Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50887
BUSINESS CASE The evolution of e-billing E-billing has to deliver more than just accounting and bill-processing functionality — it has to provide value by giving in-house counsel greater insight into total legal spend, allow for file budgeting and forecasting, reduce the time spent by lawyers on the bill- review process, and enhance communication and collaboration with outside counsel. By Heather Capannelli W hen it comes to billing, even the most world-weary lawyer can wax poetic about the glory days when all a bill required was the words "For Services Rendered" in or- der to be paid. The concept of monthly billing was decades away, and with it the advent of accounting software for lawyers, not to mention task or billing codes. But rendering invoices at the conclusion of a matter not only presented cash-flow problems for the law firm, it often meant nasty surprises for corporate counsel. Over the years, the de- mand for a more detailed approach has prevailed, and bills that were once a few pages long have now become a few hundred. Electronic legal billing got its start with a toehold on the in- 34 APRIL 2008 C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE surance industry in the 1970s, in claims departments where the business, simply put, was litigation management. Many older systems were merely an electronic connection between an in- surance claims department and its specific panel of law firms. E-billing was in its infancy then, but now it has come of age at a time when knowing your legal spend and having the ability to engage the right firm at the right time are critical to the success of a business. In 2001, Bob Aziz joined TD Bank Financial Group, as senior vice president and assistant general counsel, and set to creating a more disciplined approach to outside counsel selection and management, in order to strengthen partnerships and make more cost-effective engagement decisions. At the time, TD was using a panel of some 850 law firms with