Year: 2020

Digging into the Great Retrade

Posted on May 5, 2020 by - Legal Operations

In each recent crisis – the dot-com collapse, the 9/11 attacks, the Financial Crisis – we have seen industries take major hits, adapting to the fiscal reality each has presented, and sharing in the pain. However, there is one group that has historically been exempt from the shared cost of these crises – the legal industry.

During each of these monumental crises, law firms established themselves as essential to the fate of your business as you navigated the uncertainty. In doing so, the industry maintained its pricing and performance almost seamlessly – even during times of economic peril. 

Take a look back at the 2009 financial crisis. While the lack of cash flow ran rampant in other industries, law firms experienced stability and even increases in their profits per partner (PPP). The top three firms grossed PPP of $4.3 million, $3.13 million, and $2.965 million respectively according to the AmLaw 100 rankings. 

In case you forgot, this was during an economic crisis. Sounds unfair, right?

Though they have gotten away with it in the past, the discrepancy in legal market income and market forces is no longer acceptable. As companies struggle to navigate their new reality, law firms are seeing an influx in their workload. 

In a survey recently conducted by the Association of Corporate Counsel, over 10% of in-house lawyers, general counsels, and chief legal officers shared that they are outsourcing more work than usual to law firms as they look for additional support during the crisis.

If that is the case, wouldn’t you like to make sure you are hiring the right firm at the right price?

Good news – Bodhala is here to help you do just that. 

It is now more urgent than ever to find efficiencies in your spend categories and to hold your law firm accountable for their fees.

Bodhala was built on the foundation that the legal market is not special – it is just like any other sophisticated market service and should act accordingly through economic undulations. 

Our platform refines organizational processes by empowering your legal team with deeper insights that allow you to better analyze, interpret, and optimize outside counsel spend. 

As the coronavirus pandemic has unraveled the past several weeks, we have witnessed the rapid downturn of our economy. It has left companies to retrade every billing line item – from real estate, to employees, to insurance. Companies are holding their bills, deferring payments, and renegotiating leases.

Among some of the largest industries to take a hit are airlines and real estate. 

Air travel has almost completely dissolved with US carriers cutting about 70% of flights this month. As a result, major US airlines including Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, and American applied for government aid in hopes of receiving a grant authorized through the stimulus package. 

Even with government assistance, Delta Airlines projects those funds only lasting until June as they burn through $60 million a day. The airline expects Q2 revenue to be down by 90 percent from 2019 and continues to add to the 35,000 employee volunteers taking unpaid leave.

Travelers aren’t the only ones staying away from the airline industry. 

Aircraft leasing investors, who once enjoyed hefty returns, are now dispersing left and right as dividend payments are suspended and payment schedules are renegotiated. 80% of Avalon Holdings Ltd. customers, one of the world’s largest plane lessors, sought payment relief within the past week.

Mass workforce layoffs have Americans strapped for cash and unable to make payments on time, or at all. As the first of the month approaches, many Americans are unprepared to make their rent payment with housing advocates in New York pushing for a statewide rent strike on May 1. 

It’s not just your average American that is worrying about making rent. Co-working giant, WeWork, halted rent payments at several US locations as “the great re-trade” begins to take shape in the real estate market. The company is looking for an asset-specific solution that benefits them and their over 600 global landlords.

Luxury fitness company, Equinox, recently issued a letter to their landlords to let them know that they should not expect the chain’s rent check at all. Equinox is temporarily not paying their vendors and they recently furloughed a number of employees.

Here is some food for thought:

If Delta Airlines can barely pay their employees, if WeWork has to renegotiate their leases, and if Equinox isn’t paying their rent or vendors – isn’t it time for you to rethink paying that hefty legal bill?

Bodhala is reimagining the legal services marketplace by providing legal market intelligence, insights, and guidance to corporations to optimize their legal operations. Our current economic climate makes the need to take control of your spend more critical than ever before. 

Our platform provides you with actionable insights to manage your law firm relationships and equips you with the logic needed to execute legal operations efficiently and effectively. Real transparency, real accountability, and real control.

As part of an ongoing series, we will be covering topics ranging from tactical “dos and don’ts” to navigating law firm payables and everything in between.

Like what you are seeing?

Download our free white paper to get data-backed and time-tested guidelines for understanding your RFP responses. You’ll also see a real-life example where our data saved a global bank millions on their rate negotiations.

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Shoot us an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about how to get started.

Listen to Onit’s New Podcast about Jaguar Land Rover’s Implementation of Onit’s Enterprise Legal Management Solution

Posted on May 4, 2020 by - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

We are thrilled to announce our new podcast! This timely episode is not to be missed, as it features Christine DiDomizio, legal operations lead at Jaguar Land Rover North America speaking about their implementation of Onit’s enterprise legal management solution and how their legal department is handling the current COVID-19 crisis.

