Category: Legal Operations

eBilling systems are expensive. And while necessary, they can entangle legal departments in a web of data that is difficult to unpack – and even harder to leverage for analysis and optimization. 

From insurance to financial services and private equity, Bodhala has seen corporate legal departments invest millions of dollars in eBillers with the intention to not only simplify paying their bills, but also to support data-driven decision making. Unfortunately those investments are often hampered by serious issues, including gaps in legal billing data (e.g. classification conflicts on firms, practice areas and matter-types) and the subsequent inability to cluster matters and tasks accurately. 

If you use an eBilling system, here are some familiar laments:

• A top private equity firm could not rely on their eBiller for clean data to support strategic decisions
• A Fortune 20 company’s eBiller actually set them behind on departmental goals due to a sheer lack of efficiency and reliable reports
• A major bank spent four years and over $3 million to implement a data visualization tool on top of their eBiller, but have yet to see any ROI

These pain points are not the result of not having the “right” eBiller. Data issues are at the core of every eBiller. To maximize your eBilling investment, it’s vital to have an analytics layer that leverages actionable insights.

Legal-specific analytics solutions, like Bodhala, can work in conjunction with your eBiller to exponentially increase the value of your investment. Instead of spending countless hours buried in layers of spreadsheets, legal analytics tools can surface your spend narrative in a matter of seconds — enabling your team to quickly deliver value on mission-critical work.

Forward-thinking legal departments have realized that eBillers and legal analytics tools are not one and the same. Here are just some of the benefits of using legal analytics software in unison with your eBiller: 

1. Data Accuracy Do you really trust your eBilling data? When it comes to data, most legal departments trust legal spend analytics far more than eBillers. That said, many legal analytics tools simply ingest the bad data directly from an eBiller, resulting in the same issues. It’s critical that your legal analytics tool cleanse, transform and organize your data on ingest. Without apples-to-apples comparisons, it’s impossible to get the strategic insight necessary for better decisions.
2. Strategic DecisionseBillers show costs by invoice. Analytics solutions free you from the invoice, allowing you to realign your thinking around matter-types, practice areas and law firms. By leveling up your view, you have visibility into the things that truly impact strategic decisions, enable better firm management on everything from rates to quality.
3. ROIeBillers are a significant investment, which makes the frustration about getting accurate data even more vexing. 90% of Bodhala clients use our platform in conjunction with their eBiller in order to increase time-to-value, optimize spend and realize ROI – all things they were unable to do with their eBiller alone.

As companies grapple to get a hold of their legal spend and budget ahead of a new fiscal year, the need for data and actionable insights has never been more urgent. Analytics tools, like Bodhala, can enhance your eBilling investments and turn your data into strategic planning gold.

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

Earlier this week Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle, joined the “Eye on the Industry” podcast hosted by Jon Cooper, CEO of Industrial Exchange, to discuss Big Law’s Lebron James problem. Because of the opacity of the market, law firms are able to price lawyers as if everybody is LeBron, but data can change this.

“There’s an old saying in the law – if you flip a coin – heads the lawyer wins, tails the lawyer wins.” 

Take a listen to learn more!

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

This week Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle, sat down with Nasdaq Trade Talks host, Jill Malandrino, to talk about the opacity of the legal services market. Covering everything from the role data plays in legal spend optimization to how Covid-19 is affecting the legal landscape, it’s a great listen.

“We believe in the very important relationships and collaborations between our clients and their outside law firms, but we also believe that there’s a market that must exist so therefore those services can be valued and optimized.”

– Raj Goyle, Bodhala CEO & Co-Founder

Check it out!

Bombarded with law firm rate increases? Think twice before giving your law firm what they want.

The past year has brought unprecedented uncertainty to economies around the globe. Most businesses have been dramatically impacted, leaving their bottom lines in far different shape than last year. Along with financial instability comes the pressure to cut costs and evaluate each budget line item with heightened scrutiny. Your law firms’ rates should be no exception.

Historically, law firms have sheltered themselves from the crushing economic impact of past crises — even profiting in some instances — all while the companies they serve suffer. Though you might view certain firms as paramount to your business, complying with rate increases that reflect above-market fees shouldn’t be a knee-jerk reaction…especially during a global pandemic.

