Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/43390
Establish a fixed go-live date for law firms. We required all of our firms to e-bill on day one, beginning on the first day of our fiscal year. This date made sense because it allowed us to capture a full year of data in our year-end spending reports. It was also the logical time for us to send out annual communications to law firms regarding billing guidelines, matter budgets and timekeeper rates. We also required a fixed invoice format. With the new system in place, our detailed electronic bills needed to include task and expense codes, timekeeper rates and line-item descriptions. We found that if you allow a firm to enter only basic information about fees and expenses, you give up your ability to audit invoices against your own billing guidelines. The same applies to billing. If you allow a law firm to mail invoices, you are essentially giving up all benefits of having an electronic billing system. Prepare firms for adoption. We assisted our firms by: • Providing clearly written technical instructions about submitting e-bills. • Validating timekeeper information well before "go live." We compiled a list from each of our firms that included timekeeper names, IDs, rates and other required items. We also ran these lists past the law department staff to ensure accuracy. 30 Corporate Law Departments ILTA White Paper • Opting for basic fee arrangements for at least the first six months. Avoiding the use of creative alternative fee arrangements made it easier for us to manage billing until we determined exactly how we wanted our system to work. "The more diverse your practice groups, the tougher it is to build custom rules that will work with them." • Providing training on billing guidelines. Billing guidelines are probably the most important piece of communication to send to firms. It's important to highlight your requirements about Uniform Task- Based Management System (UTBMS) tasks, activities and expense codes. UTBMS codes are not as familiar to firms who practice internationally, so they may require special attention. Remain committed to the standard UTBMS code set because customized codes will only complicate things for your law firms. Explain how and why invoices may be rejected or adjusted, and how firms can rectify these situations. Provide contact information for both technical support as well as matter-specific resources. It also helps to provide a direct contact in your accounts payable department if the firm has a payment question. • Absorbing e-billing costs. We decided not to pass e-billing costs to our firms and this strategy gave us more leverage and helped us enforce billing guidelines. It also gave the firm no excuse for failing to meet our guidelines.