Set up
Connect your tools
Claude Cowork is more powerful when it works directly with your systems. You control permissions and access. Learn about tool access(opens in new tab).
Navigate to Customize → Connectors in Cowork to set up.
Set the working folder
Put your outside counsel billing guidelines and the matter budget tracker in one folder on your machine, then in Cowork click + Add folder and select it. Save it as a Cowork project(opens in new tab) so your guidelines, instructions, and memory stay attached for the next firm review — Cowork reads from the folder and writes the variance table and talking points back to it.
Files you add stay on your machine and aren't used to train Claude — Cowork reads them locally to do the work.
The prompt
Copy this into Claude Cowork
Pull the billing and matter data for this firm from the connected matter system. Flag entries that are off-pattern against our billing guidelines, list every matter drifting against its budget with the variance and driver, and draft the talking points for the relationship-partner conversation.
Why this works
Check against your guidelines, not a generic rule. "Off-pattern against our billing guidelines" means the flag is your block-billing or staffing rule, not a textbook one.
Ask for the variance and the driver. A matter over budget is a number; why it's over is the conversation, so each row names the activity that pushed it.
End with the deliverable. "Draft the talking points" turns the analysis into the prep you'd write anyway, so the partner conversation starts from substance.
Pull from the matter system directly. The iManage or NetDocuments connector means the review covers every matter and invoice, not the ones that made it into a spreadsheet.
Get a better draft
Add an example to match. Drop a prior partner-review memo into the folder and Cowork matches your structure and tone.
Ask it to flag uncertainty. Add "flag anything you're not confident about" so you know which entries to verify against the invoice before you raise them.
Make Cowork work for you
No plugin ships with this one yet — once the prompt is producing the review the way you want, turn it into your own skill. A few minutes of conversation and it runs with your guidelines and format from then on.
Make what we've done in this task so far into a skill called /oc-spend-review.
Make it repeatable
Run it before every partner review
The variance table and talking points should be waiting before the quarterly review, not built the night before. Type /schedule in the prompt, or open Scheduled in the Cowork sidebar, and the skill runs monthly across every panel firm.
/schedule First Monday of each month at 8am, run /oc-spend-review for every firm on the panel and write the variance table and talking points to a subfolder named for the firm.
Runs /oc-spend-review for every panel firm and writes the variance table and talking points to a per-firm subfolder.
Share with your teammates
Your /oc-spend-review now carries your billing guidelines, your variance thresholds, and your talking-point format. Share it so legal ops and the in-house owners run every firm the same way, and the partner conversation starts from the same prep.