Regardless of how effectively your legal department has operated in the past, it’s clear we all need to rethink our strategy going forward. There’s no time like the present to determine what brings value to your business and what’s draining your bottom line. 

Corporate legal departments should shift their focus towards the following initiatives:

• Reducing cost expenditures in the short and long-term
• Identifying the key firms who are willing to lean-in and share in the economic burden

It’s time to move from a reactive state to a proactive state when it comes to law firm pricing.

There’s just one way to get there — data.

Shed your reputation as an idle price-taker. Sophisticated legal-tech solutions, like Bodhala, offer data-backed insights that can strengthen your negotiation power with your law firms. 

By leveraging data, legal departments can surface granular analyses of their spend and insights on how their law firms’ rates stack up against others in the market to keep their rate increases in check. 

Don’t have the data to execute this just yet? We’re here to help.

Bodhala recommends requesting a 15-20% discount from your law firms on all work executed throughout the duration of the Covid-19 crisis. 

In addition to aiding your cash conservation efforts, this request allows your legal department to identify which firms are truly critical partners for your business. Which law firms are willing to put their egos – and paychecks – aside to help their clients in an urgent time of need? 

Download our free rate negotiation letter template to kickstart the conversation with your law firm.

Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

As companies continue to grapple with the economic distress presented by COVID and think more strategically about their operations, many are turning to their outside counsel for rate relief.

If you’ve taken the step to negotiate discounts or rate freezes with your law firms, it’s likely you’ve been met with some pushback leaving you to ask – now what?

Negotiations can be prolonged and intimidating conversations if you’re not prepared. Wouldn’t it be helpful to know what’s going on behind the scenes at the other end of the negotiation table?

Well, you’re in luck!

The Council of Luminaries, a group of law firm pricing thought leaders, offered its law firm pricing representatives the following commentary and guidance on dodging client discount requests:

• “Clients have begun to talk about legal services as if it’s health care, where there’s some moral obligation toward affordability. But we are under no obligation to provide services at any price we did not set.”
• “The Luminaries expressed dismay that the client perspective seems to be that firms should have to pay a penance for prospering in good financial times, that they ‘make too much money.’”

• “Clients that prioritize diversity should realize that unilateral demands for low rates can negatively impact it, because it can inhibit promotion of diverse attorneys, or incentivize firms to staff them on other matters where the financial impact to the firm and professional development opportunities for the lawyers will be more advantageous.”
• “Conversations around value are better if the GC is at the table and can talk about what’s really going on with the company and the firm’s work for it; we can negotiate a give-and-take more effectively in that context.”
• “It seems most GCs are more concerned about selecting the best firm for each job than they are about the costs associated with it. There’s not much actual incentive to choose a lower tier firm. It fails a risk vs. reward analysis. The trick is making the optimal selection of those providers within the constraints of the allocated budget.”
• “It remains critical to protect premium brands and offerings as reducing price on best-in-class services, particularly ones that are experiencing demand and deliver high value to the client, can have a lasting negative effect on firm brand positioning.”

When initiating rate discount conversations with your law firms, it’s critical to keep this in mind in order to yield the best results for your company.

To help you further navigate your negotiations and conversations with your law firms, Bodhala has compiled a set of common law firm objections and suggested responses that will assist you in asserting a value-driven conversation that leads to positive results for your business.

Law Firm Objection/Assertion #1: Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve had our top tier partners and associates handling your urgent legal matters. We’ve provided you with our best minds and have proven our sincere commitment to your business during these challenging times.

Client Response #1: While we appreciate your commitment and your top attorneys, we are under significant pressure to contain costs and cannot justify paying these premium rates during such economic turmoil. We are expecting all of our business partners to share in the economic burden Covid has presented.

Law Firm Objection/Assertion #2: If our rates were truly too high, we’d be receiving discount requests from far more clients. Our clients have realized that they need our help more than ever during these difficult times. Because of this, they have accepted the rates we have charged – in fact, those rates are higher than yours.

Client Response #2: Certain clients may be willing to pay above-market rates, but we cannot do so as we look to contain costs during this economic crisis. Each business is different and how some clients handle the burden Covid has presented is not a catch-all solution for the rest of your clients.

Law Firm Objection/Assertion #3: Your business is already getting a good deal on your rates as our realization rate with you is low versus our other clients. We understand the economic stress Covid has presented, but we simply cannot justify reducing your rates even further. It would be detrimental for us to do so.

