A huge internal team that reviews invoices submitted to CNA

Thomas Dunlop, AVP Legal Services Operations, CNA Insurance, oversees CNA’s panel firms, litigation guideline and expense management, Legal Services operations, and legal vendor management and contracting.

To the point of this post, according to Corp. Counsel, March 2010 at 77-79, Dunlop manages “a 22-person centralized bill review unit.” CNA Insurance is certainly huge, an insurance giant with $8-9 billion in revenue a year and legal bills to match, but to have nearly two dozen people to review bills of outside counsel sounds like a misguided investment.

But then I am a fan of fixed fees that are fair and well thought out, where invoice review recedes into appropriate insignificance. Further, any of several e-billing packages can probably do much of what those 22 poor souls do.

So, either obliterate or automate.