How Legal Decoder is Using DataGPT to Bring Precision and Scale to Legal Spend Intelligence

How Legal Decoder is Using DataGPT to Bring Precision and Scale to Legal Spend Intelligence

Legal Decoder has long been the go-to partner for corporate legal departments and law firms seeking visibility into billing behavior, staffing efficiency, and compliance with outside counsel guidelines. With a rules-driven analytics engine and a deep understanding of legal operations, they help teams answer one fundamental question: Who is doing what, and how efficiently are they doing it?

But as legal departments become more data-savvy, their questions are becoming more complex and more urgent.

That’s where DataGPT comes in.

The Challenge: Deeper Questions, Higher Expectations

Legal Decoder clients increasingly want more than dashboards. They want to interact with their data, uncover inefficiencies faster, and surface answers that are easy to understand and act on.

“We had the right data and the right rules. What we needed was a faster way to surface insights that clients could trust and act on immediately,” said Joseph Tiano, Founder and CEO of Legal Decoder.

Key use case challenges included:

• Clients asking, “What should I object to in this invoice?” or “Is this invoice fair?”
• Demand for line-by-line breakdowns of problematic billing behavior
• Need to create matter budgets using similar historic matters
• Interest in filtering invoice data by client industry segment for better pricing estimates

The Solution: DataGPT’s Natural Language Intelligence

Legal Decoder embedded DataGPT into its analytics workflow to help clients answer high-stakes legal billing questions in real time. Now, instead of navigating filters or waiting for reports, users can simply ask:

• “What are the problems with invoice #1234?”
• “Which firms didn’t follow our billing guidelines this month?”
• “Show me a historical cost breakdown for similar matters.”
• “Which line items in this invoice seem excessive, and how much should we consider adjusting?”

DataGPT not only identifies potential issues with invoices or specific line items, but also explains why they may be problematic, whether due to excessive hours, inefficient staffing, or billing guideline violations.

What Legal Decoder Users Can Now Do Instantly

• Flag Problems Faster Ask “Which invoices are red or yellow this month?” and get a full list of noncompliant bills, plus write-down totals and responsible firms.
• Drill Into Line Items Ask “What are the inefficiencies in invoice #1234?” and see exactly which entries are problematic, why, and by how much.
• Build Comparable Budgets Create a projected matter budget based on historical work by phase, task category, and staffing levels, grounded in hours first, then adjusted for current rates.
• Segment by Industry Use clues from client names, matter descriptions, and keywords to identify client industry segments, allowing users to price matters more accurately by vertical.

What Sets DataGPT Apart: Going Beyond the Surface

“Other tools show you what happened. DataGPT helps you understand why and what to do about it,” said one Legal Decoder executive.

Take budgeting, for example. Instead of building static templates in Excel, users can now ask:

“Show me the average time spent by senior associates on L3 litigation tasks for clients in the healthcare industry.”

The result is a dynamic, filterable budget, built on real historical patterns. Users can layer on adjustments, compare outliers, and dig into staffing profiles all through conversation.

A Day in the Life: From Invoice Review to Insight in Seconds

A legal ops lead opens their inbox to a monthly invoice package. Normally, they’d flag concerns manually, or send it to an analyst.

Now they just ask: “Which invoices this month are red or yellow? What are the top 3 reasons for write-downs?”

DataGPT returns a ranked list of problematic invoices, a summary of the key violations (e.g., partner overstaffing, rate overruns, out-of-scope work), and a breakdown of total write-down amounts by matter and by firm. The entire process takes seconds, not days.

The Impact: More Strategic Time, Less Busy Work

“We’ve moved from chasing data to acting on it. That’s the real shift,” one user shared.

By using DataGPT to power real-time exploration of Legal Decoder’s analytics, clients can get answers faster, flag problems proactively, build better budgets, and improve billing discipline across firms, all without leaving the Legal Decoder platform.

About Legal Decoder: Legal Decoder transforms legal billing data into actionable insights. By analyzing invoices line-by-line and applying proprietary efficiency rules, the platform helps legal departments and firms optimize pricing, performance, and compliance.

About DataGPT: DataGPT is the world’s first conversational AI analyst. It allows users to ask natural language questions about their data and get real-time, structured insights! No dashboards, no delays, just answers.