Aging bands that partners will actually trust

Uniform thirty-day bands are easy to build and hard to defend. A discovery-heavy litigation matter can sit at day forty-five for good reason; a simple conveyancing file at day forty-five usually needs attention.

We prefer practice-specific bands agreed with the relevant partner: shorter windows for high-velocity work, wider ones for long-cycle disputes, and a separate dormant flag when there has been no fee-earner activity for a set period.

The report then shows count and value (or estimated remaining work) inside each band, not only a colourful bar. Partners respond to the list of named matters more than to the shape of the chart.

When we introduce aging panels, the first month is often noisy. We treat that as a data-cleaning sprint, not a failure of the panel itself.