Approximately one out of four law departments reported use of e-billing software in a survey

Some 70 law departments that provided data to an ALM survey last year responded to a question about e-billing. Of them, 18 said they use an electronic billing program. The question did not differentiate between matter management and e-billing software, which often is the same these days. For that subset, the median percentage of law firms retained by the company that submitted e- bills was 90 percent and about the same percentage of invoices by amount went through the system.

If we assume that the lack of an answer means no e-billing system, then approximately a quarter of this law department population has put that tool to use, and for nearly all their firms and invoices. That is a higher percentage than uses a matter management system, which doesn’t make sense. Perhaps the finding is an artifact of this particular survey, its question, and the respondent population.