Client Response #3: Your firm has been a critical partner for our business for several years and we value the relationship, but how you handle the relationship during our most significant time of need also matters to us. If our CFO and GC thought our business was truly getting a good deal, we would not be asking this of you. We agreed to pay the rates you are referencing during a time of economic stability, but due to Covid, that is no longer the case and we are asking you to realize that.

Law Firm Objection/Assertion #4: Our law firm has struggled throughout the pandemic as well as we’ve had to deal with the challenges of remote work, furloughs, court closures, and more. The rates we are charging your business are within the market.

Client Response #4: We understand that Covid has presented challenges for all businesses, but we are also aware that in past crises, law firms have remained stable, even experiencing profits while other industries struggle. We are asking you to share in our economic pain as there is no reason for above-inflation rate increases – especially during this period of distress. We are aware of similar clients in the market that have been granted rate freezes and discounts by their law firms. As a valued business partner of ours, we are expecting the same from your firm.

As you optimize your spend and drive value from your outside counsel relationships, Bodhala is here to offer real transparency, real accountability, and real control.

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

Whether to optimize legal spend or drive diversity efforts, legal operations professionals are leaning on data to accelerate their department’s key initiatives. 

Without data, legal operations teams are left at a standstill, unable to make strategic decisions that create meaningful impact, such as:

• Reallocating spend to optimize savings and meet departmental priorities, like diversity initiatives
• Identifying and controlling the above-inflation growth of rate cards
• Initiating empowered negotiations and conversations with law firms

The need for clean, actionable data has never been more significant as companies grapple to get a hold of their spend after the economic distress Covid has caused and the urgency of diversity initiatives in the vitally important era of Black Lives Matter. 

Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle, led legal operations professionals from Fortune 500 companies through insightful discussions on the power of data this afternoon during Consero’s Virtual KnowledgeBridge.

Data’s Impact on Spend Management

In-house teams need to allocate their resources towards significant value-drivers. 

That means no more surprise invoices, no more paying A-team prices for C-team legal talent, and no more hiring firms that do not deliver the quality of work or expertise your legal matters need. 

As we heard from attendees, there’s a burning desire to eliminate these issues, but they struggle to wrangle clean data needed to make this a reality. 

One attendee shared that they are hard-pressed to get any data that can help inform decision making.

Though other professionals need to meet certain standards to get a raise in pay, it seems that companies have no choice but to shell out more and more money each year to compensate their legal counsel.

But legal operations professionals are looking to change that.

They want to leverage the power of data to drive law firm negotiations, instead of being idle price takers that are subjected to consistent rate increases. 

Moving the Needle on Diversity with Data

Companies are holding a magnifying glass towards the diversity of their external partners as a result of the overdue and important conversation on racial injustices in America. 

In-house legal departments are looking for concrete data on timekeepers and allocation or origination credit from their law firms that demonstrates their true, honest commitment to diversity and inclusion. 

But it’s not an easy road to obtain this information.

Due to the limitations of their tech stacks, legal operations professionals must rely on their law firms to provide their diversity data — a request that’s almost always refuted.

This leaves legal operations teams struggling to control law firm behaviors and set specific guidelines on outside counsel diversity. 

Data-Backed Insights

With unparalleled data-backed insights, Bodhala can be a critical partner in guiding your legal department’s key initiatives — from diversity to spend optimization, law firm management, enhanced reporting, and more.

As the leading legal technology platform, Bodhala is built on data – and how we develop it, how we utilize it and how we analyze it for the benefit of our customers sets us apart.

Bodhala’s legal market intelligence arms legal departments with the ability to: initiate data-driven negotiations with outside counsel, set outside counsel guidelines that align with the businesses’ core values, benchmark their law firm rates to understand what they’re paying compared to peers in the market, and search data categorized by firmographics.

The combination of our analytics and legal market intelligence has made us experts in diversity spend data. As a result, we’ve helped our clients direct spend to diverse attorneys, monitor origination credit and relationship partner data, and identify diverse counsel for individual matters.

Real transparency, real accountability, real control — that’s what Bodhala is all about.

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

In recent months, companies have accelerated their diversity and inclusion initiatives as a result of the Black Lives Matter movement and the overdue conversation on racial injustices in America.

