Author: Onit

Bodhala Q & A: Handling Your Law Firm Payables During Covid

Posted on May 8, 2020 by Onit - Legal Operations

Since the start of the Covid pandemic, Bodhala has fielded client requests for data-backed insights on how to handle their law firm payables.

Despite the current economic situation, law firms continue to invoice clients at rates that are even higher than the previous year.

Knowledge is power. Bodhala equips your corporate legal department with the information needed to navigate these trying times.

Consider these suggestions from our team of legal experts when evaluating your department’s spend:

Are corporate legal departments paying outstanding invoices?

While every budget line item is being reevaluated, corporations have halted accounts payable in an effort to preserve working capital. We have seen numerous businesses skip out on their rent payments, renegotiate vendor contracts, and cut executive salaries significantly.

As “The Great Retrade” takes shape across industries and corporate legal departments evaluate invoices with heightened scrutiny, law firms can no longer shield themselves from the negative effects of a crisis. Law firm invoices from the first half of the year are likely to be recut at the end of the pandemic.
Based on market data from recent years, Bodhala predicts that nearly $100 billion of invoices are currently outstanding. We project that only 50 to 65% of outstanding receivables from the first quarter of 2020 will actually be collected.

Can I renegotiate rates?

You should absolutely work with your law firm to establish new rates that reflect the current economic situation. Bodhala recommends restructuring all hourly billing models with significant adjustments to your current rate card – even if you currently receive a discount.

Rate cards have increased year-over-year, usually without explicit sign-off from the client. Consider implementing your last approved rate card as this can help your business realize savings of 15 to 20%.

How should I handle ongoing matters?

Pay close attention to the staffing on your matters, monitor associate and partner matriculation, and do not be afraid to ask for discounts – after all, it is your money. Any M&A transactions halted by COVID should receive significant dead deal discounts of 15 to 25% on accrued fees.

Is my law firm going to be around when this is all over?

With so much uncertainty still on the horizon, it is not guaranteed that your law firm will be left standing when this is all said and done. Should your law firm go under, make sure you can pivot accordingly to a backup firm that can handle any mission-critical legal services. Stay informed on your law firm’s performance during these unprecedented times by requesting an economic health statement. Do not let your company be the last to pay a flopping firm.

Bodhala is here to help.

Bodhala is your partner for optimizing your outside legal spend and holding your law firm accountable throughout these challenging times. Our platform and team of legal experts can provide you with actionable insights to manage your law firm relationships, handing the reins back over to your corporate legal department.

We understand the critical need to conserve cash and run your legal operations efficiently throughout this crisis. To learn how Bodhala can help with your spend optimization efforts, contact us at [email protected]

Digging into the Great Retrade

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Onit - Legal Operations

In each recent crisis – the dot-com collapse, the 9/11 attacks, the Financial Crisis – we have seen industries take major hits, adapting to the fiscal reality each has presented, and sharing in the pain. However, there is one group that has historically been exempt from the shared cost of these crises – the legal industry.

During each of these monumental crises, law firms established themselves as essential to the fate of your business as you navigated the uncertainty. In doing so, the industry maintained its pricing and performance almost seamlessly – even during times of economic peril.

Take a look back at the 2009 financial crisis. While the lack of cash flow ran rampant in other industries, law firms experienced stability and even increases in their profits per partner (PPP). The top three firms grossed PPP of $4.3 million, $3.13 million, and $2.965 million respectively according to the AmLaw 100 rankings.

In case you forgot, this was during an economic crisis. Sounds unfair, right?

Though they have gotten away with it in the past, the discrepancy in legal market income and market forces is no longer acceptable. As companies struggle to navigate their new reality, law firms are seeing an influx in their workload.

In a survey recently conducted by the Association of Corporate Counsel, over 10% of in-house lawyers, general counsels, and chief legal officers shared that they are outsourcing more work than usual to law firms as they look for additional support during the crisis.

If that is the case, wouldn’t you like to make sure you are hiring the right firm at the right price?

Good news – Bodhala is here to help you do just that.

It is now more urgent than ever to find efficiencies in your spend categories and to hold your law firm accountable for their fees.

Bodhala was built on the foundation that the legal market is not special – it is just like any other sophisticated market service and should act accordingly through economic undulations.

Our platform refines organizational processes by empowering your legal team with deeper insights that allow you to better analyze, interpret, and optimize outside counsel spend.

As the coronavirus pandemic has unraveled the past several weeks, we have witnessed the rapid downturn of our economy. It has left companies to retrade every billing line item – from real estate, to employees, to insurance. Companies are holding their bills, deferring payments, and renegotiating leases.

Among some of the largest industries to take a hit are airlines and real estate.

Air travel has almost completely dissolved with US carriers cutting about 70% of flights this month. As a result, major US airlines including Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and American applied for government aid in hopes of receiving a grant authorized through the stimulus package.

Even with government assistance, Delta Airlines projects those funds only lasting until June as they burn through $60 million a day. The airline expects Q2 revenue to be down by 90 percent from 2019 and continues to add to the 35,000 employee volunteers taking unpaid leave.

Travelers aren’t the only ones staying away from the airline industry.

Aircraft leasing investors, who once enjoyed hefty returns, are now dispersing left and right as dividend payments are suspended and payment schedules are renegotiated. 80% of Avalon Holdings Ltd. customers, one of the world’s largest plane lessors, sought payment relief within the past week.

Mass workforce layoffs have Americans strapped for cash and unable to make payments on time, or at all. As the first of the month approaches, many Americans are unprepared to make their rent payment with housing advocates in New York pushing for a statewide rent strike on May 1.