Christine begins by giving an overview of Jaguar Land Rover’s North American team and the composition and functions of their legal department. She noted that they respond to legal service requests from not only the United States but also from Canada and the U.K. Christine goes on to explain a bit about what exactly their Onit solution is helping them with in the legal department. Before they implemented Onit, they didn’t even have an electronic billing system. So e-billing was one of the first workflow solutions they started using, followed by matter management. Christine points out that they did quite a bit of customization to their matter management solution to help them track and manage different areas very well. They also use a document repository where they store contracts and capture metadata about the contracts. They also have another Onit solution that helps them get that information into the repository, and other departments can submit legal service requests to their department via Onit’s legal service request solution.

Christine then sheds some light on her department’s goals when beginning their transformation. She explains that a priority was getting a handle on invoice processing – the sheer volume of which was overwhelming; not to mention most invoices were hardcopy or pdf. This of course led to their implementing e-billing. Their previous matter management system was also rudimentary, with people putting files on a shared drive, and filing paper documents. To make matter worse, parts of files could be physically separate on different individuals’ desks or other areas. Going paperless and consolidating everything including emails related to a matter was a priority.

Christine addresses the question of how collaboration with outside counsel has changed since they implement Onit. She explains that the biggest change has been in the area of product liability, as her department must do very detailed reporting of product liability cases to their parent company. She emphasizes the fact that there was a lot of copying and pasting involved with those reports previous to Onit, and so the implementation has been very successful in that regard. Christine mentions that her favorite feature in Onit is the grid reporting, along with the sorting and filtering capabilities and being able to do ad hoc reporting so easily and get results so quickly. She also points out that Onit is an ever-evolving system, and this is important because needs change. “Onit has been able to keep up with us, and then some!” she commented.

Christine responds to the question of how they’ve been dealing with the COVID crisis by saying it was surprising how seamless the transition has been. The podcast closes with Christine mentioning how her department has been able to function well largely because of Onit.

Listen to the podcast:


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Watch Onit’s Webinar: Market Uncertainty – ROI, Cost Savings and Technology

Posted on May 1, 2020 by - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

Join us for a recent webinar co-hosted with SimpleLegal, Consilio and Baker McKenzie titled, Market Uncertainty: ROI, Cost Savings and Technology. This webinar was part of Onit’s new Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative.

The presentation began with a quick overview of Onit’s Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative. Amy Good, director of strategic alliances at Onit highlighted the new Business Continuity Apps and emphasized the focus of helping our clients through the current COVID-19 crisis. She then explained the guiding principles of these Apps: they are free, simple and standard.

The conversation then moved to the topic of cost savings and achieving realignment, and how you could do that quickly. Craig Raeburn, vice president of global sales at SimpleLegal, offered some pointers on how to do that. He pointed out that he doesn’t think of “savings” so much as other things, such as ensuring the legal ecosystem stays in place and is operational now and in the future. Craig added that things will get back to normal and recommended keeping it simple in the early days and measuring everything you do.

Robin Snasdell, managing director at Consilio, then offered an overview of the potential savings of using their Sky Analytics solution. Some of the areas where cost savings are greatly realized include shifting work to more cost-effective firms, marginal input attorneys and block billing.

Matt DenOuden, vice president of global sales at Onit, then explained how various approaches fit into the value vs. impact prioritization grid. David Cambria, chief services officer at Baker McKenzie, offered a unique perspective by comparing the financial crisis of 2008 to the current crisis, with a focus on legal operations. He noted that anything in the high risk/high impact area demanded special attention, coupled with external and internal expertise. Robin made the point that departments should make the best use of collaboration tools during this time. Craig further added that just because something worked in 2008 doesn’t mean it will work today and suggested that you should research what systems already exists that you can leverage. David then concluded with a key takeaway — we need to make sure we have the right work going to the right resources.

To learn more about this webinar, watch the recording today.

Watch Onit’s New Webinar: When the Budget Committee Comes Knocking – Quantifying Project Savings

Posted on April 29, 2020 by - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

We’re thrilled for this opportunity to invite you to watch our new webinar we co-hosted with Duff & Phelps. This webinar, When the Budget Committee Comes Knocking: Quantifying Project Savings, is part of our new Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative.

The presentation began with a quick overview of Onit’s Lean into LegalOps online learning initiative, and our Business Continuity Apps. Matt Denouden, vice president of global sales at Onit then explained the current challenges as we see them, including the fact that CFOs want to see numbers to support new or ongoing projects, and how calculating cost savings can be time-consuming. In addition, he elaborated on how accurate data can be hard to come by for making a business case. In response, Onit developed savings calculators for Enterprise Legal Management (ELM), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) and Workflow Management. Matt then illustrated the average savings realized with Onit’s products as evidenced from actual usage by some of Onit’s major clients:

Contract Lifecyle Management

  • 9% – Average annual savings (IACCM)
  • 20% – Reduce average hours spend on contracts (Goldman Sachs)
  • 24% – Reduce average sales cycle (Aberdeen Group)
  • 5% – Automate renewal increases per contract (ACC)

Workflow Management (Apptitude)

  • 45% – Annual cost savings if workflow activities can be automated (McKinsey)
  • 40% – 75% – Annual cost savings if workflow costs can be saved via automation (Forbes)
  • 90% – Annual cost savings if workflow’s operating costs can be saved via automation (Forrester)

Enterprise Legal Management

  • 5 – 12% – Average incremental annual savings (Industry consultants)

A detailed demo of the Enterprise Legal Management calculator followed and then Charmel Rhyne, CLM sales director at Onit, offered insight about the cost savings from using contract lifecycle management technology. Mike Stevens, managing director at Duff & Phelps then explained some of the benefits of the calculator, with a key takeaway that the calculator (and business case) should be tailored to your organization.