While companies have realized the work must start from within, they’re also holding critical external partners – including law firms – to higher standards.

This afternoon Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle, led General Counsels and Chief Legal Officers across multiple industries through insightful conversations on the critical role data plays in driving diversity initiatives during Consero’s Virtual KnowledgeBridge.

As the leading legal technology platform, Bodhala is built on data – and how we develop it, how we utilize it and how we analyze it for the benefit of our customers sets us apart.

Our analytics and market intelligence have made us experts in diversity spend data as we have helped clients:

• Identify and source diverse counsel for individual matters and panels
• Direct spend to diverse attorneys on the partnership path
• Monitor origination credit and relationship partner data

Here’s What We Heard

Throughout this afternoon’s discussions, Consero attendees expressed their desire to get beyond the virtue signaling and window dressing that law firms so often display when it comes to diversity. 

Though legal departments are at various stages in their innovation journeys, attendees shared the following actions their legal departments have taken:

• Identification of diverse attorneys at the associate level that can be supported through the partnership track
• Request of diversity metrics during the RFP process
• Implementation of technology that can improve data visualization in order to better track diversity
• Utilization of boutique law firms that employ more diverse lawyers

Bodhala’s Insights

Law firms will not change their antics unless they are held accountable by their clients. Companies can no longer rely on obsolete numbers in a survey or empty law firm promises when it comes to diversity. After all, you cannot manage what you don’t measure.

To ensure accountability, companies must leverage data and monitor origination credit. Origination credit determines who at the law firm gets a significant percentage of money for a client’s work. No progress can be made on diversity initiatives without the client’s understanding of the critical role origination credit plays in diverse lawyers achieving equity partner status within their firms. 

Is your organization equipped with the data you need to initiate change and tip the scale on critical diversity efforts?

Bodhala is your partner for generating data-backed insights that can accelerate your company’s diversity journey.

With over $15 billion in legal invoices from over 235,000 timekeepers spread across over 30,000 law firms, Bodhala equips you with the data needed to hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

Innovative legal ops professionals are changing the landscape of legal spend management.  Here’s what they’re doing:

Leveraging data: If your legal department is like most, anecdotal commentary reigns supreme. However, it’s the data that is most effective in evaluating your outside firms and identifying those most integral to the business. Highlighting your top performing law firms, your most utilized timekeepers and the practice areas with the highest spend is the first step to driving tangible discussion with your stakeholders. Data is the language of your CFO and board, and it speaks volumes about the details of your legal spend at large.  

Driving the details that matter: Law firm annual rate increases are routinely scrutinized by legal ops professionals, but these details are superficial and only tell part of the spend story. Leveraging modern technology that surfaces the granularities of your department’s outside counsel utility and spend will provide insights that:

• Distinguish between routine and ‘bet the business’ work
• Identify billing patterns associated with historical relationships and practice areas
• Track YoY rate increases and ongoing billing practices of your timekeepers by matter type

Detailed analysis that considers both quantitative and qualitative variables is an indication of a performant legal operation and enables you to present opportunities to the GC and CFO with credibility.

Partnering with finance: You might work for the GC, but the CFO should be considered a strategic partner. The most highly functioning legal departments are viewed as strategic spend centers, not cost-centers, and shifting this perspective is the first step to aligning with your CFO. Developing a data-backed spend framework that accurately tiers your legal matters and enables you to leverage your top legal talent with efficiency sets the foundation for outcome-based collaboration and long-term success. 

How is your legal department driving change?  

This afternoon Bodhala CEO, Raj Goyle, led legal operations leaders from financial services and insurance companies through a series of interactive and informative conversations on how to leverage data, machine learning and analytics to manage legal spend.