It’s not just your average American that is worrying about making rent. Co-working giant, WeWork, halted rent payments at several US locations as “the great re-trade” begins to take shape in the real estate market. The company is looking for an asset-specific solution that benefits them and their over 600 global landlords.

Luxury fitness company, Equinox, recently issued a letter to their landlords to let them know that they should not expect the chain’s rent check at all. Equinox is temporarily not paying their vendors and they recently furloughed a number of employees.

Here is some food for thought:

If Delta Airlines can barely pay their employees, if WeWork has to renegotiate their leases, and if Equinox isn’t paying their rent or vendors – isn’t it time for you to rethink paying that hefty legal bill?

Bodhala is reimagining the legal services marketplace by providing legal market intelligence, insights, and guidance to corporations to optimize their legal operations. Our current economic climate makes the need to take control of your spend more critical than ever before.

Our platform provides you with actionable insights to manage your law firm relationships and equips you with the logic needed to execute legal operations efficiently and effectively. Real transparency, real accountability, and real control.

As part of an ongoing series, we will be covering topics ranging from tactical “dos and don’ts” to navigating law firm payables and everything in between.

Like what you are seeing?

Download our free white paper to get data-backed and time-tested guidelines for understanding your RFP responses. You’ll also see a real-life example where our data saved a global bank millions on their rate negotiations.

Download The Full Guide

Shoot us an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about how to get started.

Listen to Onit’s New Podcast about Jaguar Land Rover’s Implementation of Onit’s Enterprise Legal Management Solution

Posted on May 4, 2020 by Onit - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

We are thrilled to announce our new podcast! This timely episode is not to be missed, as it features Christine DiDomizio, legal operations lead at Jaguar Land Rover North America speaking about their implementation of Onit’s enterprise legal management solution and how their legal department is handling the current COVID-19 crisis.

Christine begins by giving an overview of Jaguar Land Rover’s North American team and the composition and functions of their legal department. She noted that they respond to legal service requests from not only the United States but also from Canada and the U.K. Christine goes on to explain a bit about what exactly their Onit solution is helping them with in the legal department. Before they implemented Onit, they didn’t even have an electronic billing system. So e-billing was one of the first workflow solutions they started using, followed by matter management. Christine points out that they did quite a bit of customization to their matter management solution to help them track and manage different areas very well. They also use a document repository where they store contracts and capture metadata about the contracts. They also have another Onit solution that helps them get that information into the repository, and other departments can submit legal service requests to their department via Onit’s legal service request solution.

Christine then sheds some light on her department’s goals when beginning their transformation. She explains that a priority was getting a handle on invoice processing – the sheer volume of which was overwhelming; not to mention most invoices were hardcopy or pdf. This of course led to their implementing e-billing. Their previous matter management system was also rudimentary, with people putting files on a shared drive, and filing paper documents. To make matter worse, parts of files could be physically separate on different individuals’ desks or other areas. Going paperless and consolidating everything including emails related to a matter was a priority.

Christine addresses the question of how collaboration with outside counsel has changed since they implement Onit. She explains that the biggest change has been in the area of product liability, as her department must do very detailed reporting of product liability cases to their parent company. She emphasizes the fact that there was a lot of copying and pasting involved with those reports previous to Onit, and so the implementation has been very successful in that regard. Christine mentions that her favorite feature in Onit is the grid reporting, along with the sorting and filtering capabilities and being able to do ad hoc reporting so easily and get results so quickly. She also points out that Onit is an ever-evolving system, and this is important because needs change. “Onit has been able to keep up with us, and then some!” she commented.

Christine responds to the question of how they’ve been dealing with the COVID crisis by saying it was surprising how seamless the transition has been. The podcast closes with Christine mentioning how her department has been able to function well largely because of Onit.

Listen to the podcast:

Watch Onit’s Webinar: Market Uncertainty – ROI, Cost Savings and Technology

Posted on May 1, 2020 by Onit - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

Join us for a recent webinar co-hosted with SimpleLegal, Consilio and Baker McKenzie titled, Market Uncertainty: ROI, Cost Savings and Technology. This webinar was part of Onit’s new Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative.

The presentation began with a quick overview of Onit’s Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative. Amy Good, director of strategic alliances at Onit highlighted the new Business Continuity Apps and emphasized the focus of helping our clients through the current COVID-19 crisis. She then explained the guiding principles of these Apps: they are free, simple and standard.

The conversation then moved to the topic of cost savings and achieving realignment, and how you could do that quickly. Craig Raeburn, vice president of global sales at SimpleLegal, offered some pointers on how to do that. He pointed out that he doesn’t think of “savings” so much as other things, such as ensuring the legal ecosystem stays in place and is operational now and in the future. Craig added that things will get back to normal and recommended keeping it simple in the early days and measuring everything you do.

Robin Snasdell, managing director at Consilio, then offered an overview of the potential savings of using their Sky Analytics solution. Some of the areas where cost savings are greatly realized include shifting work to more cost-effective firms, marginal input attorneys and block billing.

Matt DenOuden, vice president of global sales at Onit, then explained how various approaches fit into the value vs. impact prioritization grid. David Cambria, chief services officer at Baker McKenzie, offered a unique perspective by comparing the financial crisis of 2008 to the current crisis, with a focus on legal operations. He noted that anything in the high risk/high impact area demanded special attention, coupled with external and internal expertise. Robin made the point that departments should make the best use of collaboration tools during this time. Craig further added that just because something worked in 2008 doesn’t mean it will work today and suggested that you should research what systems already exists that you can leverage. David then concluded with a key takeaway — we need to make sure we have the right work going to the right resources.

To learn more about this webinar, watch the recording today.

