Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R & S U R V E Y R E S U L T S | L I T I G A T I O N A N D P R A C T I C E S U P P O R T & C O R P O R A T E L E G A L D E P A R T M E N T S 34 these guidelines. While an aggressive approach may seem attractive to larger organizations with high legal spend amounts, a collaborative style often leads to a better outcome where firms understand and agree to the guidelines and case management rationale. The clearer, more detailed and more thoughtful the guidelines, the more likely a firm will be engaged in ensuring its timekeepers understand them and bill accordingly, while also allowing for an easier invoice audit on submitted legal bills. The former is because law firms want to bill correctly so that invoices are paid in full without confrontation and without clients requesting seemingly arbitrary discounts or reductions in what the client feels to be an overly large invoice. The latter stems from the fact that with clear guidelines it quickly becomes evident whether an entry is compliant or noncompliant and much of the gray area of legal invoicing is removed. As a simple example, block billing (billing multiple tasks within a single line item) and vague entries (those that do not adequately describe the task performed) should be disallowed so that firms must describe the completed tasks in detail and clients can more easily determine what work has been performed and whether this work is approved by their guidelines. During the initial firm engagement negotiations, legal billing guideline agreement is key. The second step an organization should take to achieve an improved return on legal dollars is to select and implement an enterprise legal management system or other software solution that allows for legal invoice auditing. Tracking and analyzing legal spend and identifying noncompliant invoices for adjustment or rejection are difficult without a robust system in place. Software plays a critical role in the overall invoice audit strategy, and many invoicing and ELM solutions contain built-in features for audit automation, including such items as flagging of noncompliant expenses (such as copy rates in excess of guidelines) and timekeeper rates. It is also helpful if the software selected provides spend trending, budgeting and other forecasting features. As with all systems and AI-based applications, the pros and cons need to be weighed against an organization's needs and goals. An extremely fancy and expensive system won't necessarily provide a return on investment without the proper input and management of experienced professionals. Important considerations associated with the invoice audit systems described include: • System development and the setup and training time required. • Updated workflows to address compliance flag acceptance and overrides, as well as invoice approvals and flow control based on specified system logic. "During the initial firm engagement negotiations, legal billing guideline agreement is key."

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