Author: Onit

From Manual to Magical: The Power of AI in Contract Management

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

World Commerce & Contracting states, “Smarter contracting is a new vision for how modern enterprises should experience contracting. A vision that elevates the role of contracts as a source of the real-time data needed to manage the complexity of today’s business environment.”

Contract management is a vital process in any business, and it can be complex and time-consuming. However, contracts are the backbone of any business relationship and must be well-managed to satisfy all parties involved. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software has been around for some time, but the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) re-introduced innovation to this field. Whether you are part of corporate legal, procurement, or sales operations, you need reliable tools to streamline workflows, reduce manual workloads, and increase productivity. So, what’s required to make this vision a reality?

By 2024, Gartner predicts a 50% reduction in manual effort for contract review % due to the adoption of AI-based contract analytics solutions. While technology is a vital part of this puzzle, it needs to be approached differently. AI-powered CLM is the way businesses go from manual to magical. AI is infinitely more effective when closely interwoven into enterprise functions connecting people, integrating systems and data, and facilitating the flow of intelligence.

Introducing Onit’s Smart CLM Solution

This is why Onit developed Smart CLM. Onit’s Smart CLM solution streamlines the contract management process pre- and post-signature, reducing the time and resources required to manage contracts. The solution uses AI to automate the review of contracts and extract essential data from them, such as key terms and obligations, dates, and other relevant information. As a result, businesses can quickly and easily identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts, which can help them make informed decisions and negotiate better terms.

Key to Onit’s Smart CLM is the tight integration of OnitX CLM with two new products, Onit Catalyst ReviewAI and Contract Extraction. Catalyst ReviewAI utilizes advanced AI algorithms to analyze and extract key contract data points, such as dates, clauses, and obligations. As a result, you can quickly identify potential risks and issues and prioritize your work accordingly. By using ReviewAI, you can locate misaligned contract terms and missed renewal dates, reducing the risk of errors or misinterpretation. In addition, with powerful analytics and reporting capabilities enhanced by the Risk Analysis Dashboard, you can make informed decisions, negotiate better contract terms, and reduce your organization’s legal risk.

Contracts are only sometimes in a centralized repository, obligations are ambiguous, rules and regulations constantly change, and market trends and business decisions can send you in different directions. The newest addition to Onit’s Smart CLM solution, Catalyst Contract Extraction, solves this challenge and creates structure from unstructured contracts by automating and augmenting contract data extraction to report and act on previously hidden information. Catalyst Contract Extraction uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze the text in contracts and identify key phrases and clauses. It also uses advanced machine learning algorithms to automate bulk contract migration and accelerate the repapering process; Contract Extraction also locates poor data and contract clauses that may impact your contract’s compliance.

With Contract Extraction, you can reduce the time and resources required for legacy contract migration, manual document review, and management, ultimately minimizing the risk of errors or misinterpretation.

The Benefits of Onit’s Smart CLM Solution

One of the most significant benefits of using AI in contract management is that it can save time and reduce errors. Manual contract review is a time-consuming, error-prone process, especially when dealing with large volumes of contracts. With Onit Smart CLM, businesses can automate much of the review process, significantly reducing the time and resources required. As a result, companies can focus on more strategic activities, such as negotiating better terms and managing relationships with their partners.

Another benefit of using Smart CLM is that it can help businesses identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts. By extracting essential data from contracts, companies can quickly identify areas of risk exposure, such as non-compliance with regulations or breaches of confidentiality. As a result, you can now proactively mitigate these risks and protect their business interests. Similarly, by identifying contract opportunities, businesses can negotiate better terms and improve their bottom line.

Onit’s Smart CLM, comprised of OnitX, Catalyst ReviewAI, and Catalyst Contract Extraction, is designed to help enterprise business professionals work more efficiently, make informed decisions, increase compliance, and reduce the legal risk for their organizations. By automating much of the contract review process, businesses can save time and resources, reduce errors, and identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts. In addition, with the help of AI, companies can manage their contracts more efficiently and effectively, ultimately leading to better business outcomes. So why wait? Try Onit’s Smart CLM today and see the difference they can make for your enterprise.

Schedule a call with us today to see how Onit’s Smart CLM can help your organization.

Introducing OnitX – A Modern Platform for Transforming Legal-Related Workflows

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management, Legal Operations

We previously shared how 2023 is the year for every legal department to optimize their operations to deliver critical business outcomes with fewer resources and budget. It is our opinion that Legal needs to adopt a platform model approach to serve the internal demand for legal-related services more efficiently, so the legal team can spend more substantial time on initiatives impacting the entire enterprise.

To usher in the era of optimized legal operations, Onit is proud to announce OnitX, the smart workflow platform for sophisticated legal matters and contract solutions that speeds the business. The “X” represents the innovative nature of Onit and signifies how the platform is highly configurable to customers’ unique needs, provides integrations with a broad range of technologies and business applications, and ensures a path to the future with extensibility to support new features and capabilities.

OnitX delivers several key customer benefits. First, it provides better visibility to legal services demand, which can feed an internal quarterly “report card” and give the data needed to forecast future needs. It supports greater operational efficiency for the legal department through user self-service, more seamless collaboration, and intelligent automation of legal workflows. Finally, OnitX enables better management of all legal resources, such as a deeper awareness of the “what and who” of legal operation, an improved ability to balance work done internally versus by outside counsel, and a greater understanding of outside counsel activity and spending so you can proactively manage outside law firm work.