Watch Onit’s New Webinar: When the Budget Committee Comes Knocking – Quantifying Project Savings

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Onit - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

We’re thrilled for this opportunity to invite you to watch our new webinar we co-hosted with Duff & Phelps. This webinar, When the Budget Committee Comes Knocking: Quantifying Project Savings, is part of our new Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative.

The presentation began with a quick overview of Onit’s Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative, and our Business Continuity Apps. Matt Denouden, vice president of global sales at Onit then explained the current challenges as we see them, including the fact that CFOs want to see numbers to support new or ongoing projects, and how calculating cost savings can be time-consuming. In addition, he elaborated on how accurate data can be hard to come by for making a business case. In response, Onit developed savings calculators for Enterprise Legal Management (ELM), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Workflow Management. Matt then illustrated the average savings realized with Onit’s products as evidenced from actual usage by some of Onit’s major clients:

Contract Lifecyle Management

9% – Average annual savings (IACCM)
20% – Reduce average hours spend on contracts (Goldman Sachs)
24% – Reduce average sales cycle (Aberdeen Group)
5% – Automate renewal increases per contract (ACC)

Workflow Management (Apptitude)

45% – Annual cost savings if workflow activities can be automated (McKinsey)
40% – 75% – Annual cost savings if workflow costs can be saved via automation (Forbes)
90% – Annual cost savings if workflow’s operating costs can be saved via automation (Forrester)

Enterprise Legal Management

5 – 12% – Average incremental annual savings (Industry consultants)

A detailed demo of the Enterprise Legal Management calculator followed and then Charmel Rhyne, CLM sales director at Onit, offered insight about the cost savings from using contract lifecycle management technology. Mike Stevens, managing director at Duff & Phelps then explained some of the benefits of the calculator, with a key takeaway that the calculator (and business case) should be tailored to your organization.

Jonathan Powers, director of training and special projects at Onit completed the webinar with an overview of Onit’s business process automation platform, Apptitude, and its associated Workflow Management calculator. Before getting into the actual calculator, Jonathan described some common workflows built in Apptitude, such task tracking, PTO requests, approval processes, enterprise legal management, legal service requests, legal holds, NDAs and contract lifecycle management. The Workflow Automation cost savings calculator was then explained to gain a basic understanding of its benefits.

A Q&A session rounded out the remaining time on the webinar. We hope you’ll take some time to watch this highly informative webinar.

E-Billing Operating Procedures (Pre-Flight Checks for Law Firms)

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Onit - Enterprise Legal Management

In aviation, a pre-flight checklist lists tasks that pilots and aircrew should perform before takeoff. It aims to improve flight safety by ensuring there are no forgotten essential tasks. Failure to correctly conduct a pre-flight check using a checklist significantly contributes to aircraft accidents.

Although nowhere near as critical as air safety, several law firms have established the principle of running “pre-flight checks” on their e-Bills before submitting them to a legal spend management or e-Billing system such as BusyLamp eBilling.Space. This is to correct any obvious errors on the e-Bill and reduce the % of invoices rejected in the first stage of the validation process. This leads to invoices being accepted and paid by the client faster. Over time, you can identify common errors and make processes at the firm can be more accurate and efficient. It also improves customer satisfaction, as it’s frustrating for in-house clients to receive non-compliant invoices.

One useful tool to support such “pre-flight checks” is an e-Billing Operating Procedures (e-Billing OP) document. Usually, one exists for each e-Billed client entity, covering the key validation rules for each e-Bill and the broader policies and protocols for working with that specific client and legal e-billing software.

Such documents are becoming more common at law firms. Billing Standard Operating Procedure documents come widely mandated in financial and government organizations. Several law firms have adopted and tweaked the idea to have something specific to legal e-Billing. With the increase in corporate counsel buying legal e-Billing software comes an increase in the number of clients that need billing in this way. It also adds to the volume and variety of billing guidelines that firms must remember. Operating Procedures documents allow these to be easily recalled and accessed and help prevent simple mistakes.

In this blog post, we’ll cover how to create and maintain your e-Billing OP document, sample “pre-flight checks,” and how to deal with billing errors.

DOCUMENTING THE E-BILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES

Many law firms have either written or are developing e-Billing OPs for every e-Billing client and/or generic e-billing tool. In order to gain the maximum benefit from this exercise, you need a consistent template against which to write all the e-Billing OPs. Your e-Billing OPs should include the following:

The overall client e-Billing process flow and project scope.
Timescales for valid billing, e.g., within xx days of the work.
How to submit WIP and invoice data?
How to use/invoice alternative fee arrangements?
What data validation rules apply?
How are disputed invoices/time entries handled?
What is the escalation process for correcting rejections within the law firm?
When will the valid invoices be paid?
What expenses/activities may get disallowed?
What UTBMS codes are required?
How to amend/resubmit invalid data?
Are any statutory/regulatory statements required?
Are there any budgets set/how are they handled?
Who to contact for queries?

The Operating Procedure may include the non-e-Billing agreed Protocols and Policies governing the client/law firm commercial relationship. Edit these if access to sensitive data is to be restricted.

PRE-FLIGHT CHECKLIST: VALIDATION OF E-BILLS

In addition to the policies mentioned above, your Operating Procedure document must include the checklist of validation criteria to avoid unnecessary invoice rejections. These cover quite basic e-Billing criteria for common and avoidable oversights. Taking the time to do these checks will save time in the long run. Some validation checks typically covered in the pre-flight checklist include the following:

Are the hourly rates correct and as agreed?
Are the timekeepers valid, and if required, are they pre-approved?
Is the time being billed within the agreed time limits?
Is there evidence of block billing?
Are the narratives clear? Is there a minimum number of words required?
If required, are there UTBMS codes for tasks/activities/expenses?
Are there any disallowed expenses (e.g., Online Research, Local Travel), activities (e.g., Reviewing Files), or timekeeper classifications (e.g., Intern or Trainee) on the e-Bill?
Are there any budgets or caps on this matter? Are we still within these limits with this bill included?

