costs climb without anyone hitting pause to reset expectations.

This is where WIP surfaces the issue.

Watch for:

• Time billed for internal calls, emails, or coordination
• Multiple lawyers sitting in on the same internal discussions
• Handovers happening over and over without any change in scope

Left unchecked, this coordination just becomes business as usual. Delivery slows down, senior time gets pulled in, and costs keep rising, and all without any visible change in what's actually being delivered. By the time it lands on an invoice, it feels like a done deal.

Early response: 

• Separate internal firm coordination from client-facing work so expectations stay clear on what the client is paying for
• Reconfirm how much internal alignment was assumed in the original pricing, and where it should taper off
• Encourage firms to resolve routine coordination efficiently, without pulling multiple fee-earners into the same internal discussions
• Use WIP breakdowns to surface coordination creep early, while there is still room to reset without friction

When WIP is broken down by activity as well as role, you can separate internal coordination from actual client-facing work. In a system like Apperio, that gives you a clear reason to bring it up early, while you've still got room to adjust.

#4. Quiet scope expansion without a clear decision point

Most work starts with a shared understanding of what's in and what's out. Pricing reflects that understanding, whether it's formally documented or just based on how similar matters have gone before. The trouble starts when work begins to expand without anyone pausing to make an actual decision.
WIP is where this becomes visible.

Watch for:

• Tasks stretching beyond their original description
• New strands of work are popping up mid-matter without any reset
• Time is piling up in areas that were never part of the initial scope

If you don’t monitor this, scope creep starts to feel normal. Teams keep delivering, firms keep tracking time, and the gap between what was agreed and what's actually happening just keeps widening. By the time the invoice shows up, you're no longer debating whether the work should've been included. You're just figuring out how to deal with it.

Early response:

• Pause delivery long enough to confirm whether the work still sits within the original scope or represents a genuine change
• Create a clear decision point when new strands of work emerge, rather than letting them absorb quietly into the matter
• Re-anchor expectations on what was agreed, before effort and cost reset by default
• Use WIP to surface scope drift early, when options still exist to adjust delivery, pricing, or priorities

This is where getting clarity upfront makes a big difference. When you've defined assumptions and delivery expectations at the start, changes are much easier to catch and address in the moment. In a system like PERSUIT, where work gets scoped and structured from the beginning, expansion can be handled intentionally instead of just getting absorbed by default.

#5. Pricing assumptions stop holding

Not every budget problem shows up as a staffing issue. Often, the work is being done by the right people, at reasonable rates, and for the right reasons. But the underlying pricing logic no longer reflects how the matter is actually unfolding.

Most pricing, whether hourly, blended, or alternative, is built on assumptions. How much work will happen in each phase. Where intensity will peak. Which parts are predictable, and which require judgement. Those assumptions rarely get revisited unless something obviously breaks.

WIP is where you can see when reality starts to diverge from that original logic. Phases that were meant to be light-touch stretch on. Work that was assumed to be episodic becomes continuous. Effort concentrates in places that were never meant to carry the bulk of the cost.

Watch for:

• Time accumulating in phases that were priced as low-effort or routine
• Extended activity in areas that were expected to taper off
• Costs concentrating in parts of the matter that were not meant to drive value

Without checking this, it creates a quiet disconnect. The firm continues to deliver in good faith. The client continues to approve work. But the matter no longer resembles what was priced and the gap only becomes visible once the invoice lands.

Early response:

• Revisit the original pricing assumptions to check whether the matter is still unfolding as expected, even if scope and staffing look unchanged
• Identify where effort is concentrating in ways that were not anticipated, and whether those areas are actually driving value
• Decide early whether delivery needs to adjust, assumptions need to be reset, or pricing needs to be revisited
• Use in-flight WIP to address economic drift while there is still flexibility, rather than reconciling it after the fact

When WIP is tracked against phases, assumptions, and expected effort, that drift becomes visible while there is still room to act. In a connected workflow, where pricing intent set at intake is visible alongside in-flight WIP, like when PERSUIT is paired with Apperio’s real-time visibility, teams can decide whether to reset scope, adjust delivery, or revisit pricing before surprises harden into disputes.

Why WIP is where control actually exists

When issues surface late, the work's already wrapped, and the conversation shrinks fast. Legal Teams are stuck explaining what happened to CFOs instead of deciding what to do next. Your options have already narrowed.

WIP sits earlier in the cycle. It shows you how work is taking shape while you still have room to maneuver. That's what makes it valuable.

When the intent is clear from the start, and your WIP reflects what's actually happening on the ground, conversations get a lot simpler. Adjustments happen sooner. Surprises become the exception, not the rule.

Ready to see how Apperio gives you continuous visibility to get in control of legal spend? Book a demo.