OnitX is the evolution of the Onit Apptitude workflow platform that forms the foundation to many of Onit’s products. It includes the critical layers of a modern SaaS platform and adds several innovations:

  • Smart new rate approval through embedded visibility to rate benchmarking data that includes $47.6B+ in legal billings, 200,000+ timekeepers, and 8,900 law firms.
  • An integrated ELM solution tailored for European legal departments
  • Actionable contract insights provided by risk dashboards and mining contract language
  • An easy-to-use Legal Holds Management capability that streamlines compliance and reduces risk
  • A visual forms builder for the workflow engine that makes it easier to build applications.
  • A new, scalable capability to build third-party application integrations powered by Workato, an industry-leading iPaaS technology provider, as well as better and scalable data integration capabilities with Data-as-a-Service

OnitX also seamlessly integrates with the Onit Catalyst family of AI-enabled products to provide smart solutions for ELM and CLM.

The following products are available within the OnitX platform:

Contact us today to learn how OnitX can be your modern matter and contract solutions platform.

The Future of Legal Technology: A Modern Platform for Success

Posted on March 17, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management, Legal Operations

In previous blogs, we discussed the mandate for corporate legal departments to optimize their operations and how adopting a platform model can help them do so. In this blog, we help technology buyers or evaluators understand the key elements and characteristics of a modern software platform that supports the management of legal matters and legal-related documents such as contracts and agreements.

The ideal modern platform has five layers to its architecture: service, business analytics, tech, data, and integration.

A Modern Platform Architecture

A service layer is the critical “front door” to legal services for internal clients. It needs to provide a simplified, consumer-like experience to encourage business users to use it versus sending a one-off email or chat to the legal team. Users can either make a legal service request or directly access technology in a self-service manner that addresses their needs. Legal-related services that could populate the service layer include NDA requests, invention disclosures, trademark or logo use requests, whistleblower submissions, and data breach incident reporting.

A business analytics layer provides users with an embedded capability to derive insights from data. While stand-alone analytics tools like Tableau or Microsoft PowerBI are great at doing ad-hoc analysis and reporting, the average business user wants to use insights at the point of need, i.e., during the performance of a workflow. The ideal business analytics layer provides a range of capabilities, such as reporting, dashboards, benchmarking, and legal business intelligence within the platform.

A technology layer includes the software necessary to fulfill a request or automate a workflow. The service layer can provide a skilled user with direct access to the technology layer. For a platform that addresses legal matters and legal-related document requests, the technology layer should ideally include capabilities for matter management, legal spend management, legal holds management, and contract lifecycle management. It should also include an engine to automate collaborative workflows and business processes with sophisticated, custom requirements.

A data layer allows data sharing amongst the different technology layer components. This avoids the double entry of data and provides consistency across datasets, a single source of truth, and the ability to generate consolidated reports and analyze data holistically and more efficiently.

Lastly, an integration layer is a critical connection between the platform and other business applications such as ERP, CRM, and GRC systems. It should also enable connectivity to other data repositories and analytic tools.

While the ideal platform for legal matters and documents solutions has each of these layers, it should also possess several essential characteristics:

  • Is configurable to address the needs and circumstances of a large, complex enterprise.
  • Provides scalability to support future growth in users and data.
  • Is extensible to accommodate new features and capabilities, including integrations with more business applications.
  • Can be consumed in a modular fashion that does not require monolithic adoption by a customer.
    Addresses security, compliance, and reliability needs.

Please contact us to learn how Onit can provide a modern platform for legal operations.

The Power of Platforms: Why Corporate Legal Leaders Should Take Notice

Posted on March 17, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management, Legal Operations

When corporate legal leaders consider different legal operations technology solutions, they face a world of bland and similar descriptions for various offerings. A case in point is the use of the term “platform.” The technology platform concept has been trendy for several years, alongside cloud computing and artificial intelligence. While a powerful idea, it, unfortunately, has become a throwaway word as most legal technology vendors use it to describe their loose collection of products that are a mix of organically developed and acquired products. 

Firstly, the discussion of a platform does NOT begin with technology. Instead, it is a proven business model technology-based companies repeatedly apply to dominate their markets. Think Amazon, Uber, eBay, Airbnb, and so forth. 

A platform approach consolidates demand for a specific consumer need efficiently and connects it seamlessly with supply – retail goods for Amazon, temporary and localized transportation for Uber, and vacation rental properties for Airbnb. The model was initially developed to serve consumer markets but has also been replicated for business marketplaces. For operationally efficient and agile companies and business functions, it has also been applied to address an “internal” market for corporate services. 

 

The Platform Model

Two examples come to mind. First, most corporate IT organizations moved to a platform approach starting a decade ago. For example, an employee needs a new laptop, a developer needs access to a database or virtual server, a marketer needs to add a new SaaS tool, and an executive needs desktop support. Solutions from companies such as Zendesk, Jira, and BMC have enabled the CIO to implement a platform approach to aggregate the internal demand for IT services and efficiently satisfy it with a combination of internal hardware, public cloud services, and IT staff and contractors. Second, leading HR organizations offer a similar model. For example, an employee needs a copy of a paystub, wants to change benefits, or needs to make a vacation request. A manager must initiate and manage an annual review process with her team. A Chief People Officer relies on Workday, Ceridian Dayforce, or SAP SuccessFactors to deliver a platform model to address employees’ needs for HR-related services. 

