In 2004 a UK-based group called LITIG (Legal IT Innovators Group) proposed an ebilling standard for the United Kingdom’s legal service industry based on the LEDES 1998B format. After several meetings and consultation with LITIG, the LOC approved a beta international version of the LEDES 1998B format in 2005. The beta format was revised in 2006 to include additional fields necessary for global ebilling to proceed. The update was ratified by the LOC as a (non-beta) standard in 2006 and appeared on this website in its modified form. The format has been modified a total of 5 times.
The current version of LEDES 98BI, ratified in January, 2020, is an ASCII, pipe delimited format that includes 52 fields.
LEDES98BI V5 Format Rev 1-2020 w Changes Marked from 98BI Rev 7-2014
LEDES98BI V5 Format Rev 1-2020
Sample File: LEDES98BI V5 Sample File 1-2020
Need help getting started? The LEDES Oversight Committee's YouTube Channel has an instructional video on how to create a LEDES 98BI file here.
It is not intended that the LEDES 1998BI will be modified in the future; any global submission issues will be considered through modification of the LEDES XML Ebilling Ver. 2.0x, 2.1x or 2.2x, as appropriate for the content presented.
Revision History:
Beta Release 2-2005: ASCII Pipe delimited, 33 fields.
Ver 1, 3-2006: ASCII, Pipe delimited, 50 fields.
Update 9-2007: ASCII, Pipe delimited, 50 fields.
Ver 2, 4-2008: ASCII, Pipe delimited, 52 fields.
Ver. 5, 1-2020: ASCII, Pipe delimited, 52 fields.
Looking for information on past versions of the LEDES 98BI file specification documents? It is available for download here: All LEDES 98BI Versions 4-2023