Do all your law firms submit invoices through your e-Billing software?
e-Billing software has been touted as the foundational legal technology for in-house counsel. It provides a way for legal departments to understand where and how their dollars are being allocated.
Connie Brenton, Founder of the Corporate Operations Legal Consortium (CLOC) and Senior Director of Legal Operations at NetApp shares, “If you are starting up a group, or if you’re coming into a group, you need to be able to understand where your funds are being spent. Fiscal responsibility is at the top of the list, and [e-Billing] is always the first technology that goes in before any other technology.”
Legal as a Strategic Partner to the CFO & CEO
Legal e-Billing software makes it possible for in-house legal teams to think more quantitatively, and has played a part in shifting legal’s traditional perception as a scholarly profession to a more business-minded role.
In-house legal departments are leveraging the valuable spend metrics extracted from e-Billing software to provide clear, strategic direction regarding what law firms and vendors to work with, how to allocate funds among in-house and outside counsel resources, how to predict costs for litigation versus patent projects, and so much more. They’re taking this information and acting as key advisors not only to the legal department, but to the CFO, CEO, and organization as a whole.
Inaccurate Spend Reports from e-Billing Makes it Impossible to be Data-Driven
When legal spend reports from your e-Billing system are inaccurate, the conclusions and recommendations drawn from them have little to no value. Inaccurate spend reports are, in some cases, a result of a clunky reporting tool within an e-Billing solution, but can also be caused when only a portion of your law firms are submitting invoices through your e-Billing system. You and your legal team end up with missing data from invoices that come in separately. Even if your admin or paralegal is manually entering invoice amounts, your legal department will miss out on critical line item details of the invoice, creating additional gaps to your data set. This is why your goal with e-Billing should be 100% law firm adoption.
If you are thinking about adopting an e-Billing solution, or currently have an e-Billing solution but don’t have all of your law firms submitting invoices via the system, it’s important to think about what might be hindering adoption. Download our guide which covers 8 areas to evaluate when vetting an e-Billing solution for law firm adoption and get the accurate spend reports and metrics you and your team need to be a data-driven legal department.
