Peer to Peer Magazine

77 WWW.ILTANET.ORG Reducing the Cost of Ebilling MEMBER RESOURCES Documentation DISCUSSION » Clients might issue outside counsel guidelines, billing guidelines, litigation management guidelines or other protocol documents. » Client protocol documents state the terms agreed to by outside counsel for handling and billing maers. » Nonstandard documents, protocols that differ from maer to maer and engagement-specific guidelines add a degree of complexity. RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES FOR CLIENTS » Many of these documents are poorly wrien. Read and redra where appropriate. » Ascertain that the documents are concise. A well-wrien document should be eight pages or less. RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES FOR LAW FIRMS » Read the client documentation. (You would be surprised how oen this is overlooked.) » Aim for 100 percent acceptance of first- time invoice submissions; resubmissions cost the firm money. To do this, you must understand your client's requirements. » Create a network repository to store client protocol documentation; provide read-only access to all firm timekeepers. » If necessary for internal training purposes, create a synopsis of the client protocol documents. Time Entry DISCUSSION » The goal is for all time to be entered in accordance with firm and client requirements, resulting in less editing when creating bills. RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES » Engage all professionals, assistants and billing staff in timekeeping training. Case Plans and Budgeting DISCUSSION » Time associated with creating case plans and budgeting is usually not billable. » Who in your firm — aorneys, assistants or project managers — is tasked with submiing budget and case reports? Make sure they understand their role and its effect on geing invoices submied and paid. RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES » Time spent on these tasks is a so cost for client administration. » Develop a budgeting/case status reporting process with training both for new staff and for fine-tuning skills. » Track these non-billable tasks to understand fully the cost of doing business. Generating Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards (LEDES) Invoice Files DISCUSSION » The firm needs to be able to generate LEDES electronic invoices and to edit invoice files. » Determine whether the firm's time and billing or timekeeping system offers LEDES generation and editing capabilities. What setup is required? Do you need to make changes to the bill format, remap task/activity/expense codes, etc.? » Should you hire an external party to create a system to support these needs? » There are a number of third-party tools available to generate and edit LEDES invoice files. Investigate what others are using. RECOMMENDED BEST PRACTICES » Where possible, use the firm's time and billing or timekeeping system to perform the heavy liing. » Ensure that the maer opening process reflects the client's standard requirements. Only maers that deviate from client standards should require additional setup. » Some programs can perform invoice validation. Whether checking for appropriate charges, disallowed items or validating coding, use the machine instead of the eyeball whenever possible. Submissions DISCUSSION » Identify whether manual changes are needed to meet the vendor or client submission guidelines. Example: The client uses LEDES 98B and requires a task code to indicate a discount or an expense code to indicate tax type. » Does the client require ancillary documentation with an invoice submission (e.g., proof of expenses, a PDF of the invoice, etc.)?

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