Jonathan Powers, director of training and special projects at Onit completed the webinar with an overview of Onit’s business process automation platform, Apptitude, and its associated Workflow Management calculator. Before getting into the actual calculator, Jonathan described some common workflows built in Apptitude, such task tracking, PTO requests, approval processes, enterprise legal management, legal service requests, legal holds, NDAs and contract lifecycle management. The Workflow Automation cost savings calculator was then explained to gain a basic understanding of its benefits.

A Q&A session rounded out the remaining time on the webinar. We hope you’ll take some time to watch this highly informative webinar.

E-Billing Operating Procedures (Pre-Flight Checks for Law Firms)

Posted on April 29, 2020 by - Enterprise Legal Management

In aviation, a pre-flight checklist lists tasks that pilots and aircrew should perform before takeoff. It aims to improve flight safety by ensuring there are no forgotten essential tasks. Failure to correctly conduct a pre-flight check using a checklist significantly contributes to aircraft accidents.

Although nowhere near as critical as air safety, several law firms have established the principle of running “pre-flight checks” on their e-Bills before submitting them to a legal spend management or e-Billing system such as BusyLamp eBilling.Space. This is to correct any obvious errors on the e-Bill and reduce the % of invoices rejected in the first stage of the validation process. This leads to invoices being accepted and paid by the client faster. Over time, you can identify common errors and make processes at the firm can be more accurate and efficient. It also improves customer satisfaction, as it’s frustrating for in-house clients to receive non-compliant invoices.

One useful tool to support such “pre-flight checks” is an e-Billing Operating Procedures (e-Billing OP) document. Usually, one exists for each e-Billed client entity, covering the key validation rules for each e-Bill and the broader policies and protocols for working with that specific client and legal e-billing software.

Such documents are becoming more common at law firms. Billing Standard Operating Procedure documents come widely mandated in financial and government organizations. Several law firms have adopted and tweaked the idea to have something specific to legal e-Billing. With the increase in corporate counsel buying legal e-Billing software comes an increase in the number of clients that need billing in this way. It also adds to the volume and variety of billing guidelines that firms must remember. Operating Procedures documents allow these to be easily recalled and accessed and help prevent simple mistakes.

In this blog post, we’ll cover how to create and maintain your e-Billing OP document, sample “pre-flight checks,” and how to deal with billing errors.

DOCUMENTING THE E-BILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES

Many law firms have either written or are developing e-Billing OPs for every e-Billing client and/or generic e-billing tool. In order to gain the maximum benefit from this exercise, you need a consistent template against which to write all the e-Billing OPs. Your e-Billing OPs should include the following:

  • The overall client e-Billing process flow and project scope.
  • Timescales for valid billing, e.g., within xx days of the work.
  • How to submit WIP and invoice data?
  • How to use/invoice alternative fee arrangements?
  • What data validation rules apply?
  • How are disputed invoices/time entries handled?
  • What is the escalation process for correcting rejections within the law firm?
  • When will the valid invoices be paid?
  • What expenses/activities may get disallowed?
  • What UTBMS codes are required?
  • How to amend/resubmit invalid data?
  • Are any statutory/regulatory statements required?
  • Are there any budgets set/how are they handled?
  • Who to contact for queries?

The Operating Procedure may include the non-e-Billing agreed Protocols and Policies governing the client/law firm commercial relationship. Edit these if access to sensitive data is to be restricted.

PRE-FLIGHT CHECKLIST: VALIDATION OF E-BILLS

In addition to the policies mentioned above, your Operating Procedure document must include the checklist of validation criteria to avoid unnecessary invoice rejections. These cover quite basic e-Billing criteria for common and avoidable oversights. Taking the time to do these checks will save time in the long run. Some validation checks typically covered in the pre-flight checklist include the following:

  • Are the hourly rates correct and as agreed?
  • Are the timekeepers valid, and if required, are they pre-approved?
  • Is the time being billed within the agreed time limits?
  • Is there evidence of block billing?
  • Are the narratives clear? Is there a minimum number of words required?
  • If required, are there UTBMS codes for tasks/activities/expenses?
  • Are there any disallowed expenses (e.g., Online Research, Local Travel), activities (e.g., Reviewing Files), or timekeeper classifications (e.g., Intern or Trainee) on the e-Bill?
  • Are there any budgets or caps on this matter? Are we still within these limits with this bill included?