As with other business functions, a platform model does NOT replace the highest value work that the legal department performs that requires deep collaboration and partnership with other business functions, for example, understanding the implications of a pending regulation on a business unit operating model, the development of a new, global chain strategy, or the development of a seamless digital quoting and contracting process for a family of SaaS offerings that is directly accessible by customers. Instead, it creates efficiency for legal and frees the team to focus on these value-add projects. In a previous blog, we shared that ~80% of corporate legal’s time and expense goes towards run rate legal support: contracts, business agreements, IP and trademark requests, legal holds management, real estate agreements, and so forth. A platform model can help reduce this allocation of time and effort so legal can have the bandwidth to focus on making a cross-enterprise impact. Legal leaders have internal references for the model’s effectiveness – their own CIO or Chief People Officer. 

In addition to a better internal customer experience, legal leaders gain greater understating and control of their function: 

  • The visibility to internal demand can feed an internal quarterly legal “report card” and provide the data needed to forecast future demand. 
  • Central aggregation allows managing all work more efficiently, enabling more self-service of legal requests through a combination of established processes and technology. 
  • A deeper awareness of the “what and who” of their operations. 
  • A better ability to balance work done internally versus by outside counsel. 
  • A greater understanding of outside counsel activity and spending so you can proactively manage outside law firm work. 

Back to where we started — given the sameness of how legal technology providers merchandise their “platforms,” what should legal leaders expect when considering a modern technology platform that can support this model? Learn more in our next blog, which outlines the critical elements of a modern platform. 

The Key to Streamlined Legal Operations in 2023

Posted on March 17, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management, Legal Operations

With The Conference Board forecasting that the U.S. economy will formally enter a recession in early 2023, many large enterprises are having flashbacks to the past two significant periods of economic turmoil in 2008 and 2018. Likewise, PwC’s 26th annual global CEO survey highlighted the need for businesses to “evolve or die,” per the 4,410 CEO respondents. Seventy-three percent of CEOs believed that global economic growth would decline in 2023. Moreover, nearly 40% did not think their companies would be economically viable a decade from now if they continued their current path.

Behind this sobering economic backdrop are three other prominent trends driving further business complexity:

For corporate legal leaders, these forces represent two sides of the same coin.  On one side, they represent significant run-rate work for already heavily utilized legal teams. But, on the other side, they represent an opportunity for legal leaders to partner with the C-suite and business unit leaders to provide the best possible business guidance on the legal elements of each of these trends.

Corporate legal departments have their own set of challenges. With corporations expecting to do additional work with fewer resources and less budget, so must legal. An E&Y law survey reveals that general counsels expect workloads to increase 25% over the next three years, yet 75% do not expect budgets to keep pace. Per ALM, 2023 rate hikes are 7% to 8% for many corporations, with high-end firms commanding more than a 30% increase.

So, what is the path forward for the corporate legal department? In discussions with Onit customers, we hear that most of their time and expense goes into daily run rate legal matters and activities: contracts, business agreements, I.P. and trademark requests, legal holds management, real estate agreements, and so forth. Unfortunately, this leaves little time for legal to partner with business leaders and provide the guidance the business desperately needs.

Executives now expect legal to operate like other business functions. This includes delivering higher satisfaction amongst internal clients, providing superior legal outcomes (and thus better business outcomes), improving operational efficiency, and demonstrating ROI on spending. To do so, corporate legal departments must optimize legal operations.

They are not alone. Today, many legal departments connect to the business in more influential, material ways – from impacting revenue generation and growth to EBITDA and operational efficiency. While legal operation has existed for decades, the function is at an inflection point. Forward-thinking organizations represent torchbearers for a new chapter in legal operations’ history – an era of optimized legal operations.

Even for departments that have not established a formal legal operations function or team, the operations of legal still happen every day. Nascent legal ops initiatives should adopt a start-up mentality and embrace a modern operating model versus taking a similar adoption path that more mature legal operations functions took.

Legal’s path to making a more material impact on the business requires a focus on driving down the mix of time and money spent on run rate legal matters, so legal teams are freed to focus more on innovation and transformation initiatives.

The Transformation to Optimized Legal

Such a transformation will rely on the usual combination of people, processes, and technology. Corporate legal leaders must now challenge legal operations technology providers to deliver the technology piece of the equation – a modern software platform for managing sophisticated legal matters and contracts with more intelligence, speed, and efficiency. Such a platform needs to provide a digital self-service capability, automate workflows and collaboration, and apply artificial intelligence to bring insights to bear at the point of decision or need.

Why is a platform the linchpin to this transformation? In this next blog, learn how a platform approach starts with a business model, not technology, that can enable Legal to materially impact the business.

Introducing the 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report

Posted on March 15, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

This multinational study uncovers the power of legal departments to influence material growth, business value, and every aspect in between, even during periods of economic uncertainty — through better communication, efficient workflows, and more positive interactions with Legal’s internal clients.

The basis of all relationships lies in their interactions. In quantum physics, all properties are relational. Subatomic particles whirl through space, acquiring new properties only when they integrate with other particles.

When it comes to legal operations, interactions are just as fundamental. They are the underlying atomic units that permit Legal to collaborate and directly impact materiality and operational efficiency, even within our current macroeconomic climate.

The 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals spanning the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany, focuses on the year-over-year (YoY) impressions of Legal’s brand image and its ability to influence every corner of its businesses, from revenue generation and EBITDA to corporate culture.

We are living in challenging economic times. The mantra everywhere, it seems, is “do more with less.” Yet just as there are clues to solving cosmic mysteries, the ELR Report discloses ways in which Legal can repair the energy and dynamics within its own systems: via better interactions.

