A panelist from EBay, speaking at the InsideCounsel SuperConference, mentioned four specifics about the practices followed by the procurement group. They are to be involved with any project that expects to cost more than $1 million or any vendor who is likely to receive more than $1 million during a…
I saw a presentation the other day that looked at matter management systems and deconstructed their reports into eight levels of increasing sophistication and value. What they called “standard reports” are the canned choices that come with system implementation. Quite a few law departments rarely need to go beyond their…
Law departments have to provide to their company’s outside auditors sufficient information for them to prepare their reports on contingent liabilities. The law department administrator from The Williams Companies, speaking at Mitratech’s Interact 2011 Conference, said that the department had developed a tool to help with the “complex and not…
A speaker at a customer conference for users of a leading e-billing system gave some data about questions law firms asked when their invoice had been rejected. The leading cause of a question was the rules that had been invoked (about 20%), followed by “manual return,” unapproved billing rates (about…
Every law department that tries to institute a knowledge management program thinks of department-wide efforts. “Let’s set up an intranet for the legal department!” “Let’s put in document management!” “Let’s create a memo repository!” Those across-the-board efforts almost always peter out, lead to spotty participation, and usually languish (See my…
Come listen and learn while you lunch! I will be holding forth on the latest data from the General Counsel Metrics global benchmark survey. (Have I mentioned that survey here before?) Even better, ask any questions you may have if you call and dial in for the one-hour webinar, arranged…
Back in the day, there was a moderate amount of talk about and acclaim for discounts on law firms bills automatically applied when the company paid quickly. A common combination was about two percent if a bill were paid within a week. You don’t hear about cost control by prompt…
If a general counsel normalizes the hourly rates charged be various law firms – an effective-billing rate calculation – it is almost always calculated at the firm level. Take a pile of firm’s bills and divide their total by lawyer hours. A variation, and one that can produce significantly different…
At a customer conference for users of a leading e-billing system, one speaker gave some data about inquiries from law firms about invoice processing. That category of inquiries, by the way, accounted for the most calls (about a third), with invoice rejection accounting for about a quarter more. Of the…
To calculate the effective billing rate of a law firm, divide the amounts of several of its representative invoices by the number of lawyer hours charged under the invoices. Law departments calculate that figure sometimes to compare it to their own fully-loaded cost per lawyer hour. The range for U.S.…