Subject to a few exceptions, most of the errors detected at this stage can be easily corrected. Some errors can be resolved by the e-Billing team, for example, missing timekeepers or incorrect rates. Other more significant errors, i.e., missing activity codes, vague narratives, block billing issues, tax errors, or other billing guideline breaches, must be referred to the revenue controllers or the firm’s legal team. This may inevitably delay the submission of the e-Bill. It’s important to note that the client would reject the invoice anyway, so it’s still faster to catch the error before submission.

Regardless of the type of error, they should get documented and their resolution communicated to the legal team. This helps your firm identify common errors and improve the billing accuracy (and, therefore, the processes’ efficiency) in the future.

Many law firms have implemented additional processes upon matter opening and will set an e-Bill indicator or flag in their Time and Billing system to show that this matter must be e-Billed. This will notify the matter partner/lawyers and e-Billing coordinator that crucial data items are required to stop the matter from being billed if missing. The firm’s e-Billing team can then run audit reports on a client-by-client basis to check that the expected data is present before the matter gets billed. (As noted above, you should have processes to refer many of these issues back to the business to resolve.)

COLLECTING CLIENT REQUIREMENTS FOR E-BILLING OPERATING PROCEDURES DOCUMENTATION

Now that you have the template for building your operating procedures document, you may still be wondering how to identify the clients’ e-Billing requirements in the first place! Ideally, the in-house client will have supplied you with a billing guidelines document signed off by both parties. You then use this to populate a “client matrix,” which includes the client’s data and billing requirements, your law firm’s data requirements, and any administration and special installation guidelines. In the interest of centralization, we recommend that the client billing guidelines and other specific e-billing requirements are in the e-Billing OP documentation. They must be visible to the relevant parties and adhered to by the legal team and the firm’s e-Billing/finance function.

THE CLIENT MATRIX IS PRIMARILY A SERIES OF TASKS WITH DATES FOR COMPLETION. THE MAIN SECTIONS ARE:

  • New Client setup – includes client ID, e-Billing software vendor details, bill format, contact details, timekeeper types, and entities in scope.
  • New Client Implementation Checklist – includes UTBMS codes, invoice template details, login, and password details, validation lists, expense codes, testing requirements, and go-live dates.
  • Portal set- up – includes client and law firm data setup, user setup, rates and timekeepers, and reporting metrics.

THE INFORMATION FROM THIS CHECKLIST IS CROSS-REFERENCED AND INCLUDED IN THE E-BILLING OPS. COMPLETING THE CHECKLIST WILL HIGHLIGHT OTHER TASKS TO FOR COMPLETION FOR A GIVEN CLIENT, SUCH AS:

  • Is any timekeeper mapping required? – Typically, from the law firm’s system to the client timekeeper classification.
  • Are any data extracts needed? – e.g., existing open matters, timekeeper uploads, agreed rates, etc.
  • Communications to the legal team – mandatory task/activity codes/Narratives etc.
  • Client work types, is a PO number needed?

As with the Operating Procedures, the data-gathering checklist comes from the law firm’s e-Billing coordinator/team. Although these main sections refer to “new clients,” the client matrix should be updated if billing guidelines, or any other procedures from the client, change.

OPERATING PROCEDURES MAKE E-BILLING EASIER

There is no “one way” to do e-Billing, which is different in many law firms. One core difference is whether e-Billing is centralized or decentralized and the associated consequences of that approach. What seems consistent (and works) is when firms create a dedicated e-Billing specialist team. These carry various names but are essentially a team responsible for successfully uploading e-Bill files to the e-Billing vendor/client portal. This team can be in-house, near-shored, or offshore but will need clear Operating Procedures for each client with all possible outcomes and options documented and a clear escalation path for all unresolved queries. They will also require a general support model covering other non-client-specific scenarios. This level of documented support may be more important if the team is working offshore or remotely.

The scope of e-Billing is changing and is far from the original concept of loading e-Bills into a portal, handling the rejections, resolving issues, and getting the bills accepted. Evolving from this original requirement came the addition of matter budgets to the portal and the law firm’s responsibility to maintain them and ensure they are adhered to. More recently, we have seen clients make “added value” requests, such as adding client-only data to the e-Bill (such as their work types) and unbilled time and WIP uploaded to the e-Billing portal. This extension to the scope will only increase as the adoption of “beyond e-Billing” legal spend management technology, such as AI and machine learning, is spread wider. These requests are all helping in-house clients better understand their matter budgets and legal spend, and your law firm is a vital partner in assisting them to achieve these goals. But with this additional service comes complexity, making the need for clear e-Billing documentation at your firm even more critical.

Written by Bryan King

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

Bankruptcy: The Moment Big Law Has Been Waiting For

Posted on April 29, 2020 by - Legal Operations

While companies face a financial collapse, bankruptcy & restructuring partners prepare for big paydays.

Article Highlights

  • The coronavirus pandemic has a number of large retailers facing bankruptcy and restructuring.
  • Law firms will reap the benefits of other companies’ financial collapse once more if they are not held accountable.
  • Bodhala can serve as a resource for companies to ensure they hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Floor after floor of designer brands. Elaborate holiday displays emitting a sense of joy and a tinge of magic. Rushes of crowds fulfilling their Black Friday shopping lists. These happy memories that department stores once created have now been replaced by nail biting calls with creditors and endless meetings with Big Law firms as they prepare bankruptcy filings for numerous retail companies and their boards. 