THE PEOPLE, PROCESS & TECHNOLOGY OF LEGAL

Many organizations have long embraced a business framework called people, process, and technology (PPT). Designed to optimize efficiency and maintain balance, PPT is common across numerous disciplines, from HR and operations to IT and cybersecurity.

People are necessary to provide talent, wisdom, and insight.

Processes are required to accomplish work with productivity, scale, and efficiency.

Technology assists people in executing processes to achieve innovation.

So much has changed across the corporate landscape — and the world — since the 2022 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report debuted. Last January’s boom economy is now a bust, besieged by geopolitical conflict, inflation, and devastating layoffs. Cost containment and EBITDA have emerged as major business priorities. However, the principal finding in 2022’s ELR Report continues to echo and is, in reality, magnified now in 2023: Legal can, and should, play a meaningful part in generating and elevating business materiality and growth.

In times like these, managing people, process, and technologies in triangulated fashion enables legal professionals to materially impact their businesses more than they ever have, or have ever been expected to, before. PPT transforms the way Legal is valued, evolving the department’s brand image from a back-office, tactical function to a front-office business driver, material influence, and cultural champion.

The first chapter of the 2023 ELR Report delves into perceptions of Legal’s brand image through the lens of corporate employees. It reveals that while almost four in five (78%) respondents acknowledge the enduring image of the legal department as a trustworthy protector of the business that offers sage advice, less than one in three (27%) considers Legal a good business partner.

Further, relationships with Legal have declined in every department in less than a year. Even interactions with “Legal-friendly” allies, like HR and Finance, have fallen from 62% to 56% and 62% to 51%, respectively. Functions that traditionally mesh less well with Legal — those that perhaps push the proverbial envelope and blur the metaphorical lines — like Sales and Procurement have plummeted even more, from 43% to only 30%, and 37% to just 22%.

That said, functions that interact most with Legal still experience the best relationships. The more Legal collaborates with a department, the stronger its relationship tends to be. And when it comes to measures of materiality, like sales and revenue generation, Legal truly stands out. More than half (56%) of employees acknowledge that Legal positively impacts sales and revenue operations. A similar number (53%) say Legal accelerates deal cycles –- a YoY increase of five percentage points.

LEGAL’S QUANTUM LEAP

A jump between energy levels by electrons orbiting within an atom is known, in the world of physics, as a quantum leap.

As enterprises control costs and overhaul operations, Legal needs to take a true quantum leap into the role of direct material influencer by becoming a more interactive partner that communicates effectively and responds efficiently. In fact, nearly half (43%) of ELR corporate employees specifically state that greater communication and collaboration is the most essential way Legal can support its internal clients, especially amid economic uncertainty.

Fission and fusion are quantum processes by which atoms change. Fission occurs when a neutron smashes into another atom, causing it to split. Fusion occurs when atoms amalgamate and merge. Vast amounts of energy are released by both, but fusion creates the most long-term impact –- as well as greater safety, stability, and sustainablity.

The same can be said of Legal, its internal clients, and executive teams as they continue to search for new strategies to achieve greater EBITDA and drive profitability in a positive and meaningful material way.

People. Process. Technology.

Interacting and collaborating with people.

Streamlining efficient processes.

Bringing people and process together with modern, innovative technology.

This is Legal’s moment of impact. It’s time for Legal to stand out as a business protector and partner in the eyes of its clients –- and these three elements can fuse to create a game-changing, materially successful, and future-proof legal department of tomorrow.

Read Chapter 1 of the 2023 ELR Report to discover new and enduring perceptions of the legal department, how corporate employees view their interactions and relationships with Legal, and ways in which Legal can evolve its brand image to more directly impact revenue generation, growth, and operational efficiency.

What is Legal Spend Management?

Posted on March 14, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Legal spend management is the practice of controlling outside counsel spend. Management of outside counsel spend involves having visibility of spend, identifying and actioning cost-reduction opportunities, and budgeting future spend.

SPECIALIZED LEGAL E-BILLING IS NECESSARY FOR SPEND MANAGEMENT

A typical legal team will receive thousands of invoices a year. Reviewing these invoices manually is time-consuming and prone to error. The first stage in legal spend management is to automate the review of legal invoices, a process known as e-billing. Legal e-billing differs from a generic accounts payable (AP) system in a few ways and is essential for legal spend management:

    • Different billing guidelines – what firms can and cannot invoice for – exist for different firms. Trying to remember and accurately apply these rules when manually reviewing invoices is a daunting task, and mistakes will slip through the net, resulting in overpayment. Legal e-billing functionalities allow the corporate legal team to set up rules; incoming invoices are automatically reviewed, approved, rejected, or flagged for further review.
    • A legal invoice can contain hundreds of line items for different work and task codes. A standard AP system cannot track these effectively. E-billing allows law firms to submit LEDES format invoices, which enables the management and reporting of these task codes and allows the legal team to analyze the costs of different work types, compare value across firms, and budget headcount and spend required for future work.
    • Some legal e-billing solutions allow law firms to submit their work in progress with the corporate legal team reviewing or rejecting the work the firm wants to bill. This means invoices are theoretically approved before they are formally submitted, which removes unexpected invoice amounts, reduces the number of rejected invoices, and speeds up payment to the firm.
    • Legal spend management software integrates with accounts payable solutions (if desired) so the organization’s accounting processes can still be followed; the legal team gains additional visibility and control to manage legal spending effectively.