Subject to a few exceptions, most of the errors detected at this stage can be easily corrected. Some errors can be resolved by the e-Billing team, for example, missing timekeepers or incorrect rates. Other more significant errors, i.e., missing activity codes, vague narratives, block billing issues, tax errors, or other billing guideline breaches, must be referred to the revenue controllers or the firm’s legal team. This may inevitably delay the submission of the e-Bill. It’s important to note that the client would reject the invoice anyway, so it’s still faster to catch the error before submission.

Regardless of the type of error, they should get documented and their resolution communicated to the legal team. This helps your firm identify common errors and improve the billing accuracy (and, therefore, the processes’ efficiency) in the future.

Many law firms have implemented additional processes upon matter opening and will set an e-Bill indicator or flag in their Time and Billing system to show that this matter must be e-Billed. This will notify the matter partner/lawyers and e-Billing coordinator that crucial data items are required to stop the matter from being billed if missing. The firm’s e-Billing team can then run audit reports on a client-by-client basis to check that the expected data is present before the matter gets billed. (As noted above, you should have processes to refer many of these issues back to the business to resolve.)

COLLECTING CLIENT REQUIREMENTS FOR E-BILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES DOCUMENTATION

Now that you have the template for building your operating procedures document, you may still be wondering how to identify the clients’ e-Billing requirements in the first place! Ideally, the in-house client will have supplied you with a billing guidelines document signed off by both parties. You then use this to populate a “client matrix,” which includes the client’s data and billing requirements, your law firm’s data requirements, and any administration and special installation guidelines. In the interest of centralization, we recommend that the client billing guidelines and other specific e-billing requirements are in the e-Billing OP documentation. They must be visible to the relevant parties and adhered to by the legal team and the firm’s e-Billing/finance function.

THE CLIENT MATRIX IS PRIMARILY A SERIES OF TASKS WITH DATES FOR COMPLETION. THE MAIN SECTIONS ARE:

New Client setup – includes client ID, e-Billing software vendor details, bill format, contact details, timekeeper types, and entities in scope.
New Client Implementation Checklist – includes UTBMS codes, invoice template details, login, and password details, validation lists, expense codes, testing requirements, and go-live dates.
Portal set- up – includes client and law firm data setup, user setup, rates and timekeepers, and reporting metrics.

THE INFORMATION FROM THIS CHECKLIST IS CROSS-REFERENCED AND INCLUDED IN THE E-BILLING OPS. COMPLETING THE CHECKLIST WILL HIGHLIGHT OTHER TASKS TO FOR COMPLETION FOR A GIVEN CLIENT, SUCH AS:

Is any timekeeper mapping required? – Typically, from the law firm’s system to the client timekeeper classification.
Are any data extracts needed? – e.g., existing open matters, timekeeper uploads, agreed rates, etc.
Communications to the legal team – mandatory task/activity codes/Narratives etc.
Client work types, is a PO number needed?

As with the Operating Procedures, the data-gathering checklist comes from the law firm’s e-Billing coordinator/team. Although these main sections refer to “new clients,” the client matrix should be updated if billing guidelines, or any other procedures from the client, change.

OPERATING PROCEDURES MAKE E-BILLING EASIER

There is no “one way” to do e-Billing, which is different in many law firms. One core difference is whether e-Billing is centralized or decentralized and the associated consequences of that approach. What seems consistent (and works) is when firms create a dedicated e-Billing specialist team. These carry various names but are essentially a team responsible for successfully uploading e-Bill files to the e-Billing vendor/client portal. This team can be in-house, near-shored, or offshore but will need clear Operating Procedures for each client with all possible outcomes and options documented and a clear escalation path for all unresolved queries. They will also require a general support model covering other non-client-specific scenarios. This level of documented support may be more important if the team is working offshore or remotely.

The scope of e-Billing is changing and is far from the original concept of loading e-Bills into a portal, handling the rejections, resolving issues, and getting the bills accepted. Evolving from this original requirement came the addition of matter budgets to the portal and the law firm’s responsibility to maintain them and ensure they are adhered to. More recently, we have seen clients make “added value” requests, such as adding client-only data to the e-Bill (such as their work types) and unbilled time and WIP uploaded to the e-Billing portal. This extension to the scope will only increase as the adoption of “beyond e-Billing” legal spend management technology, such as AI and machine learning, is spread wider. These requests are all helping in-house clients better understand their matter budgets and legal spend, and your law firm is a vital partner in assisting them to achieve these goals. But with this additional service comes complexity, making the need for clear e-Billing documentation at your firm even more critical.

Written by Bryan King

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

EBILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES: PRE-FLIGHT-CHECKLIST FÜR KANZLEIEN

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Onit - Enterprise Legal Management

In der Luftfahrt versteht man unter der Pre-Flight-Checkliste eine Liste mit wichtigen Aufgaben, die vom Piloten und der Flugzeugbesatzung vor dem Start durchgeführt werden müssen. Sie soll die Flugsicherheit gewähren, indem sichergestellt wird, dass keine wichtigen Checks vergessen werden. Eine häufige Ursache von Flugunfällen ist beispielsweise, dass der Pre-Flight-Check nicht korrekt anhand der Liste durchgeführt wurde.

