The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/57001
That's e-commerce. Add in the additional complexity of cross- border transactions and there you will find legal e-billing. There may be rules or requirements that must be followed in the areas of data privacy, data protection, data storage, data archiving, data accessibility, electronic invoicing, digital signatures, data composition and required elements. These rules or requirements can be imposed by regional, jurisdictional (country), regulatory, local and advisory bodies. Tax authorities often are the source of many requirements, and in this regard a noncompliant process could result in not only a penalty assessed against the client but, in some cases, could result in a penalty to the law firm. With this in mind, the LEDES Oversight Committee has given special consideration to global e-billing requirements. Formats to Support Global E-Billing While the electronic invoice file structures used most often in the U.S. (LEDES 98B and LEDES 2000) provide insight into the line items involved in the transaction, invoice totals are for the most part reconstructed from the information provided by the receiving system and checked against the values provided. Outside the U.S., an electronic invoice typically is required to include more information on the financial nature of the transaction between parties. Moreover, since alternate fee structures are more common, there is a greater need to detail how these structures impact invoice line items and the overall financial transaction. The end result is a more difficult math statement and a more complex file structure. The LEDES Oversight Committee has two actively supported formats for use with global e-billing: • LEDES 98BI is an extended version of the LEDES 98B format, adding an additional 28 fields to the original ASCII pipe- delimited format. • XML 2.1 is actually a third-generation format. The first- generation LEDES 2000 format, ratified in late 2000, included seven segments and a total of 125 data elements; it was originally designed for use in the U.S. The second-generation file, LEDES XML E-Billing 2.0, was ratified in 2006 and contained 15 segments and a total of 153 data elements: it was specifically designed to support global e-billing. Once in use, we learned that there were some issues to be (re)considered, there were things about XML 2.0 that were not well understood and there was a need to accommodate required elements with greater dexterity as legal e-billing spread from country to country. The result was the third-generation LEDES XML E-Billing 2.1, ratified in 2008, which contains 16 segments and a total of 191 data elements. That's not to say other formats will not work in global e-billing. They do — as long as an electronic rendering of the invoice (PDF or Word file) is also provided by the law firm and the electronic rendering is the document of record for tax authorities. LEDES 98B or LEDES 2000, however, may not provide all of the information needed by the client's accounts payable system and, for this reason, is used less commonly in global e-billing. A Call for Global Participation Today the LEDES Oversight Committee includes members in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia — countries where legal e-billing is most prevalent today. Our semi-annual member meetings, coinciding with LegalTech New York and the ILTA annual conference (both in the U.S.), are broadcast via webinar to encourage member participation, and the board has approved funds for an additional annual meeting in the U.K., where our regional membership is the highest. Our regional group structure is intended to facilitate local meetings where members can interact and discuss concerns with e-billing. We need more volunteers to lead these efforts or to host a local gathering. The organization is also helping to facilitate the spread of legal e-billing around the world. A few years ago, we added a feature to our websites, ledes.org and UTBMS.com, that allows visitors to contact the board. As a result, we have received questions from all over the world — not only from law firms but also local time and billing programs that are developing the ability to create LEDES invoice formats. Global: It's what we do. Jane A. Bennitt has been the President of the LEDES Oversight Committee since 2006. She is the principal of Global Legal Ebilling, LLC and can be reached at jbennitt@globallegalebilling.com. 98 Peer to Peer