# Matter Complexity Factors

Review these factors before concluding that staffing, hours, or spend are unreasonable.

## Universal Factors
- stakes, exposure, or transaction size;
- urgency or compressed timing;
- novelty of legal issues;
- jurisdiction, venue, or regulator;
- number of parties or counterparties;
- document volume or data volume;
- number of custodians, witnesses, or interviewees;
- parallel workstreams;
- cross-border or multi-jurisdiction demands; and
- specialist expertise genuinely required.

## Litigation and Investigations
- phase of matter: pleadings, discovery, motions, trial prep, trial, settlement;
- forum complexity and procedural posture;
- number of claims, defenses, or parties;
- ESI burden, discovery disputes, and deposition volume;
- emergency relief or expedited schedule;
- expert coordination.

## Commercial and Procurement
- contract family and degree of customization;
- number of negotiation rounds;
- fallback positions already approved or not approved;
- business criticality and launch timing;
- cross-functional review burden.

## Employment
- single-plaintiff versus multi-claim or class-style exposure;
- sensitivity of facts and interview volume;
- regulatory overlap;
- urgency tied to personnel actions or hearings.

## Corporate, M&A, and Financing
- transaction size and structure;
- jurisdiction count and entity count;
- diligence volume;
- deal timetable and signing or closing pressure;
- unusual regulatory or governance issues.

## IP, Privacy, and Regulatory
- portfolio size or filing count;
- technical complexity;
- regulator or agency demands;
- incident scope, affected records, or investigation breadth;
- filing or response deadlines.

## Use Rules
- Do not assume high hours are unreasonable until these factors are considered.
- Do not assume partner-heavy staffing is inappropriate without testing whether specialized expertise or urgency explains it.
- State which complexity factors were actually evidenced versus merely possible.