Natürlich ist ein eBilling-System nicht annähernd so kritisch wie die Flugsicherheit. Trotzdem haben bereits einige Kanzleien das Prinzip der „Pre-Flight-Checks“ ebenfalls eingeführt. So werden elektronischen Rechnungen, bevor sie an ein Legal Spend Management- oder eBilling-System wie BusyLamp eBilling.Space übermittelt werden, anhand einer Liste geprüft. Ziel ist es, offensichtliche Fehler auf der elektronischen Rechnung zu korrigieren und somit den Prozentsatz der Rechnungen zu reduzieren, die in der ersten Stufe des Validierungsprozesses abgelehnt werden. Der positive Aspekt dabei ist klar: Die Rechnungen werden schneller vom Kunden akzeptiert und bezahlt. Mit der Zeit können häufige Fehler identifiziert und die Prozesse in der Kanzlei genauer und effizienter gestaltet werden. So lässt sich auch die Kundenzufriedenheit verbessern, da Inhouse-Kunden nur noch konforme Rechnungen erhalten.

Ein nützliches Werkzeug zur Unterstützung solcher Pre-Flight-Checks ist ein eBilling Operating-Procedures-Dokument (eBilling OP). In der Regel gibt es ein solches Dokument für jeden Mandanten, der elektronische Rechnungen erstellt. Es enthält nicht nur die wichtigsten Validierungsregeln für jede elektronische Rechnung, sondern auch die allgemeinen Richtlinien und Protokolle für die Arbeit mit diesem speziellen Mandanten und der eBilling-Software.

Solche Dokumente werden in Kanzleien immer häufiger verwendet. „Standard Operating Procedure“-Dokumente für die Rechnungsstellung sind in Finanz- und Regierungsorganisationen weithin vorgeschrieben. Viele Kanzleien haben diese Idee übernommen und sie speziell auf Legal eBilling angepasst. Mit der Zunahme der Unternehmensberater, die in eine Legal eBilling-Software investieren, steigt auch die Anzahl der Mandanten, die auf diese Weise abgerechnet werden müssen. Gleichzeitig wird so der Umfang und die Vielfalt der Billing Guidelines erhöht. Mit Hilfe von Operating Procedures-Dokumenten können diese jedoch leicht abgerufen werden. Die Dokumente helfen also dabei, „einfache Fehler“ zu vermeiden.

In diesem Blog-Beitrag erkläre ich, Bryan King, wie Sie Ihr eBilling OP-Dokument erstellen und pflegen. Außerdem gebe ich Beispiele für die Durchführung von Pre-Flight-Checks und zeige, wie Sie am besten mit Abrechnungsfehlern umgehen.

DOKUMENTATION DER EBILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES 

Viele Kanzleien haben entweder bereits eBilling-OPs für jeden eBilling-Mandanten und/oder für jedes generische eBilling-Tool geschrieben oder sind aktuell dabei, solche zu entwickeln. Um den maximalen Nutzen aus dieser Übung zu ziehen, benötigen Sie eine konsistente Vorlage, anhand derer Sie alle eBilling OPs schreiben können. Ihre eBilling-OPs sollten folgende Überlegungen enthalten:

Den gesamten eBilling-Prozessablauf des Kunden und den Projektumfang
Fristen für eine gültige Rechnungsstellung, z. B. innerhalb von xx Tagen nach Erledigung der Arbeit
Wie können WIP- und Rechnungsdaten eingereicht werden?
Wie können alternative Honorarvereinbarungen verwendet/abgerechnet werden?
Welche Datenvalidierungsregeln gelten?
Wie werden strittige Rechnungen/Zeiteinträge behandelt?
Wie ist der Eskalationsprozess für die Korrektur von Beanstandungen innerhalb der Kanzlei?
Wann werden die gültigen Rechnungen bezahlt?
Welche Spesen/Tätigkeiten können nicht anerkannt werden?
Welche UTBMS-Codes werden benötigt?
Wie können ungültige Daten geändert/neu eingereicht werden?
Sind irgendwelche gesetzlichen/regulatorischen Erklärungen erforderlich?
Sind irgendwelche Budgets vorgegeben/wie wird damit umgegangen?
Wer ist der Ansprechpartner beim Kunden für Rückfragen?

Die OPs können auch jene Protokolle bzw. Richtlinien enthalten, die zwar nicht auf eBilling bezogenen sind, aber die Geschäftsbeziehung zwischen Mandant und Anwaltskanzlei regeln. Diese können somit leicht bearbeitet werden, wenn der Zugriff auf sensible Daten eingeschränkt werden soll.

PRE-FLIGHT-CHECKLISTE: VALIDIERUNG VON ELEKTRONISCHEN RECHNUNGEN

Zusätzlich zu den oben erwähnten Richtlinien muss Ihr Operating Procedure Dokument die Checkliste der Validierungskriterien enthalten, um unnötige Rechnungsablehnungen zu vermeiden. Diese decken ganz grundlegende eBilling-Kriterien für häufige und vermeidbare Versäumnisse ab. Wenn Sie sich die Zeit nehmen, diese vorab zu überprüfen, sparen Sie auf lange Sicht viel Zeit. Einige Validierungsprüfungen, die typischerweise in der Pre-Flight-Checkliste enthalten sind, umfassen die Fragen:

Sind die Stundensätze korrekt und wie vereinbart?
Sind die Timekeeper gültig (und falls erforderlich vorab genehmigt)?
Wird die Zeit innerhalb der vereinbarten Fristen abgerechnet?
Gibt es Nachweise für eine Blockabrechnung?
Sind die Beschreibungen eindeutig? Ist eine Mindestanzahl von Wörtern erforderlich?
Gibt es, falls erforderlich, UTBMS-Codes für Aufgaben/Tätigkeiten/Aufwendungen?
Gibt es unzulässige Ausgaben (z. B. Online-Recherche, Reisen vor Ort), Aktivitäten (z. B. Akteneinsicht) oder Timekeeper-Klassifizierungen (z. B. Praktikant oder Trainee) auf der elektronischen Rechnung?
Gibt es diesbezüglich irgendwelche Budgets oder Obergrenzen? Sind wir mit dieser Rechnung noch innerhalb dieser Grenzen?

