During a session with a leading e-billing vendor, I learned that one of the most common reasons why law departments challenge bills is that the time record description is inadequate. Whoever recorded 2.4 hours as “Attention to the file” simply did not provide enough detail for the reviewer to assess…
One forte of e-billing software is that they can check whether a law firm timekeeper is an authorized timekeeper and whether that person’s billing rate is the proper one. The savings that result and the increased management control can be considerable. The price, however, of software that can police timekeepers…
Until I heard a comment during a recent presentation, I had thought that a law department considering a bonus for a law firm would deliberate based on whatever the law department’s lawyers recollected of the firm’s performance and however the matter had resolved. Someone at the presentation from DataCert suggested…
My view for several years has been that UTBMS codes in law-firm bills have rarely resulted in cost savings for law departments (See my posts of April 23, 2006 and Dec. 1, 2006 that criticize UTBMS efforts; and April 22, 2007 regarding updates to the system.). Either the law firms…
A disproportionate amount of attention is paid to alternative fee arrangements; perhaps because they are disembodied control mechanisms (See my post of April 19, 2006 on depersonalized decisions.). It is appealing to law departments to think that a fee arrangement brings discipline and savings on its own. The cruel fact…
When a law department and a law firm agree on bonuses for the law firm if the firm accomplishes certain objectives, it is to be expected that the law firm will try to perform such that it earns the bonus. All well and good, unless it becomes apparent later in…
Ron Denton, the Business Services Manager for the Legal Department of ConocoPhillips, is the subject of an interview in Met. Corp. Counsel, Sept. 2007 at 56. The interview struck me as an advertorial for a particular e-billing vendor, but it does contain the following quote by Denton: “Our focus has…
An effective technique to create incentives for a law firm is to have the law firm hold back 15 to 25 percent of its standard-fee billings. The law department will agree to restore some or all of the held-back amount, depending the results achieved or the effort invested. The law…
In the guidelines for outside counsel that I have reviewed, law departments are all over the place on billable travel time. Some let outside lawyers bill time only if they travel during business hours. Others let them bill only while working on their matters, even though that “guideline” is completely…
To craft a fee arrangement that makes a difference, law department managers needs to think hard not only about the outcomes they seek in a matter but also the likelihood of achieving those outcomes. Bonuses for the law firm that achieves a particular goal, such as a resolution of a…