LEGAL SPEND MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE BEYOND E-BILLING

While legal e-billing reduces costs quickly by enforcing billing guidelines and increasing team productivity, full legal spend management goes further than this. As law firms become better at submitting compliant invoices, the savings from guideline compliance start to stabilize. This tends to happen 1-2 years after implementation. At this point, legal operations will use the accumulated matter spend data to make more strategic spend management decisions.

However, this can be done earlier on in the spend management journey. Legal spend management software enables legal operations to report on legal spend and use spend data to make sourcing decisions, drive negotiations and selection, and create a collaborative, value-driven relationship with firms. Features of legal spend management software, besides e-billing, include spend dashboards and reports, RFP tools, and legal analytics capabilities. Most legal spend management solutions also contain legal matter management features, which would not exist in an AP system. The matter data gives a fuller picture of legal work and its associated cost.

BENEFITS OF LEGAL SPEND MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Return on investment (ROI) is very easy to prove with legal spend management, as most benefits are directly related to lowering costs. These benefits include:

    • Significantly reduce legal spend. A fairly typical legal department can save 4 EUR per invoice, 5% of the external legal spend costs in the first year, and 8% of the external legal spend costs after the second year (all data is subject to average empirical values). Download our business case guide to calculate your potential savings.
    • Speed up invoice processing time and take advantage of early pay discounts from firms.
    • Visibility of work in progress and accumulating costs without waiting for the invoice.
    • Track and report on matter budgets, improving the accuracy of forecasts over time.
    • Improve visibility into matters and their associated costs through real-time dashboards and automated reports to stakeholders.
    • Automate manual processes to improve team productivity and free counsel to concentrate on high-value work.
    • Accurate, consistent, comparable, and reliable data across all matters.
    • Improved collaboration internally and with outside counsel that drives better matter outcomes and higher quality firm relationships.
    • Make data-driven strategic legal operations and management decisions, including sourcing, panel reviews, and negotiations.
    • Like-for-like comparison and review of law firm rates and value for money.
    • Fairer, competitive, and comparable proposals from firms

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

WAS IST LEGAL SPEND MANAGEMENT? 

Posted on March 14, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Mit dem Begriff Legal Spend Management lassen sich zusammengefasst alle Maßnahmen zur Steuerung von Kosten für externe Rechtsberatung bezeichnen. Dies beinhaltet sowohl die Steigerung der Ausgaben-Transparenz als auch die Identifizierung und Reduktion von Kosten sowie die Budgetierung zukünftiger Ausgaben. 

Ein klassisches Legal Team erhält Tausende von Rechnungen pro Jahr. Die manuelle Überprüfung dieser Rechnungen ist zeitaufwändig und fehleranfällig. Der erste Schritt im Managen von Kosten auf Matterbasis besteht darin, die Prüfung der Rechnungen zu automatisieren – auch bekannt als eBilling oder Legal eBilling. Legal eBilling unterscheidet sich in einigen Punkten von einem allgemeinen Kreditorenbuchhaltungssystem und ist für das Legal Spend Management unerlässlich: 

  • Je nach Unternehmen greifen unterschiedliche Billing Guidelines – diese regeln, welche Posten durch Kanzleien in Rechnung gestellt werden dürfen und wie diese abzurechnen sind. Sich als Inhouse-Jurist:in all diese Regeln zu merken und beim Sichten einer Rechnung anzuwenden ist nahezu unmöglich, weshalb bei dem Versuch die Rechnungsprüfung manuell abzubilden immer wieder Fehler geschehen werden. An dieser Stelle setzen eBilling-Systeme an: Sie ermöglichen es dem Inhouse Legal Team, Regeln aufzustellen anhand derer eingehende Rechnungen automatisiert auf Billing Guidelines überprüft, genehmigt, abgelehnt oder für weitere Prüfungen markiert werden. 
  • Eine Rechnung für anwaltliche Dienstleistung kann eine Vielzahl von Line Items für verschiedene Arbeits- und Aufgabencodes enthalten. Ein Standard Accounts Payable (AP)-System kann diese nicht effektiv verfolgen. Ein eBilling-System ermöglicht es Kanzleien, Rechnungen im LEDES-Format einzureichen, was das Verwalten und das Reporten anhand der Aufgabencodes ermöglicht. Zudem wird dem Rechtsteam erlaubt, die Kosten verschiedener Tätigkeiten zu analysieren, den Wert zwischen verschiedenen Kanzleien zu vergleichen und den Personalbestand sowie die Ausgaben für zukünftige Arbeit zu budgetieren. 
  • Einige Legal eBilling-Tools ermöglichen es Kanzleien, ihren Work-In-Progress (WIP) einzureichen. Das Inhouse Rechtsteam überprüft die Arbeit, die die Kanzlei in Rechnung stellen möchte, und kann diese direkt annehmen oder ablehnen. Dies bedeutet, dass Rechnungen theoretisch genehmigt werden, bevor sie offiziell eingereicht werden. So werden unerwartete Rechnungsbeträge vermieden und die Anzahl der abgelehnten Rechnungen reduziert, sowie die Begleichung offener Rechnungen an die Kanzleien beschleunigt. 
  • Die meisten Legal Spend Management-Tools enthalten auch Funktionen für die Verwaltung von Matter, die in einem AP-System nicht vorhanden wären. Die Matter-Daten geben ein umfassenderes Bild der juristischen Arbeit und der damit verbundenen Kosten ab. 

EBilling-Systeme lassen sich auf Wunsch in die Kreditorenbuchhaltung integrieren, so dass die Buchhaltungsprozesse des Unternehmens weiterhin eingehalten werden können und das Rechtsteam ein zusätzliches Maß an Transparenz und Kontrolle erhält, um die juristischen Ausgaben effektiv zu verwalten. 