Vorbehaltlich einiger weniger Ausnahmen können die meisten der in diesem Stadium erkannten Fehler leicht korrigiert werden. Viele Fehler können direkt vom eBilling-Team behoben werden, wie z.B. fehlende Timekeeper oder falsche Honorare. Andere, schwerwiegendere Fehler, wie fehlende Aktivitätscodes, ungenaue Beschreibungen, Blockfakturierungsprobleme, Steuerfehler oder andere Verstöße gegen die Fakturierungsrichtlinien, müssen entweder an die Revenue Controller oder das Rechtsteam der Kanzlei weitergeleitet werden. Dies kann unweigerlich zu einer Verzögerung bei der Einreichung der e-Rechnung führen. Doch die Rechnung würde in diesem Fall vom Kunden ohnehin abgelehnt werden. Es ist also immer noch schneller, wenn der Fehler vor der Rechnungseinreichung auffällt.

Unabhängig von der Art des Fehlers sollten diese dokumentiert und die Lösung an das Rechtsteam kommuniziert werden. Das hilft Ihrer Kanzlei, häufige Fehler zu identifizieren und die Abrechnungsgenauigkeit (und damit die Effizienz der Prozesse) in Zukunft zu verbessern.

Viele Kanzleien haben zusätzliche Prozesse bei der Eröffnung einer Matter implementiert und kennzeichnen elektronische Rechnungen oder setzen eine Markierung in ihrem Zeit- und Abrechnungssystem, die anzeigt, dass die Matter elektronisch abgerechnet werden muss. Dies löst eine Benachrichtigung an den Partner der Matter und den eBilling-Koordinator aus. In dieser wird mitgeteilt, dass wichtige Daten eingetragen werden müssen, damit die Matter abgerechnet wird. Das eBilling-Team der Kanzlei kann dann Prüfungsreports für jeden einzelnen Mandanten erstellen und anhand diesen überprüfen, ob die benötigten Daten vorhanden sind, bevor das Projekt in Rechnung gestellt wird. (Wie bereits erwähnt, sollten Sie über Prozesse verfügen, um viele dieser Probleme zur Lösung an das Unternehmen zurückzuverweisen.)

SAMMELN VON KUNDENANFORDERUNGEN FÜR DIE DOKUMENTATION DER EBILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES 

Nun, da Sie die Vorlage für die Erstellung Ihres Operating Procedures Dokuments haben, fragen Sie sich vielleicht, wie Sie die Anforderungen des Kunden an die elektronische Rechnungsstellung überhaupt ermitteln können. Im Idealfall hat Ihnen der Inhouse Mandant ein von beiden Parteien unterzeichnetes Dokument mit Billing Guidelines zur Verfügung gestellt. Daraus erstellen Sie dann eine „Mandanten-Matrix“, die die Daten- und Abrechnungsanforderungen des Mandanten, die Datenanforderungen Ihrer Kanzlei sowie eventuelle Verwaltungs- und spezielle Installationsrichtlinien enthält. Um all diese Anforderungen zu zentralisieren, sollten Sie die Richtlinien für die Mandantenabrechnung und andere spezifische Anforderungen an die elektronische Rechnungsstellung in die Dokumentation des eBilling OP aufnehmen. So sind sie für die relevanten Parteien sichtbar und können sowohl vom Rechtsteam als auch von der eBilling-/Finanzabteilung der Kanzlei eingehalten werden.

Die Mandantenmatrix besteht in erster Linie aus einer Reihe von Aufgaben samt Fristen. Die Hauptabschnitte sind:

Einrichtung eines neuen Kunden: Enthält die Kundennummer, Details zum Provider der eBilling-Software, Rechnungsformat, Kontaktdaten, Timekeeper-Typen und -Instanzen im Anwendungsbereich.
Checkliste für die Implementierung eines neuen Mandanten: Enthält UTBMS-Codes, Details zu Rechnungsvorlagen, Login- und Passwortdetails, Validierungslisten, Ausgabencodes, Testanforderungen und Go-Live-Daten.
Einrichten des Portals: Umfasst die Einrichtung von Mandanten- und Kanzleidaten, Benutzer:innen, Tarifen und Timekeeper sowie Reportingmetriken.

Die Informationen aus dieser Checkliste werden mit Querverweisen versehen und in die eBilling-OPs aufgenommen. Durch das Ausfüllen der Checkliste werden weitere Aufgaben hervorgehoben, die für einen bestimmten Kunden erledigt werden müssen, wie beispielsweise:

Ist eine Timekeeperzuordnung erforderlich? – Erfolgt typischerweise vom System der Anwaltskanzlei zur Timekeeperklassifizierung des Mandanten
Werden irgendwelche Datenexporte benötigt? – z. B. bestehende offene Matter, Timekeeper-Uploads und vereinbarte Stundensätze
Mitteilungen an das Team – obligatorische Aufgaben/Tätigkeitscodes/Narrative
Mandantenarbeitstypen, wird eine PO-Nummer benötigt?

Neben den OPs führt der kanzleieigne eBilling-Beauftragte auch die Checkliste zur Datenerfassung. Obwohl sich die Hauptabschnitte auf neue Mandanten beziehen, sollte die Mandantenmatrix aktualisiert werden, wenn sich die Billing Guidelines oder andere Verfahren des Mandanten ändern.

