The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: https://epubs.iltanet.org/i/67910
result was embarrassment, disbarment, jail time and a valid reason for establishing legal billing code standards. Until the advent of the UTBMS codes, manual evaluation and custom coding was still required when a bill was received. With UTBMS codes came legal electronic billing and new standards and vendors who supported both the bill rendering and the collection of data by the receiver. This then led to metrics, and the easiest metrics to establish were cost-related. Looking for inaccuracies, overbillings and duplicate bills could yield a return on investment (ROI) of more than 600 percent in the first year. Most vendors downplayed this estimate because it seemed unbelievable. Yet, it was possible. Of course, as we all now know, that ROI diminishes over time as the systems become more fine-tuned and the bills become more accurate through automation. What's Trust Have To Do with It? We all know that cost control alone does not ensure satisfaction or trust. We may feel no more satisfied with a low-cost provider than we do the high-cost provider. Paying less does not guarantee we'll feel good about losing a case (hey, we lost but at least we didn't break the bank); however, it will probably cause our "satisfaction needle" to move slightly forward in comparison to having paid a large amount and not won. The same holds true within in-house legal organizations. While holding down costs may gain a legal department favor, it probably won't offset the feelings of dissatisfaction that poor or untimely service to the business units causes. It also doesn't measure the cost of lost opportunities that this lack of service caused. In reality, a lost business opportunity may far outweigh the cost savings as measured by the legal department. The UTBMS enables the capture of meaningful cost information and facilitates the analysis of legal services by standardizing the categorization of legal work and separating it from legal-specific expenses. UTBMS utilizes standard legal work product classification codes developed through the collaborative effort of the American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel (formerly American Corporate Counsel Association) and a group of legal vendors, law departments and law firms. This team of legal professionals provides the high degree of understanding of the legal processes that is required to determine what legal professional services are needed to obtain desired outcomes for clients. The UTBMS codes are currently maintained and periodically updated under the purview of the not-for-profit, all volunteer Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards (LEDES) Oversight Committee (LOC). Similar to the coding commonly applied in medical practices (another credence service) for reimbursements based on the type of illness and treatment provided, UTBMS codes identify the type of legal matter undertaken and the processes or specific steps associated with the work undertaken. These codes (both medical and legal) are standardized in such a way that a professional in the field would recognize and understand where in the process Opportunities FRESH Career Posted DAILY! ILTA's Career Center is your best resource for making online employment connections in the legal market. The feature-rich site offers several opportunities for connecting law firms and corporate legal departments with top talent, along with quick and easy job posting and online job activity reports. It provides job-seekers free and confidential résumé posting, automated weekly email notification of new job listings, online application for positions and the ability to save jobs for later review. Employers can post and edit their job listings at will, select features to highlight key positions, receive email notification of applicants and search résumés. Visit the Career Center at iltanet.org under the Services tab. Peer to Peer 125