The coronavirus pandemic has vaporized any aspect of normalcy we once knew and continues to decimate our economy, taking out businesses big and small. 

With shelter-in-place orders in effect for nearly two months now, non-essential businesses are feeling the hurt as some of the biggest names in retail fall victim to bankruptcy.

The current economic distress is leaving the likes of Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, and Nordstrom facing bankruptcy while JC Penney is now in advanced loan talks with existing lenders. 

Penney’s loan package could total between $800 million to one billion with bankruptcy filings potentially taking place within the next few weeks.

The rapid financial downturn has left department store chains with only a few choices:

  1. Restructure debt directly with creditors;
  2. Restructure with court assistance;
  3. Liquidate entirely.

Sadly, any of these options come with law firm sticker shock. 

Sales and discounts? Those might exist in retail, but law firms are a different story. 

Even when companies find themselves in dire need of competitive pricing, the legal industry continues to respond with inflated fees and a refusal to hold timekeepers accountable. This has a tragic consequence to real people — like employees and suppliers.  

Now is not the time to dig deeper into your company’s pockets to pay the inflated fees law firms are charging. Bodhala’s proprietary data set serves as a valuable resource for companies at risk to ensure they don’t pay out tens of millions of dollars to their law firm while kicking their employees to the curb.

We can all learn a lesson from Toys “R” Us which filed for bankruptcy in 2017.

The beloved toy store chain that was part of so many of our childhoods turned into a feeding frenzy for Big Law as top firm Kirkland & Ellis took home $56 million.

Bodhala data shows that law firm rates for Toys “R” Us were 36.6% higher than similar “bet the company” litigation. These matters are plagued by too many attorneys on each filing, brief, meeting, call, and hearing.

Judge Keith Phillips reviewed and approved the firm’s fee application which listed the top two earners raking in over $3 million dollars while billing hourly rates between $995 and $1,480. 

105 partners and 131 associates at Kirkland & Ellis worked on the bankruptcy case with seven partners and associates billing over one million dollars EACH in fees. 

What did the Toys “R” Us employees take home you may ask?

The employees who missed out on Thanksgiving dinners to accommodate Black Friday shoppers, those who sacrificed family gatherings to cover a shift, the people who spent their birthdays working instead of celebrating…they must have received something – right?

Think again.

Employees received no severance pay. Nothing.

Did this have to happen? Absolutely not.

The Toys “R” Us bankruptcy was an outrage and led to the public shaming of the management and system that allowed the filing to pan out the way it did.

Yet companies are on track to see this happen again tenfold during the coronavirus pandemic.

The United States Trustee program is a component of the Department of Justice tasked with overseeing the administration of bankruptcy cases. Significant reputation risk is at stake if judges and US Trustees do not ensure rates are reasonable and aligned with other market rates.

So what’s the solution here?

Enter Bodhala.

It is time to hold your service providers accountable, including pricey law firms. 

Our market data provides transparency into the billable hour and actionable insights so that the US Trustee can operate effectively — instead of overseeing another massive law firm payday while an entire workforce gets kicked to the curb.

With over $15 billion in legal invoices and data from over 235,000 lawyers spread across 31,000 law firms — with the most sophisticated algorithms ever created in legal spend management —  we’re here to ensure that you hire the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

Contact us at [email protected] to learn how Bodhala can help with your spend optimization efforts.

Onit Releases New COVID-19 Contract and Meeting Applications for Free!

Posted on April 27, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management

As we continue to face this ever-changing environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made it our mission at Onit to help organizations the best way we know how. By providing free business continuity software applications that help organizations manage their remote workforce, financial impacts, business processes, and company risk. We feel that it is our responsibility as an enterprise software vendor to not only take care of our customers but to do our part in helping every type of business of every size.

I am pleased to announce that we are launching two new free Business Continuity Apps, Contract Compliance Issue Tracking, and Weekly Meeting Tracker.
 

Contract Compliance App

Contract Compliance Issue Tracking App

Contract Compliance Issue Tracking App provides a mechanism for companies to log and manage issues reported by (inbound) or reported to (outbound) external parties that impact the ability to deliver on a contract. This includes, but is not limited to, force majeure claims. This App also:

  • Enables employees to notify the legal department quickly of problems with contract compliance and what obligations may not be able to be met
  • Provides visibility into the types of compliance issues that have been reported based on the level of risk
  • Sets rules for automatically notifying legal, finance, and operations reviewers

Weekly Meeting Tracker App

Weekly Meeting Tracker App

Weekly Meeting Tracker Application enables managers and leadership to quickly establish a framework for offsite team communications, including managing agendas and follow-ups for standup meetings and aggregating updates for management reporting. This Apps also:

  • Manages meetings and provide visibility to their outcomes
  • Adds meetings details and generates team email notifications to communicate meeting descriptions, attendees, topics, and post-meeting outcomes
  • Sends reminders to have updates and discussion topics provided by team members before meetings to ensure meetings are productive and efficient

We have designed these Business Continuity Apps with three key principles in mind, free, simple, and standard. As stated earlier, we are here to help and when we say free, we mean FREE! We are able to do this by engineering these Apps as simple and as standard as possible so that they can be used out of the box across a variety of industries, departments, and use cases.