OPERATING PROCEDURES ERLEICHTERN EBILLING

Es gibt nicht „den einen Weg“ für die eBilling-Nutzung – vielmehr unterscheiden sich die Vorgehensweisen von Kanzlei zu Kanzlei. Einen wesentlichen Unterschied macht die Frage, ob eBilling zentralisiert oder dezentralisiert ist und welche Konsequenzen der jeweilige Ansatz mit sich bringt. Eine wichtige Grundvoraussetzung für ein erfolgreiches eBilling ist jedoch die Einführung eines Spezialistenteams. Dieses ist im Wesentlichen für das erfolgreiche Hochladen von elektronischen Rechnungsdateien auf das eBilling-Portal verantwortlich. Ein Legal eBilling-Team kann sowohl inhouse als auch extern bestehen. Wichtig ist, dass es über klare Operating Procedures für jeden Kunden verfügt, in welchen alle Ergebnisse und Optionen dokumentiert sind und ein eindeutiger Eskalationspfad für alle ungelösten Rückfragen beschrieben ist. Das Team benötigt auch ein allgemeines Supportmodell, das andere, nicht kundenspezifische Szenarien abdeckt. Offensichtlich ist diese Ebene des dokumentierten Supports wichtiger, wenn das Team extern oder anderweitig dezentral arbeitet.

Der Umfang von eBilling ändert sich ständig und ist weit entfernt von dem ursprünglichen Konzept: elektronische Rechnungen in ein Portal zu laden, die Ablehnungen zu bearbeiten, Probleme zu lösen und die Rechnungen zu akzeptieren. Heute umfasst das System weitaus mehr: Budgets für Matter werden individuell hinterlegt und es liegt in der Verantwortung der Kanzlei, diese zu pflegen und die Einhaltung sicherzustellen.

In jüngster Zeit haben wir erlebt, dass Mandanten „Mehrwert“-Anforderungen gestellt haben, wie das Hinzufügen von Daten, die nur für den Mandanten bestimmt sind (z.B. ihre eigenen Arbeitstypen) oder das nicht berechnete Zeit und WIPs in das eBilling-Portal hochgeladen werden. Je mehr Legal Spend Management Systeme „jenseits von eBilling“ eingeführt werden, desto größer wird auch die Zahl solcher Anfragen. Diese Anfragen helfen Inhouse-Kunden dabei, ihre Mandats-Budgets und juristischen Ausgaben besser zu verstehen. Ihr wichtigster Partner bei der Zielerreichung sind dabei stehts die eigenen Kanzleien. Für diese gilt: Durch den zusätzlichen Service kommt Komplexität, was die Notwendigkeit einer klaren eBilling-Dokumentation noch wichtiger macht.

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt.

Bankruptcy: The Moment Big Law Has Been Waiting For

Posted on April 29, 2020 by Onit - Legal Operations

While companies face a financial collapse, bankruptcy & restructuring partners prepare for big paydays.

Article Highlights

The coronavirus pandemic has a number of large retailers facing bankruptcy and restructuring.
Law firms will reap the benefits of other companies’ financial collapse once more if they are not held accountable.
Bodhala can serve as a resource for companies to ensure they hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Floor after floor of designer brands. Elaborate holiday displays emitting a sense of joy and a tinge of magic. Rushes of crowds fulfilling their Black Friday shopping lists. These happy memories that department stores once created have now been replaced by nail biting calls with creditors and endless meetings with Big Law firms as they prepare bankruptcy filings for numerous retail companies and their boards.

The coronavirus pandemic has vaporized any aspect of normalcy we once knew and continues to decimate our economy, taking out businesses big and small.

With shelter-in-place orders in effect for nearly two months now, non-essential businesses are feeling the hurt as some of the biggest names in retail fall victim to bankruptcy.

The current economic distress is leaving the likes of Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Nordstrom facing bankruptcy while JC Penney is now in advanced loan talks with existing lenders.

Penney’s loan package could total between $800 million to one billion with bankruptcy filings potentially taking place within the next few weeks.

The rapid financial downturn has left department store chains with only a few choices:

Restructure debt directly with creditors;
Restructure with court assistance;
Liquidate entirely.

Sadly, any of these options come with law firm sticker shock.

Sales and discounts? Those might exist in retail, but law firms are a different story.

Even when companies find themselves in dire need of competitive pricing, the legal industry continues to respond with inflated fees and a refusal to hold timekeepers accountable. This has a tragic consequence to real people — like employees and suppliers.

Now is not the time to dig deeper into your company’s pockets to pay the inflated fees law firms are charging. Bodhala’s proprietary data set serves as a valuable resource for companies at risk to ensure they don’t pay out tens of millions of dollars to their law firm while kicking their employees to the curb.

We can all learn a lesson from Toys “R” Us which filed for bankruptcy in 2017.

The beloved toy store chain that was part of so many of our childhoods turned into a feeding frenzy for Big Law as top firm Kirkland & Ellis took home $56 million.

Bodhala data shows that law firm rates for Toys “R” Us were 36.6% higher than similar “bet the company” litigation. These matters are plagued by too many attorneys on each filing, brief, meeting, call, and hearing.

Judge Keith Phillips reviewed and approved the firm’s fee application which listed the top two earners raking in over $3 million dollars while billing hourly rates between $995 and $1,480.

105 partners and 131 associates at Kirkland & Ellis worked on the bankruptcy case with seven partners and associates billing over one million dollars EACH in fees.

What did the Toys “R” Us employees take home you may ask?

The employees who missed out on Thanksgiving dinners to accommodate Black Friday shoppers, those who sacrificed family gatherings to cover a shift, the people who spent their birthdays working instead of celebrating…they must have received something – right?

Think again.

Employees received no severance pay. Nothing.

Did this have to happen? Absolutely not.