Common Challenges

1. Legal operations professionals want to drive meaningful conversations around their outside counsel spend and relationships, but lack the clean data that is needed to do so. Attendees shared that they are turning to data to be calculated and efficient in their departments’ operations as it is the single source of truth behind the legal department’s spend narrative. Without data, they struggle to:

• Negotiate better prices with their law firms
• Forecast future spend
• Distinguish between run of the mill and “bet-the-business” matters
• Influence internal ideals around law firm relationships and value

1. Legal departments are honing in on panel firm management. Attendees are executing this by monitoring spend, matters handled, performance, value provided, and whether their firm hit or exceeded budget. Some attendees noted the high volume of firms being utilized to handle their businesses’ matters, that number being upwards of 500 for some. They are intently focused on bringing that number down by determining which firms and partners are their “LeBrons” — the legal talent most pivotal to their critical matters.
2. Though diversity has been a key initiative of many attendees’ legal departments for several years, the need to move the needle on this front has accelerated in recent months. Attendees shared that it has been a struggle to get their law firms to adhere to their D&I standards as they are hesitant – or even refuse – to provide information on their firm’s diversity. To hold firms towards a higher standard, attendees noted that they are regularly evaluating their outside counsel and turning the lens on their internal operations as well to show that their business is practicing what they preach.
3. With the unexpected circumstances Covid has presented, change management is another key focus area for legal ops professionals. But as attendees noted, lawyers are not only hesitant, but resistant to change. Attendees shared that the global crisis has forced them to focus on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their law firms, especially as they anticipate a “tsunami” of work requiring legal expertise over the course of the next six months.

How Bodhala Can Revolutionize Your Legal Operations

Today’s legal industry is undergoing a data revolution. With the power of AI-driven data enhancement, Bodhala’s trailblazing proprietary platform allows legal departments to identify trends and utilize these insights to make more strategic business decisions.

With over $15 billion in legal invoices from over 235,000 timekeepers spread across over 30,000 law firms, Bodhala equips you with the data needed to hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Our unparalleled legal market intelligence arms legal departments with the ability to: benchmark their law firm rates to understand what they’re paying compared to peers in the market, search data categorized by firmographics, discover nuanced solutions and best practices for managing outside counsel spend, and initiate data-driven negotiations with outside counsel. 

Serving some of the world’s leading insurance carriers and financial institutions, Bodhala has enabled clients to initiate data-driven conversations both internally and externally. With Bodhala, corporate legal departments have the power to justify their objections, negotiations, and decisions.

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.

There’s one silent force driving strategic decisions in every single industry…except legal. 

Data. 

The legal industry has historically shied away from data, resulting in significant inefficiencies and posing challenges for their business. But the legal industry’s data reckoning is upon us – and the enlightened are already experiencing outsized benefits.

Whether you’re building new products or streamlining operations, data is the key to impactful decisions. With 2021 on the horizon, data is no longer a luxury item for corporate legal — it’s a necessity. Departments have no choice but to think about how they can leverage analytics to make strategic decisions that will optimize spend and contribute to their bottom line.

This is particularly critical amidst the global economic crisis caused by Covid-19. With some businesses – and even entire industries – hit harder than ever before, the impact of the pandemic will have repercussions that last well into 2021 (and likely longer). There is an urgent need for data as executives around the world are desperate for better performance at lower prices.

When attempting to rein in spend, legal departments typically start by looking to their eBiller for the requisite data but are consistently disappointed. While great at managing invoices, eBillers were not built to deliver granular analyses. Relying on your eBiller to surface actionable insights is a fool’s errand. But when used in conjunction with platforms like Bodhala, purpose-built for legal data analysis and insights, the results are eye-opening.  

At Bodhala, we find that legal departments are often overpaying for their outside counsel, especially when benchmarked against relevant competitors in the market. As your outside counsel begins to circulate their annual rate increases, what insights are you leveraging to ensure you’re receiving a fair price? 

Transparency has never been at the heart of the legal services market – but that’s changing rapidly. Companies are demanding market transparency around rates and staffing, and for departments smart enough to jump on the innovation bandwagon early, they’re seeing significant ROI. The results go beyond only rate-driven savings, with companies also reaping the benefits of improved firm selection, optimized staffing, and decreased block billing – to name a few.

To effectively manage your spend and cut costs, you need to think strategically – and to truly think strategically, you need data. Without it, it’s an uphill battle to determine where your priorities should lie. 

Ask yourself this: Do I have the data I need to make truly strategic decisions as I plan for 2021? Have I consistently spent more in a particular practice area? Am I paying partner rates for associate-level work? Which law firms are pivotal to my businesses’ matters? 

Optimizing spend depends on an awareness of where opportunities for improvement lie. These are insights that only data can surface.

So, how prepared do you feel for 2021? 

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Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Bodhala can transform your legal department.