Even though these Apps are out of the box, they are still built upon our innovative workflow platform. Meaning they share the same infrastructure, security, and performance as all of our industry-leading enterprise-class software. Another benefit of the cloud-based Business Continuity Apps is that they are accessible on any modern web-browser, device, and to an unlimited of users.

For more information on our Business Continuity Apps for COVID-19 please visit us online.

Letter From The CEO: Announcing a $10M Growth Investment in Bodhala

Posted on April 23, 2020 by - Legal Operations

Dear Friends,

When I was a student at Harvard Law 20 years ago, I quickly noticed that law firms were like black boxes, billing hefty rates without much transparency or accountability. I now like to joke that people have more data about their underwear purchases on Amazon than corporate legal departments have about their law firms and how these firms deliver their services.

My experience at law school, coupled with my business partner Ketan’s 10 years as a corporate attorney, exposed us to the systemic cracks in the legal system. We saw law firms padding their wallets with more money than the assumed value they provided their clients.

We’re now in a moment of time where these cracks are about to get bigger. With COVID-19, we anticipate a rise in legal cases as companies turn to law firms to help them mitigate the negative financial impacts of this pandemic, from layoffs, to the grinding halt of M&A transactions, and to potential mass bankruptcies. 

After the dot-com crisis, 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis, law firms increased their hourly billings, even as their corporate clients experienced significant hardships. In 2009, top law firms increased profits per partner (PPP) between 10 and 34 percent notwithstanding the financial chaos surrounding them, according to the AmLaw 100 rankings. 

This is why Ketan and I created Bodhala. We wanted to tackle the outdated legal marketplace to bring transparency to the billable hour and sophisticated economics to the legal industry—one where visibility and fair competition lead to the selection of the right lawyer at the right law firm at the right price.

With Bodhala, we created an AI-driven platform for the $500 billion legal services market. We provide essential 360-degree data on law firms and the analytical leverage needed to better allocate the legal market between its buyers and sellers. Our unique data and platform thereby provides us the opportunity to sit at the center of the dynamic legal ecosystem.

We brought the Bodhala platform to market in 2016 serving clients in financial services, healthcare services, insurance, energy, and private equity. Within the past year, we’ve experienced 300+ percent growth in both revenue and headcount and look forward to continuing on this trajectory in 2020. Today we are excited to announce our first institutional round—$10 million in growth capital led by Edison Partners. 

When we first met Edison’s Dan Herscovici, we knew it was a fit because he understood our mission to deliver groundbreaking legal technology solutions to empower companies to analyze, interpret, and optimize outside counsel spend, trailblazing a new era of legal market intelligence with real transparency, real accountability, and real control.  

With this financing, we are going to accelerate sales and marketing as well as product expansion. Specifically, we want to enhance our datasets to become even more valuable to our clients. Edison Partners has helped build great software businesses in other verticals so we are excited to have their expertise as we look to expand.

I look forward to sharing more great things to come as we usher in a market-driven economy to the legal industry and deliver more value to our customers. 

Sincerely,

Raj Goyle, CEO

Setting the Stage for The Great Retrade: Law Firms Are Facing A Crisis Never Ever Experienced

Posted on April 21, 2020 by - Legal Operations

Article Highlights:

  • “The Great Retrade” is happening across a number of industries, affecting companies big and small.
  • For the first time ever, law firms are unable to avoid the shared economic struggle and must participate in “The Great Retrade.”
  • Some firms will find themselves at risk during COVID-19.
  • Law firm’s clients are deferring payments and halting work.
  • Bodhala predicts significant renegotiation of legal bills during and after COVID-19.

“The Great Retrade”

As COVID-19 continues to devastate our economy, “The Great Retrade” is taking shape for companies big and small.

From the real estate industry to airlines, insurance, and hospitals – every line item in a company’s budget is being retraded in an effort to stay afloat amidst the chaos. This is reported all day in the financial papers and television.

Less well known is that Bodhala’s data has shown fewer bills being paid throughout March and April and we’re hearing first-hand the struggles on our Client Success calls.

Although they’ve historically sheltered themselves from previous crises, law firms must now also share in the pain each of the aforementioned industries is experiencing. Let’s take a glance at the new realities companies are facing.

Law Firms:

Our law firm health models are projecting financial troubles in the second half of 2020 for the top firms dependent on M&A due to the slowdown in global and private equity M&A that began in March. Given these firms’ dependence on such matters and the high profit yield these present, much will depend on the firms’ lines of credit with their banks.

Bodhala predicts a significant number of the first half of 2020 legal bills will be recut at the end of COVID-19.

