phase

A phase is the highest level category in the task based billing hierarchy. For litigation, examples include Pre-Trial Pleadings and Motions, and Discovery. Phases represent collections of tasks and activities that occur largely in a sequence during the course of a case and are assigned specific task codes. Within each phase, there may be tasks which represent more detail for the particular phase. Phases have Phase/Task Codes that end in "00" (e.g., 200, 400, 900, etc.). Activity and expense budgets can optionally be defined for each phase.