Legal news and trends for Canadian in-house counsel and c-suite executives
Issue link: https://digital.canadianlawyermag.com/i/50887
BUSINESS CASE "There are still a lot of in-house counsel out there who haven't heard of e-billing. And even if they have heard of it, they think it's not for them. They think they're too small, that they don't need it, and that it would be difficult for their company to do. The reality is, however, that e-billing programs, and their matter-management protégés, can save a corporation money." Rob Thomas, vice president of strategic development, Serengeti Law widely varying rates and large annual fee increases. But in order to formulate an educated plan of attack, Aziz needed real, segmentable data to adequately assess le- gal spending. TD implemented an e-billing sys- tem by CT TyMetrix that, among other things, provided e-billing reports to cap- ture work performed by task category, staffing pattern, and rate information. "Prior to using the CT TyMetrix ap- plication, it was challenging to identify the bank's total legal expenses," says Aziz. "However using the application to track legal expenses instead of internal cross and department charge codes, we can more accurately review the company's actual legal expenses — based on invoic- es submitted by our law firm partners — at the click of a button." In the 360° program from CT TyMe- trix, invoices are submitted by law firms, tested by the program for data integrity and compliance (with the client's outside counsel guidelines), automatically routed according to a client-defined work flow, and presented in an online review for- mat. The invoices are then "reviewed by exception," adjusted, and either approved or rejected. In-house counsel monitor a firm's billing and account status through 360°, which allows the law firm to see the sta- tus of its invoice at any stage via a secure website. "It's not just about the removal of pa- per," says Kurt Swanke of CT TyMetrix. "It's about the adherence to guidelines." Companies use their system, he says, to manage their risk. The bonus here is that 36 APRIL 2008 C ANADIAN Lawyer INHOUSE often savings are realized when, for ex- ample, the system checks a programmed hourly rate against a new invoice that has added an increase without consulting in- house counsel first. "When you think about it, most com- panies have various departments with vendor- and project-management sys- tems," says Rob Thomas, vice president of strategic development at Serengeti Law, "Law departments are usually the last in the company but they need these management tools as much as anyone else." Serengeti's Tracker system simplifies the collection and organization of infor- mation used by legal teams and allows in-house counsel to monitor developing areas of activity, track budgets, create re- ports, and select the best outside counsel for new work, based on performance. In terms of reviewing pages and pages of invoices, cross-referencing rates with different staff, and matching various codes with the corresponding disburse- ments, the system will do automatically in seconds what would take a lawyer sev- eral hours. "It's mind-numbing work to do manually, and this stuff just isn't hap- pening in the paper world," says Thom- as. Breaking the tools down into matter management, financial management, document management, and reporting, Serengeti's shared system with outside counsel for both matter management and electronic invoicing keeps both sides up to speed on everything from deadlines to invoice status to documents. One of the latest new features of Track- er is its online database of over 14,000 law firms currently billing through it. The da- tabase allows in-house counsel to locate a new firm in a certain city, and within one click begin working with them. "It's Martindale-Hubbell on steroids," says Thomas. Serengeti is used by more than 15,000 in-house counsel around the world. Canada is just one of many growth markets, with 164 homegrown law firms submitting invoices through its application. Essentially, there is a general lack of information surrounding e-billing, says Thomas. "There are still a lot of in-house counsel out there who haven't heard of e-billing," he says. "And even if they have heard of it, they think it's not for them. They think they're too small, that they don't need it, and that it would be diffi- cult for their company to do." The real- ity is, however, that e-billing programs, and their matter-management protégés, can save a corporation money. Across the board, each vendor works with clients to ensure their needs are met — regardless of size. The AIMS product from DataCert Inc. is a web-based application, the primary purpose of which is to help managers take control of their corporate legal spend. Le- gal invoices are validated against corpo- rate outside-counsel guidelines, routed, adjusted, and approved, then posted to a matter-management and/or accounts- payable system. It simplifies the approval and pay- ment of electronic invoices and allows corporate legal departments to drive the bus when it comes to outside legal