Court closures, holds on settlement conversations, and a loss of new deals have left law firms with no choice other than to reduce their staff and payments.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP has cut associate salaries by 25 percent while partners are no longer receiving compensation. 

Pryor Cashman LLP has furloughed some associates, a once unprecedented thought, although the firm expects to bring them back in the near future.

Baker Donelson slashed compensation for associates and staff by 20 percent as they realize that law firms have become an afterthought with clients halting the firm’s current work and deferring payments.

Real Estate:

At the start of each month, there’s one thing on landlords’ minds – rent checks. However, the coronavirus has thrown a wrench in this expectation as renters struggle to make their payments. Through the end of the first week of the month, one-third of American renters had not yet sent in their rent check. 

Think it’s just your average Joe struggling to pay rent? Think again. Here’s a quick rundown of how some corporate giants are handling April rent –

Nike is renegotiating leases as they closed stores last month and anticipate the closure carrying on for the foreseeable future.

Petco paid 25% of their April rent and stated in a letter to landlords that the payment was made “under protest and duress in anticipation of potential future withholding.”

Ross Stores have halted rent payments while stores remain closed. Once stores reopen, they’ll pay rent equivalent to roughly two percent of sales until their sales reach 70 percent of the revenue received at the same period in 2019.

WeWork is individually reaching out to its roster of over 600 global landlords as the co-working company has halted rent payments at several US locations and alternatively looks for an asset-specific solution to benefit both parties.

Equinox, though to the dismay of owner Related, has advised landlords that the luxury fitness company will not be paying April rent.

Subway, prior to the start of the month, alerted their landlords that they will reduce or postpone their April rent payment. Additionally, the fast food chain is cutting royalty payments in half.

Insurance:

With shelter-in-place orders in effect and Americans buckling down at home, auto-insurance carriers are citing a dramatic drop in accident claims as mileage was down between 35 to 50 percent across the US. 

As a result, some auto-insurance carriers are making the move to payout the anticipated amount of claims they expected to send customers this year – even though they no longer have to.

AllState is issuing over $600 million in shelter-in-place checks to customers as the company looks to provide help when it’s needed most. 

American Family Insurance followed suit as it’s returning $200 million to its policyholders.

Additionally, many insurers have extended payment plans and waived late fees to ease up on the financial qualms Americans are experiencing during COVID-19.

Air Travel:

The vaporization of air travel during the coronavirus pandemic has airlines scrambling to make up for lost revenue.

United and Delta have reached out to their respective credit partners to discuss selling miles ahead of schedule and at a steep discount. 

Delta Airlines pledged a number of airplanes for a $2.6 billion credit line from banks as the airline continues to burn through $60 million a day.

American Airlines arranged a $1 billion loan led by Citigroup which included a second mortgage on its most valuable route – New York to London Heathrow.

Hospitals:

As if hospitals weren’t already overwhelmed enough – they’re facing the overarching issue of increased expenses at a time of little to no revenue.

Hospitals across the nation are in the process of increasing ICU bed count, a necessary yet costly task. Bringing a regular hospital ward up to ICU level entails the implementation of expensive equipment such as heart monitors, oxygen monitors, and ventilators. 

Along with equipment, hospitals are increasing staffing as they care for the drastic number of COVID-19 infected patients. 

Hospitals, including Cedar Sinai and Harbor-UCLA in Los Angeles, have cut back on lucrative elective procedures in order to make more room for those affected by the coronavirus. 

This will result in a loss of millions of dollars of revenue at each hospital. 

Pay Cuts:

In an effort to conserve cash during the crisis, company executives are taking pay cuts up to 100 percent as they navigate the uncertain COVID climate.

Disney executives have taken pay cuts up to 30 percent with no definitive end date. Company Chairman, Bob Iger, has passed up his salary entirely as Disney furloughed over 43,000 employees.

Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun, and Board Chairman, Larry Kellner, are both foregoing their 2020 salaries. 

GE CEO, Lawrence Culp, has given up his full salary while David Joyce, the company’s Vice Chairman and President and CEO of GE Aviation will forego half of his salary. 

Lyft co-founders, Josh Zimmer and Logan Green, have pledged to donate their salaries through June.

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Informed decision making is more critical than ever as you manage expenses throughout this economic turmoil. Don’t let your business make the mistake of shelling out more money than you need to. Bodhala is here to help by providing real transparency, real accountability, and real control. 

Onit and SimpleLegal Customers Making a Difference During COVID-19

Posted on April 17, 2020 by - Company News and Events

It’s corporate social responsibility in action. While Onit and our free Business Continuity Apps are helping legal departments stay on top of their workloads during COVID-19, many of our customers are paying it forward in some amazing ways. These are just some of the great things Onit and SimpleLegal customers are doing to serve at this time. We are so proud to count them as part of the Onit/SimpleLegal family and want to recognize their incredible efforts!

