Counsel Management. Corporate Legal E-Billing and Matter Management Solutions What to Consider When Choosing Yours. Counsel Management WHITE PAPER

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1 Counsel Management Corporate Legal E-Billing and Matter Management Solutions What to Consider When Choosing Yours Counsel Management WHITE PAPER

2 U.S. employers slashed more than 3.6 million jobs from December 2007 through January 2009 bringing experts and everyday people alike to a consensus that the economic environment was the most challenging ever experienced. Ongoing concerns have driven companies to continue the cost-cutting trend, with no department being spared, including the once insulated in-house law department. Like any other, law departments must find creative ways to meet their companies budget challenges as well as enhance their overall productivity and performance. A comprehensive e-billing and matter management solution can help a law department gain greater insight into the uncertainty, risk and costs associated with legal operations, and to use that information to improve the department s and company s bottom line. Implementing business solutions that improve collaboration and communication with outside counsel, help manage matters and control expenses, and tighten budgeting and forecasting can be vital to a company s long-term prosperity. Controlling legal costs for greater productivity E-billing and matter management solutions are designed to save you money and improve your law department s overall efficiency by delivering a completely automated e-billing process. Look for a comprehensive system that supports your company s invoicing requirements, including the ability to flag debatable charges, route invoices for review and approval, and automatically prompt reviewers to complete certain tasks. By automating the process you guarantee that every invoice is consistently reviewed and as importantly, not lost or misplaced during the review process simultaneously reducing the time and effort your staff dedicates to invoicing issues. In fact, using a solution with an e-billing component could result in a cost savings of 3 10 percent, depending on your company s invoicing requirements and the sophistication of the invoice review component of your chosen solution. Important legal e-billing terms Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) In 1995, Price Waterhouse LLP (now PricewaterhouseCoopers) convened a consortium to define a standard electronic billing format for the legal industry. This group evolved into the LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC), and was charged with creating and maintaining open standard formats for the electronic exchange of billing between corporations and law firms. The LEDES 98B format, introduced in 1998, quickly became the predominant electronic invoice data format standard. For more information visit Uniform Task-Based Management System (UTBMS) The UTBMS is a budgeting and billing system designed to provide corporate counsel and law firms with a common language to describe tasks performed and expenses incurred. A large group of industry experts created this standard in the mid-1990s. For more information visit Software as a Service (SaaS) Several current-generation e-billing applications are accessed over the Web and require no additional software support from the client. In the SaaS delivery model, customers subscribe to software applications and outsource the back-end infrastructure and operations to the vendor. In most cases, using a SaaS application can be more cost effective than traditional enterprise software. When selecting an e-billing solution, be sure to consider one that s flexible enough to support alternative fee arrangements, such as retainers, flat/fixed fees or contingency fee structures. In addition, a solution that can convert detailed invoice entries from paper or other non-ledes formats into one common, electronic format will allow you to capture and analyze 100 percent of your legal spend, which is key to a complete understanding of your legal department s financials. 2 lexisnexis.com

3 Managing legal matters for greater collaboration and insight In addition to controlling costs, your chosen e-billing and matter management solution should act as a collaboration tool, allowing in-house and outside counsel to work together to capture and track all matter information within it. Look for a Web-based solution that enables you to develop and track budgets for each matter, automatically manage events or tasks across multiple firms, and share relevant documents, preferably using a template system that standardizes the process while accommodating different types of matters. This way, you can quickly assess how your department is performing against its goals, identify trends where spending has increased and take the necessary steps to mitigate risks. You ll be able to compare budgets against actual costs for more accurate, timely financial reports to your management team. Leveraging historical spending data can also improve future forecasting projections for similar matters. E-billing and matter management solutions key benefits to law departments Deliver savings through objective application of billing guidelines and error reduction Enhance communication and collaboration within department and with law firms Provide greater law department productivity Consolidate the entire legal spend into a common, electronic format Offer specific metrics on how resources are allocated for valuable insight into the legal department as well as greater transparency to the larger enterprise Improving communications with outside counsel to optimize relationships The relationships you foster with outside counsel are critical to your business s success. The last thing you want to do is spend time discussing law firm invoices. A comprehensive e-billing and matter management solution can help you consistently communicate your company s invoicing requirements to firms, providing your staff with an unbiased rationale for charge adjustments. A well-defined solution allows you to outline spending expectations, track actual spending and set clear milestones. Look for a platform that enables your firms to keep you fully apprised of the status of a matter to record and share matter-specific data and to manage charges from the creation of budgets to invoice submission. In the process, you ll boost the efficiency of your company s law firm vendors. E-billing and matter management solutions key benefits for your law firms Errors such as duplicate invoices and miscalculations are caught early in the submission process so that law firms can quickly adjust them Invoices are reviewed and processed faster, so the overall payment cycle can be reduced Firms have access to invoice status throughout the review process All adjustments are clearly communicated along with the reason for the adjustment Client relations generally improve with greater transparency into the firm s activities and associated costs Corporate Legal E-Billing and Matter Management Solutions 3

