Peer to Peer Magazine

PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGA ZINE OF ILTA 52 program to condense both our legal and claims infrastructures onto a single electronic matter management and e-billing platform that could be extended and integrated with other technologies, such as visualization tools. We also have a team in charge of process improvements across the department, and we've made over 80 process improvements in this space. We measure ourselves daily, weekly, quarterly and annually against 40 data quality metrics to make sure we continue to move up the value chain. How do you measure the benefits your legal department has realized? Brian: It's critical to have credible benefits reporting for initiatives to track progress and demonstrate the value of the programs to your constituents. For example, we've measured simple benefits around the ROI of legal e-billing. E-billing not only provides your department with immediate, better data and reporting, it also generates savings by applying your negotiated rates consistently and identifying potential reductions based on charges that don't satisfy your billing guidelines. The savings we realized by establishing a global e-billing system created the savings we used to then invest in other tools. The key was establishing a baseline and then measuring those savings. An average legal department can expect legal spend to decrease from five to seven percent just from installing an e-billing system, but that's just the start. Once we understood the data we got through the system, we leveraged it to make sure we were getting the right pricing models. We've been able to use that insight to go back to our law firms and frame our pricing conversations in a way that has reduced costs without sacrificing outcomes, which ultimately has driven a competitive advantage. This isn't unique to insurance. Legal is usually a back-end cost; if you can put those cost savings back into the profit margin, you have a significant competitive advantage. Has anything you've done changed the way attorneys practice law? Brian: Since we have more data about how we choose law firms and the services they provide in the legal process, we can leverage the right resources at the right phase of litigation and in an informed way. This allows us to get the maximum value out of each phase. For instance, we might need a high-end lawyer in the most complex phases of litigation, but we don't need him/her when reviewing documents for relevancy or privilege. These tools have helped our attorneys make incrementally better decisions — And it's all powered by our SQL Contact BEC Legal for a demonstration. Visit us in booth #123 at ILTACON 2015. Legal Calendaring and Docketing— could it be that easy? BEC Schedule Express provides client/matter scheduling directly from the MS Outlook calendar. BEC Docket Enterprise backs it up with centralized controls for distribution, reminders, reports and rules-based docketing. FEATURES

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