The Toys “R” Us bankruptcy was an outrage and led to the public shaming of the management and system that allowed the filing to pan out the way it did.

Yet companies are on track to see this happen again tenfold during the coronavirus pandemic.

The United States Trustee program is a component of the Department of Justice tasked with overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases. Significant reputation risk is at stake if judges and US Trustees do not ensure rates are reasonable and aligned with other market rates.

So what’s the solution here?

Enter Bodhala.

It is time to hold your service providers accountable, including pricey law firms.

Our market data provides transparency into the billable hour and actionable insights so that the US Trustee can operate effectively — instead of overseeing another massive law firm payday while an entire workforce gets kicked to the curb.

With over $15 billion in legal invoices and data from over 235,000 lawyers spread across 31,000 law firms — with the most sophisticated algorithms ever created in legal spend management — we’re here to ensure that you hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Contact us at [email protected] to learn how Bodhala can help with your spend optimization efforts.

Onit Releases New COVID-19 Contract and Meeting Applications for Free!

Posted on April 27, 2020 by Onit - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management

As we continue to face this ever-changing environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made it our mission at Onit to help organizations the best way we know how. By providing free business continuity software applications that help organizations manage their remote workforce, financial impacts, business processes, and company risk. We feel that it is our responsibility as an enterprise software vendor to not only take care of our customers but to do our part in helping every type of business of every size.

I am pleased to announce that we are launching two new free Business Continuity Apps, Contract Compliance Issue Tracking, and Weekly Meeting Tracker.

Contract Compliance Issue Tracking App

Contract Compliance Issue Tracking App provides a mechanism for companies to log and manage issues reported by (inbound) or reported to (outbound) external parties that impact the ability to deliver on a contract. This includes, but is not limited to, force majeure claims. This App also:

Enables employees to notify the legal department quickly of problems with contract compliance and what obligations may not be able to be met
Provides visibility into the types of compliance issues that have been reported based on the level of risk
Sets rules for automatically notifying legal, finance, and operations reviewers

Weekly Meeting Tracker App

Weekly Meeting Tracker Application enables managers and leadership to quickly establish a framework for offsite team communications, including managing agendas and follow-ups for standup meetings and aggregating updates for management reporting. This Apps also:

Manages meetings and provide visibility to their outcomes
Adds meetings details and generates team email notifications to communicate meeting descriptions, attendees, topics, and post-meeting outcomes
Sends reminders to have updates and discussion topics provided by team members before meetings to ensure meetings are productive and efficient

We have designed these Business Continuity Apps with three key principles in mind, free, simple, and standard. As stated earlier, we are here to help and when we say free, we mean FREE! We are able to do this by engineering these Apps as simple and as standard as possible so that they can be used out of the box across a variety of industries, departments, and use cases.

Even though these Apps are out of the box, they are still built upon our innovative workflow platform. Meaning they share the same infrastructure, security, and performance as all of our industry-leading enterprise-class software. Another benefit of the cloud-based Business Continuity Apps is that they are accessible on any modern web-browser, device, and to an unlimited of users.

For more information on our Business Continuity Apps for COVID-19 please visit us online.

Letter From The CEO: Announcing a $10M Growth Investment in Bodhala

Posted on April 23, 2020 by Onit - Legal Operations

Dear Friends,

When I was a student at Harvard Law 20 years ago, I quickly noticed that law firms were like black boxes, billing hefty rates without much transparency or accountability. I now like to joke that people have more data about their underwear purchases on Amazon than corporate legal departments have about their law firms and how these firms deliver their services.

My experience at law school, coupled with my business partner Ketan’s 10 years as a corporate attorney, exposed us to the systemic cracks in the legal system. We saw law firms padding their wallets with more money than the assumed value they provided their clients.

We’re now in a moment of time where these cracks are about to get bigger. With COVID-19, we anticipate a rise in legal cases as companies turn to law firms to help them mitigate the negative financial impacts of this pandemic, from layoffs, to the grinding halt of M&A transactions, and to potential mass bankruptcies.

After the dot-com crisis, 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, law firms increased their hourly billings, even as their corporate clients experienced significant hardships. In 2009, top law firms increased profits per partner (PPP) between 10 and 34 percent notwithstanding the financial chaos surrounding them, according to the AmLaw 100 rankings.

This is why Ketan and I created Bodhala. We wanted to tackle the outdated legal marketplace to bring transparency to the billable hour and sophisticated economics to the legal industry—one where visibility and fair competition lead to the selection of the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

With Bodhala, we created an AI-driven platform for the $500 billion legal services market. We provide essential 360-degree data on law firms and the analytical leverage needed to better allocate the legal market between its buyers and sellers. Our unique data and platform thereby provides us the opportunity to sit at the center of the dynamic legal ecosystem.

We brought the Bodhala platform to market in 2016 serving clients in financial services, healthcare services, insurance, energy, and private equity. Within the past year, we’ve experienced 300+ percent growth in both revenue and headcount and look forward to continuing on this trajectory in 2020. Today we are excited to announce our first institutional round—$10 million in growth capital led by Edison Partners.

When we first met Edison’s Dan Herscovici, we knew it was a fit because he understood our mission to deliver groundbreaking legal technology solutions to empower companies to analyze, interpret, and optimize outside counsel spend, trailblazing a new era of legal market intelligence with real transparency, real accountability, and real control.

With this financing, we are going to accelerate sales and marketing as well as product expansion. Specifically, we want to enhance our datasets to become even more valuable to our clients. Edison Partners has helped build great software businesses in other verticals so we are excited to have their expertise as we look to expand.

I look forward to sharing more great things to come as we usher in a market-driven economy to the legal industry and deliver more value to our customers.

Sincerely,

Raj Goyle, CEO

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