4 Summarizing e-billing and matter management solutions E-billing and matter management solutions can cost-effectively improve your legal department s productivity, facilitate collaboration and communications, and help control overall spend. Through consistent, objective invoice processing, these applications reduce the burden on your department by automating review and approval activities. Advanced features, such as budgeting and calendaring, can boost your department s efficiency and help you make the most of your budget. In addition, data collected within your e-billing and matter management solution can give you a wealth of actionable data on law firm performance, expenses, staffing and trends, enabling you to make the best decisions for your future business. E-billing and matter management solutions Law department self-assessment Before beginning your e-billing and matter management solution search, answer the questions below. They can help you identify your company s challenges, address specific requirements and select the solution that best meets your needs. What are we trying to solve in implementing an e-billing system (save money, analyze spending, reduce the number of law firms)? What are the key features we need in an e-billing application (budgeting, alternative fee support, reporting)? What additional features would we use if available? How can we better collaborate with our outside counsel? What s the benefit of the ability to quickly identify top-performing outside counsel? Who needs to access and use the system (internal and external users)? Do we have custom data that must be captured? What proportion of our firms/vendors has the ability to submit bills electronically? Do we need a sophisticated workflow to manage and route the invoice after submission? Do we require multiple reviews? Multiple approvals? Do we have historical information that needs to be incorporated into a new system? Do we need to integrate with other systems (existing matter management, accounts payable)? What types of reports do we currently provide to our management? What additional reports would be helpful? Who needs to be involved in the selection and implementation of such a system? 4 lexisnexis.com

5 About LexisNexis CounselLink LexisNexis CounselLink is designed to optimize a company s legal operations through a single, secure, Web-based e-billing and matter management solution that s deployed across in-house staff and outside counsel. The full-featured tools within CounselLink provide legal departments with collaborative e-billing, matter management, outside counsel management and reporting capabilities to help organizations gain greater visibility into the uncertainty, risk and costs associated with legal operations and to improve their bottom line. The CounselLink solution s SmartReview technology reads, categorizes and reviews the details of every charge on outside counsel invoices against your invoicing requirements and flags any questionable charges. Automated workflows route invoices to the appropriate reviewers and automated alerts remind them of tasks that need their attention, ensuring that the invoice continues to move through the review cycle. This automated process guarantees consistent treatment of every invoice, significantly reducing time, effort and costs. In fact, using CounselLink could result in a cost savings of up to 10 percent. In addition, CounselLink acts as a collaboration tool, allowing you to generate and assign budgets for each matter, create a schedule of events or tasks, attach relevant documents and notes, assign and manage multiple firms per matter and apply templates for different matter types. CounselLink can also facilitate greater communication between you and outside counsel to set expectations and milestones as well as track spending. Your law firms can view and edit information on matters, create budgets, submit invoices and documents and provide status updates for your review. You can evaluate and compare your outside counsel on a number of dimensions, including past performance, responsiveness, costs and expertise, then leverage this information to help make the best decisions for future assignments. To learn more about our e-billing and matter management solution, LexisNexis CounselLink, visit or call at Corporate Legal E-Billing and Matter Management Solutions 5 LexisNexis, CounselLink and the Knowledge Burst logo are registered trademarks of Reed Elsevier Properties Inc., used under license. SmartReview is a registered trademark of LexisNexis Examen Inc LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.