Während die elektronische Rechnungsstellung in Rechtsabteilungen durch die Durchsetzung von Abrechnungsrichtlinien und die Steigerung der Teamproduktivität schnell zu einer Kosteneinsparungen führt, geht ein umfassendes Legal Spend Management noch weiter darüber hinaus. Wenn die durch die Kanzleien eingereichten Rechnungen nach gewisser Zeit konformer mit ihren Abrechnungsrichtlinien werden, beginnen sich die Einsparungen durch die Einhaltung der Richtlinien zu stabilisieren. Dies geschieht in der Regel 1-2 Jahre nach der Implementierung einer LSM-Lösung. An diesem Punkt beginnen die Rechtsabteilungen, die gesammelten Daten zu den Matter-Ausgaben zu nutzen, um strategischere Ausgabenmanagement-Entscheidungen zu treffen. Die Software ermöglicht es der Rechtsabteilung, Reports über die Ausgaben für Projekte zu erstellen und die Ausgabendaten zu nutzen, um datenbasierte Beschaffungsentscheidungen zu treffen, Verhandlungen voranzutreiben und kooperative, wertorientierte Beziehungen zu ihren Kanzleien aufzubauen. Zu den Funktionen der Legal Spend Management Software gehören neben der elektronischen Rechnungsstellung auch Ausgaben-Dashboards und -Reports, RFP-Tools und spezifische juristische Analysefunktionen. 

Der Return on Investment (ROI) lässt sich bei Legal Spend Management Lösungen sehr leicht nachweisen, da die Kostensenkungen direkt spürbar sind und mit vielen weiteren Vorteilen einhergehen: 

  • Signifikante Reduzierung der Rechtskosten. Eine typische Rechtsabteilung kann 4 EUR pro Rechnung, 5 % der externen Rechtskosten im ersten Jahr und 8 % der externen Rechtskosten nach dem zweiten Jahr einsparen (alle Angaben sind durchschnittliche Erfahrungswerte). Laden Sie unseren Inhouse Guide „Ein Business Case für Legal Spend Management“ herunter, um Ihr Einsparungspotenzial zu berechnen. 
  • Beschleunigen Sie die Rechnungsbearbeitungszeit und machen Sie Gebrauch von „Frühzahlerrabatten“ der Kanzleien. 
  • Sichtbarkeit von Work-In-Progress und anfallenden Kosten, ohne auf die Rechnung warten zu müssen. 
  • Verfolgen und Reporten Sie über Matter-Budgets und verbessern Sie die Genauigkeit ihrer Prognosen im Laufe der Zeit. 
  • Verbessern Sie die Sichtbarkeit ihrer Matter und der damit verbundenen Kosten durch Echtzeit-Dashboards und automatisierten Reports für alle Beteiligte. 

What is LEDES and the UTBMS?

Posted on March 14, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

The first time you hear the acronyms LEDES or UTBMS, you might think, “What’s Ledes got to do with legal spend management? The UTB-em-what now?” These tongue-twisting abbreviations are legal industry standards for coding and submitting legal invoices when using e-billing software. Read on to learn the basics of LEDES and UTBMS.

WHAT IS A LEDES FILE?

LEDES stands for “Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard” and is a framework for the exchange of legal e-billing information. The LEDES file format specifications are globally recognized as the legal industry standard for recording legal e-billing data. The file formats go beyond e-billing, also providing formats for legal budgeting, timekeeper information, and IP matter information.

WHAT IS UTBMS?

UTBMS stands for “Uniform Task-Based Management System” and is a series of codes used to classify legal services. Outside counsel records their time and classifies the work using the appropriate code from the UTBMS set. UTBMS-coded time entries and invoices show the timekeeper, the tasks (e.g., taking a witness statement), activities undertaken (e.g., drafting a letter), the time spent, and the rate and cost of the item of work. As with the LEDES format, such codes standardize how legal work gets recorded worldwide, with law firms, legal departments, and e-billing vendors using the same codes.

HISTORY OF UTBMS

Before e-billing, paper invoices would contain lengthy descriptions of services that could run for multiple pages. It was difficult to digest the work and determine how much it cost. Driven by the need to digitalize this process, and alongside the formation of LEDES, The American Bar Association, the Association of Corporate Counsel, and PricewaterhouseCoopers formed a group to create a unified electronic billing standard. The UTBMS codes are sometimes known as ABA task codes for this reason. They decided that electronic invoice time entries should be task-based and aggregated by the type of work performed:

  • Task codes are a granular description of the service provided by an area of law. Task codes are organized in sets under their less-granular phases within the law: Litigation, Bankruptcy, Trademark, etc.
  • Activity codes identify the specific service performed or “how “the work is being done.
  • Expense codes were created to categorize expenses on matters. This group eventually morphed into the LEDES Oversight Committee. The LOC has since updated and created several UTBMS standards and codes, but other organizations do so as well. The revision and evolution of the codes continue today.