Healthcare

Genentech: Just one of several Onit customers leading the way in finding treatments and a vaccine. According to GEN Edge, Genentech has been conducting double blind trials as part of Phase III of their research on tocilizumab. Genetech’s Acterma®, initially marketed as an arthritis medication is undergoing trials to asses its effectiveness at treating pneumonia as a symptom of COVID-19.

Sorrento Therapeutics: Sorrento has been working on a novel decoy cellular vaccine for COVID-19 using their I-Cell™ process. Sorento hopes to elicit T and B cell immunities by introducing non-replicating cells to provide replicating cells with a protein that should strengthen cell membranes from SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

Abbott Laboratories: Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories has developed a platform for COVID-19 testing on their ID Now portable testing units. Abbott Laboratories has received Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, and patients administered this test can get their results in as little as five minutes. Abbott Laboratories intends to administer nearly 5,000,000 tests a month.

Moderna: Moderna is partnering with NIH to test an mRNA vaccine for Coronavirus. Moderna has been working on their vaccine since the NIH received the COVID-19 genetic sequence from Chines authorities and is ready for human testing.

Varian Medical: According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation: “Varian donated $1,000,000 to support coronavirus prevention and control. The company is also supporting cancer treatment with its medical system.”

Change Healthcare: Change Healthcare launched their COVID-19 Updates and Resources Hub which is “an online source of technology, business, and informational resources to give… guidance on how to maintain administrative, financial, and operational stability.” Change Healthcare and their partners are doing their best to help users with immediate pandemic-related issues, and their Hub is meant to help companies keep their operations moving as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

Varex Imaging: Varex, being designated an “essential business,” has kept their main facilities open as well as implemented a work from home policy for their non-essential employees. Varex also says they are committed to continuing production of critical components of X-ray and CT systems.

Envision Healthcare: Envision plans to deploy 130 more clinicians to the Mount Sinai hospital system to help out in hotspots in New York City where COVID-19 has hit the hardest.

Incyte: Insight is undergoing Phase 3 of testing their cancer drug Jakafi to treat COVID-19 patients with severe cytokine reactions.

Utilities

SRP: SRP has committed to keeping power on for customers who are late on payment or non-paying through the outbreak. They have also planned to donate over $1 million for small business and residential customers in Arizona.

Comcast: Comcast is offering two months of free services for new customers and increasing internet speeds for existing customers. Comcast is also offering free access to their Xfinity WiFi hotspots across the US as well as giving payment amnesty for existing customers.

Ontario Power Generation: OPG is donating 17,500 Tyvek suits to frontline healthcare workers in Ontario. OPG has also already donated half a million surgical masks as well as 75,000 N95 masks to the Province of Ontario.

FedEx: FedEx has partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to deliver testing kits to cities across the US. FedEx has also updated some of their operating procedures to reflect COVID-19 in an effort to increase employee safety and comply with social distancing measures.

Apparel

Under Armour: According to The Hill and The Baltimore Sun, Under Armour has committed to the manufacturing of 500,000 surgical masks as well as thousands of hospital gowns and face shields to donate to the University of Maryland Medical System.

Crocs: Crocs shoes are a popular option for doctors spending all day on their feet because of the comfort they provide and how easy they are to clean. Crocs is coming to the rescue by donating roughly 10,000 pairs of shoes a day to healthcare workers.

Digital Services/Food

Cargill: Cargill is helping keep store shelves stocked as well as delivering other goods and services around the country.

PayPal: PayPal is waiving many of its fees, doubling cashback rewards and extending the dispute period to make it easier for customers to access their funds.

DoorDash: DoorDash is giving its employees up to two weeks of financial assistance for employees who either contract COVID-19 or are put under quarantine, which reads as close to two weeks paid sick leave as you can get from a gig economy company. DoorDash has also added a no contact delivery as the default option for their food delivery service.

Manufacturing/Construction

3M: 3M has ramped up to maximum production of N95 masks to nearly 100 million per month as well as partnered with sanitation experts to learn the best ways to extend the life of the masks. 3M is also partnering with Ford to increase powered air purifying respirators production six-fold within 2-3 months.

Carbon: Carbon is continuing operations of PPE manufacturing for frontline healthcare workers. Carbon is also offering design consultations for their Lattice Engine design software.

Johnson Controls: Johnson Controls has been serving as “essential personnel” for maintaining operations of hospitals, supermarkets, food processors, pharmacies, data centers, state and local government offices, police stations, fire stations, United States military operations around the world and other critical infrastructure. Johnson Controls has been aiding workers on the frontlines of COVID-19 since the initial outbreak in Wuhan and has committed to continue helping with global operations.

Media/Publishing

Hearst: Hearst Foundations are donating $50 Million to Coronavirus efforts. The emergency funding will go to over 100 U.S. medical, humanitarian and cultural organizations impacted by the pandemic.

Pearson PLC: Pearson is providing free learning resources to the world’s students, teachers and parents as a response to the shift to at-home learning. They have compiled resources for Higher Ed, K-12 and Working from Home.

Foundations

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative: Priscilla Chan and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation will deliver a pledge of $30 million dollars. Most of the donation is set to go to the COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator.