Articles Posted in Technology

These two packages, frequently found in law departments, raise similar issues. In fact, all databases raise issues of this kind, including intellectual property databases, document management systems, and corporate entity repositories.

1. Accountability for updates. Databases are a pain in the neck to keep current. Disputes arise over who should be responsible for their care and feeding and with what expectations of promptness.

2. Parameters for inclusion. What is the definition of a contract, a matter, a record, or other item that should be captured in the database (See my post of March 26, 2008: definitions of matters for purposes of databases.)?

An article in Law Tech. News (LTN), Vol. 16, Aug. 2009 at 34, by Steven Levy, offers 10 ideas for how information technology staff should work with lawyers. One of them is to pull the plug on “technology Vietnams.” As part of that determination, whether to proceed with a project or not, he urges going through a thorough return on investment (ROI) analysis (See my post of Oct. 22, 2008: ROI, not just software, with 17 references.).

More interesting to me, he advocates “repeat the ROI analysis regularly – quarterly is good – to see what’s changed.” I haven’t experienced ROI studies except before the start of a project, but it makes sense to take the temperature periodically on big, long-running projects. But then you need to be ready to cut your losses; “If the project is underwater (or trending so), walk away.”

During a discussion with my friend Stephen Levy, he distinguished between implementing software and adopting it. A legal department can relatively easily implement software for the use of the department (install it on a server and get it up and running), but it is a much more challenging to have the right people in the department use the software in the right way. The latter series of steps is adoption of the software and it implies that the software is used effectively and makes a positive difference for the legal department.

Virtually all licensed software is implemented – installed on one or more computers so that it can run. Only some software in legal departments is adopted (See my post of July 8, 2009: software with 12 metaposts.).

A guest author from Mitratech described some of the attributes that differentiate one package of spend management software from one another. The differences they cite include:

1. “The level of billing detail they support (e.g. line items and sub-line items)
2. International capabilities ( e.g., recognize multiple currencies and tax codes; operate in multiple languages)

General counsel may have some concerns about how the members of their legal groups can effectively use online social networks (See my post of Sept. 22, 2008: social networks such as Legal OnRamp or LinkedIn with 7 references.). One problem is protecting confidential information.

An ad for Sonoa Systems Inc. and SelectMinds Inc. says they have joined to “offer employers secure connections among corporate social networks, business applications and public Web 2.0 communities.” It sounds as if a legal department might be able to integrate its online network FaceBook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and other public networks. Whether a general counsel would want to do so is another matter.

The ad, which appears in HR Mag., July 2009 at 73, mentions that the software “includes measurement tools so managers can track how employees use the social web sites

Eight well-known e-billing providers — Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTymetrix, DataCert, doeLegal, LawTrac, and Serenget – provided data for a survey I sent to a total of 10 providers. I have written a series of posts about the analysis (See my post of July 15, 2009: number of invoices processed; July 16, 2009: invoices processed per user; and July 17, 2009: law firms and vendors per user.).

One of the three questions asked for the “Number of law firms and other vendors during the past six months that have successfully submitted at least one bill to a law department through your system.” A second asked for the “Number of bills (invoices) processed by your system on behalf of law departments during the past six months.”

Dividing invoices processed by invoicers, the average was 107 while the median was 87. As with other calculations from this survey, the eight respondents differed, here by a ratio of almost 6-to-1. But what struck me was that a rough average of 100 invoices per vendor during the six-month period means 15-20 per vendor. If most of the vendors are law firms, that means only three to five matters, assuming they bill monthly.

Eight prominent e-billing providers — Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTymetrix, DataCert, doeLegal, LawTrac, and Serengeti – responded to a survey I sent to a total of 10 providers. The survey asked them to provide metrics for three questions (See my post of July 15, 2009: number of invoices processed; and July 16, 2009: invoices processed per user.).

One question asked for the “Number of active law department users during the past six months, meaning only those who have logged into your system during that period” and a second asked for the “Number of law firms and other vendors during the past six months that have successfully submitted at least one bill to a law department through your system.”

I divided the number of users by the number of invoicers. For the six companies that provided both metrics, the average was 1.9 law firms and other vendors per user; the median was 1.4. Four clustered around that metric; one was much higher at 5 and one much lower at one-half.

In mid-May, ten providers of e-billing software received invitations from me to provide metrics for three questions. Two declined but eight sent me data: Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTyMetrix, DataCert, DOELegal, LawTrac, and Serengeti.

One question asked for the “Number of active law department users during the past six months, meaning only those who have logged into your system during that period.” Three companies reported multiple thousands, one reported around 2,000, and two were in the hundreds of law department users.

When I divided the number of invoices processed during the period by the number of users, most of the ratios were fairly comparable – 23, 32, 38, 45, and 66 – with one outlier at 285. (Two companies were not able to determine how many members of their law-department community use their e-billing functions because the software runs behind corporate firewalls or they are integrated with a matter management platform.)

In mid-May, I invited ten providers of e-billing software to answer three questions. I followed up several times with the invitees. Eight companies eventually sent me data: Allegiant, Bottomline, Bridgeway, CTTymetrix, DataCert, doeLegal, LawTrac, and Serengeti.

One question asked for the “Number of bills (invoices) processed by your system on behalf of law departments during the past six months.” Both the average and the median were slightly above 370,000 (approximately 60,000 a month); the range, however, included two that processed less than 100,000 invoices during the period and two that processed more than 600,000 invoices.

Disregarding the number of law departments that have licensed a system, the differences in numbers of invoices processed could be due to (1) policy choices by general counsel regarding how widely they want to use e-billing among law firms; (2) inclusion of vendors other than firms, such as patent agents or discovery vendors; and (3) billing policies of users, such as deferring bills for another month or two if the bill amount doesn’t reach a certain threshold.

The head of litigation at a pharmaceutical company, facing scores of lawsuits, asked on a LinkedIn forum about software that would allow his firms to enter their litigation data. “I need several outside firms to input/upload confidential data [about lawsuits] securely.” Of the nine replies through yesterday, several mentioned less well-known software.

According to Jere Wilson, practice support manager at the law firm Shipman & Goodwin, “In the SaaS space is a really excellent litigation project management tool called iFramework.”

Also in the ASP space, Ray Jassin of Law Library Management “successfully implemented a reasonably priced litigation management tool for the legal department of a major corporation utilizing QuickBase, a hosted SaaS by INTUIT.”