BENEFITS OF UTBMS FOR CORPORATE LEGAL

For law firms, standard invoice file formats and time entry recording significantly reduce administrative burden since they use the same standards regardless of who the client is or what e-billing software they use. Most law firms, and indeed all the large firms, use the LEDES file format and UTBMS code set as standard, and many have been doing so since the mid-90s. For in-house legal departments, the use of UTBMS also delivers significant benefits:

  • Legal e-billing systems can electronically review invoice submissions before they reach a human reviewer. The system checks the invoice against the billing rules – for example, if a specific task code reaches a pre-defined budget threshold – and can flag or reject the invoice automatically if desired. This saves in-house counsel time reviewing invoices manually, freeing them up to do more high-value work. BusyLamp legal spend management customers notice billing errors missed during the previous process (error-prone, human review).
  • Standard codes allow for easy comparison of work performed across different matters or firms. Cost, efficiency, and quality can all be compared quickly and consistently.
  • This legal spend reporting can be used to negotiate better rates, decide which work to bring in-house/outsource, evaluate which firms to use for which types of work or matters, and to make a business case for additional headcount.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

WAS IST LEDES UND UTBMS? 

Posted on March 14, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

WAS IST LEDES UND UTBMS? 

Wenn Sie das erste Mal die Akronyme LEDES oder UTBMS hören, denken Sie vielleicht: „Was heißt LEDES? Und UTB-em-was jetzt?“ Bei diesen zungenbrecherischen Abkürzungen handelt es sich um juristische Branchenstandards für die Codierung und Einreichung von Rechnungen für anwaltliche Dienstleistung durch die Verwendung von eBilling-Software. Im folgenden Artikel erfahren Sie mehr über die Grundlagen von LEDES und UTBMS. 

WAS IST EINE LEDES-DATEI? 

LEDES ist die Abkürzung für „Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard“ und ist ein Rahmenwerk für den Austausch juristischer und elektronischer Rechnungsinformationen. Die LEDES-Dateiformat-Spezifikationen sind weltweit als juristischer Branchenstandard für Legal eBilling-Daten anerkannt. Die Dateiformate gehen über die elektronische Rechnungsstellung hinaus und bieten auch Formate für die juristische Budgetierung, Zeitnehmerinformationen und IP-Matter-Informationen. 

WAS IST UTBMS? 

UTBMS steht für „Uniform Task-Based Management System“ und besteht aus verschiedenen Codes, die zur Klassifizierung juristischer Dienstleistungen verwendet werden. Externe Anwälte erfassen ihre Zeit und klassifizieren die Arbeit mit dem entsprechenden Code aus dem UTBMS-Set. UTBMS-codierte Zeiteinträge und Rechnungen zeigen den Timekeeper, die Aufgaben (z.B. Aufnahme einer Zeugenaussage), die durchgeführten Aktivitäten (z.B. Entwurf eines Briefes), die aufgewendete Zeit sowie den Satz und die Kosten der Arbeit. Durch die Verwendung solcher Codes wird die Aufzeichnung juristischer Arbeit international standardisiert. Sowohl Kanzleien und Rechtsabteilungen als auch eBilling-Softwareanbieter verwenden die Codes. 

DIE HERKUNFT VON UTBMS 

Vor der Einführung von eBilling-Systemen rechneten Kanzleien und Rechtsabteilungen ausschließlich über Papierrechnungen ab. Diese enthielten üblicherweise lange Beschreibungen von Dienstleistungen, die sich über mehrere Seiten erstrecken konnten. Diese Fülle und Unübersichtlichkeit machte es schwierig, die geleistete Arbeit und die damit verbundenen Kosten zu erfassen. Angetrieben von der Notwendigkeit diesen Prozess zu digitalisieren, bildeten die American Bar Association, die Association of Corporate Counsel und PricewaterhouseCoopers – parallel zur Gründung von LEDES – eine Gruppe, um einen einheitlichen und elektronischen Rechnungsstandard zu schaffen. Aus diesem Grund werden die UTBMS-Codes manchmal auch als ABA-Aufgabencodes bezeichnet. Sie beschlossen, dass Zeiteinträge in elektronischen Rechnungen aufgabenbasiert und nach Art der geleisteten Arbeit aggregiert sein sollten: 

  • Task-Codes sind eine detaillierte Beschreibung der erbrachten Leistung nach Rechtsgebiet. 
  • Aufgabencodes sind in Sets unter ihren weniger granularen Phasen innerhalb des Rechtsgebiets organisiert; Litigation, Insolvenzrecht, Markenrecht, etc. 
  • Aktivitätscodes identifizieren die spezifische Leistung, die erbracht wird; oder „wie“ die Arbeit erledigt wird. 
  • Aufwandscodes wurden geschaffen, um die Ausgaben für Matter zu kategorisieren. 

Diese Gruppe wurde schließlich in das LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC) umgewandelt. Das LOC hat seitdem mehrere UTBMS-Standards und -Codes geschaffen und kontinuierlich aktualisiert. Aber auch andere Organisation haben sich dieser Aufgabe angenommen. Die Überarbeitung und Weiterentwicklung der Codes dauert bis heute an. 

