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TECH SUPPORT — technology takes its cut Snip, snip Software-based audit helps manage outside legal spend. BY GERRY BLACKWE LL based audit and compliance service. Legalbill helps companies monitor — and control — legal spending. Why did Lufthansa do it? "Reduction F of expenditures for outside legal coun- sel was the number one reason," says Arthur Molins, general counsel for Lufthansa in North America. He cites other reasons, but all relate indirectly to cost reductions. And Legalbill delivered. The airline has cut outside legal spending in North America by about 15 per cent, says Molins. Lufthansa, which has operated in Canada for decades, uses two Canadian firms: Blake Cassels & Graydon LLP and ive years ago, the legal department at Lufthansa German Airlines started using Legalbill, a software- Bersenas Jacobsen Chouest Thomson Blackburn LLP. Both made the transi- tion to the new regime without major problems. But the growing use of automated legal-auditing services raises interest- ing questions, which we've touched on recently in other contexts, about the seemingly negative role technology can sometimes play for law firms. Yes, computer and online technol- ogy makes lawyers more productive in hundreds of ways. Yes, practising without BlackBerry, laptop, Internet, computerized billing, word processing, practice-management software, and the rest would be inconceivable now. But as we saw in recent stories about Fired Without Cause, an online direct- to-consumer wrongful dismissal case preparation service, and Corporate Responsibility System Technologies Ltd. (CRSTL), a company that auto- mates routine legal tasks related to regulatory compliance, the impact of technology on law firms is not always or entirely benign. It sometimes chal- lenges traditional modes of practice and threatens revenues. Lufthansa's Molins and Legalbill managing partner and co-founder Stephen French both say more rigor- ous auditing of legal bills and resulting reductions were inevitable. "Legal prac- tice, globally, has become very, very expensive," Molins says. "This is just a corporate reaction." Legalbill and services like it first help clients establish guidelines on how outside counsel can bill for services — www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com NO VEMBER / DECEMBER 2009 25 ENRICO VARRASSO