Canadian Lawyer InHouse

39 CANADIANLAWYERMAG.COM/INHOUSE JULY 2015 L aw D e p a r t m e n t M a n a g e m e n t He's also been using a budget-tracking tool. "I've entered in yearly and project budgets and the system automatically generates an alert if we're exceeding the budget depending on the settings based on the per- month or quarter basis. It also allows the law firms to see what our budgets are — so it's increased the dialogue and given firms a better understanding of what we can budget for on a particular matter," he says. Apotex is also using an accrual feature that allows the law firms to enter in their estimated fees and expenses at the end of the month. "We ask all our law firms to give us their estimate from the previous month to run a pre-bill, which allows us to keep up-to-date information on what our expenses are going to be on our fiscal year," he says. "Without that, if all of a sudden you suddenly got three or four invoices coming in at the same time it could sway your budget or spend forecast, whereas if you have up-to-date accruals you know what your spend is on a per-month basis and takes away the guessing." That means Shapiro knows if the depart - ment is going to be under, over, or on bud- get and can adjust behaviour if it is trending over budget. Shapiro manages the system but a law clerk is the tracking co-ordinator and go-to person for the law firms if they have questions. The cost of using the system is based on the amount of legal spend a department puts into the system. Apotex challenged Shapiro to make it a self-funded system — the company expects him to save as much as he is paying for the service. "It's not necessarily a money maker for us and there are lots of soft benefits but overall they want to see a savings that equals the cost of the system, which will be done through rejection of invoices," he explains. Since it went live in September 2014, so far Apotex has made slightly more than what it has spent on the system. "Most of the time it's because someone invoiced us on the wrong file — maybe as a time entry — someone entered in the wrong matter number at the law firm. You can also identify where someone has spent too much time on something," he says. Serengeti also offers an automated auditing system. There are certain expense codes you can set limits on, so if those limits are exceeded an error alert pops up allowing you to reduce or ignore that error but it at least provides visibility, such as with photocopying costs. A company may have a limit of 25 cents a copy and if a firm tried to charge 30 cents it would show up as an alert. By using uniform, task-based manage - ment system codes Apotex can also tell how much law firms spent on each area of a piece of litigation. It can run analytics across its law firms to see how much each stage of liti - gation cost. The system allows Shapiro to switch from hourly rates to alternative fee arrangements because he knows what the typical per-stage costs are going to be. "I think when law firms know their in - voices are being scrutinized the behaviours certainly change. I can't say the system is always going to be self-funded but I would be happy at the end of the year if we weren't rejecting as much and that the behaviours had changed," he says. IH Because business issues are legal issues. So if you want to get ahead in business, get the degree that gets you there faster. ONE YEAR – PART - TIME – NO THESIS FOR L AWYERS AND NON - LAWYERS law.utoronto.ca/ExecutiveLLM GPLLM Global Professional Master of Laws [Get a Master of Laws] ntitled-3 1 2015-03-02 9:02 AM

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