DIE VORTEILE VON UTBMS FÜR RECHTSABTEILUNGEN 

Kanzleien verwenden kunden- und eBilling-Software-übergreifend immer dieselben standardisierten Formate für Rechnungsdateien und Zeiterfassungen. So wird der Verwaltungsaufwand auf Seite der Kanzleien begrenzt gehalten. Die meisten unter ihnen – zumindest alle Großkanzleien – verwenden das LEDES-Dateiformat und den UTBMS-Codesatz bereits seit Mitte der 90er Jahre und sind mit diesem Prinzip daher gut vertraut. Auch für Inhouse Rechtsabteilungen bietet der Einsatz von UTBMS erhebliche Vorteile: 

  • Legal eBilling-Systeme können elektronisch eingereichte Rechnungen automatisiert anhand von Billing Guidelines überprüfen. Danach wird die Rechnung genehmigt, abgelehnt oder markiert, zum Beispiel, wenn ein bestimmter Aufgabencode eine vordefinierte Budgetgrenze erreicht. Durch diese Automatisierung spart das Rechtsteam viel Zeit, die andernfalls für das manuelle Überprüfen der Rechnungen angefallen wäre. Diese Zeit kann dann in wertvollere juristische Tätigkeiten investiert werden. Zudem werden Rechnungsfehler schnell aufgedeckt, die im bisherigen manuellen Prozess möglicherweise unbemerkt geblieben wären. 
  • Standard-Codes ermöglichen einen einfachen und fairen Vergleich der geleisteten Arbeit über verschiedene Matter oder Kanzleien hinweg. Kosten, Effizienz und Qualität können schnell und konsistent verglichen werden. 
  • Reports über Ausgaben für die Rechtsberatung können zudem vielseitig verwendet werden. Etwa um bessere Tarife auszuhandeln oder um zu entscheiden, welche Arbeit ausgelagert werden soll; um zu bewerten, welche Kanzleien für welche Tätigkeiten oder Matter eingesetzt werden sollen sowie um einen Business Case für zusätzlichen Personalbedarf zu erstellen. 

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 

WOFÜR STEHT LEDES? 

LEDES steht für Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standards. 

WAS IST EINE LEDES-DATEI-RECHNUNG? 

Es handelt sich dabei um eine Reihe von Formatstandards für die elektronische Rechnungsprüfung von anwaltlichen Dienstleistungen. Sie legen fest, welche Daten in einer eBill enthalten sein sollten und wie diese Daten organisiert sein sollten. Der ursprüngliche Standard wurde Mitte der 1990er Jahre von einer Industriegruppe erstellt, zu der auch die American Bar Association (ABA) und PricewaterhouseCoopers gehörten. 

WIE LAUTEN DIE LEDES-STANDARDFORMATE? 

Die wichtigsten LEDES-Dateiformate sind: 

  • 1998B – eine durch Pipes getrennte ASCII-Datei, die in den USA bis heute der geltende Standard ist. 
  • 1998BI – die „internationale“ Version von 98B, die auch die Mehrwertsteuer und verschiedene Währungen unterstützt. 
  • 2000 – eine auf XML basierende Datei, die von einigen global-agierenden Kunden verwendet wird. 
  • XML v 2.2 – ist der neueste XML-Standard. Er bietet UK/EU-Steuerkonformität und wird immer häufiger verwendet. 

WOFÜR STEHT UTBMS? 

UTBMS steht für das Uniform Task-Based Management System. 

WAS SIND UTBMS-CODES? 

Dies sind die Task- und Activity Codes, die die juristische Arbeit (und Ausgaben/Auszahlungen) kategorisieren. LEDES-Standarddateien verfügen über separate Felder für Task- und Activity Codes für Zeiteinträge sowie über ein Feld für Spesen/Auslagen. In der Praxis verlangen nicht alle Mandanten Phasen/Task Codes, wohl aber die Verwendung von Activity Codes. 

WAS IST EIN TASK CODE? 

Phasen/Task Codes – es gibt verschiedene Codesätze je nach Art der Matter, z. B. Litigation, Bankruptcy, Project/Transactional normalerweise zeigt das erste Zeichen des Codesatzes die Art der juristischen Arbeit, die durchgeführt wird. 

WAS IST EIN ACTIVITY CODE? 

Activity Codes werden verwendet, um zu zeigen, welche Aktion durchgeführt wird und beginnen mit einem A – z.B. A103 (Entwurf/Überarbeitung) oder A104 (Überprüfung/Analyse) 

WIE WERDEN PHASEN/TASK- UND ACTIVITY CODES IN EINER EBILL (ELEKTRONISCHEN RECHNUNG) VERWENDET? 

Task Codes zeigen die Phasen der Matter und Activity Codes zeigen, wie die Arbeit erledigt wird. Wenn Anwalt:innen beispielsweise an einem Litigation-Fall arbeiten, in der Discovery-Phase Einlassungen vornimmt und innerhalb des Teams kommuniziert, würde ein Zeiteintrag wie folgt lauten: Litigation code set – Phase L300 (Discovery/Disclosure) und Task L330 (Depositions) d.h. das erste Zeichen definiert den Code set und das zweite Zeichen des Task Codes definiert die Phase. (Innerhalb jeder Phase kann es bis zu 99 Aufgaben geben) Der Activity Code wäre – A105 (Kommunizieren – innerhalb des Rechtsteams) Daher muss der Zeiteintrag in der LEDES eBill-Datei die Codes L330 (Task) und A105 (Activity) sowie den Kommentar enthalten, um die geleistete Arbeit vollständig zu deklarieren und eine eindeutige Identifikation zu erlauben. 

WIE DEKLARIEREN UTMBS-CODES AUSLAGEN? 

Es gibt UTBMS-Ausgabencodes, die in die eBill-Datei eingegeben werden können und mit E oder X beginnen, z. B. X114 oder E109 (Lokale Reisen) 

WAS IST DAS LEDES OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE (LOC)? 

Das LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC) ist eine internationale, freiwillige und gemeinnützige Organisation, die sich aus Vertreter:innen der Rechtsbranche zusammensetzt. Ihre Aufgabe ist, offene Standardformate für den elektronischen Austausch von Rechnungs- und anderen Informationen zwischen Unternehmen und Kanzleien zu schaffen und zu pflegen.