Category: Enterprise Legal Management

What is Legal eBilling? How Modern Legal Teams Drive Spend Control

Posted on November 6, 2025 by - Enterprise Legal Management

an image that represents a legal ops professional handling legal eBilling

Legal eBilling is how modern legal teams bring order, accuracy, and transparency to their spend. It replaces manual billing chaos with automated workflows that capture data, enforce billing rules, and help teams understand exactly where their money goes. For departments under pressure to do more with less, eBilling provides structure, accountability, and time back in the day.

What is legal eBilling?

Legal eBilling is the electronic submission, review, and approval of invoices between law firms and corporate legal departments. Instead of exchanging invoices through email or spreadsheets, firms upload invoices directly into a secure eBilling platform. Most use a standardized format called LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard), which helps organize billing data consistently.

Once received, the eBilling system automatically checks each invoice against company billing guidelines, rate cards, and budgets. If something doesn’t match, it gets flagged for review. The invoice is then routed through an approval process where reviewers can accept, reject, or adjust line items as needed.

This structure creates consistency across the entire billing cycle. Invoices are processed faster, fewer errors slip through, and teams can focus on analysis rather than administration.

legal eBilling representation with data and analytics

How legal eBilling works

A legal eBilling workflow is built around automation and visibility. Here’s what it typically looks like:

  1. Law firms submit invoices electronically. They log into the eBilling platform and upload invoices using approved formats like LEDES.
  2. The system validates automatically. Pre-set rules flag issues such as incorrect rates, missing matter codes, or out-of-scope tasks.
  3. Invoices move through approvals. The platform routes them to the right reviewers based on your internal workflows.
  4. Legal teams monitor progress. Dashboards and reports provide real-time updates on pending, approved, or rejected invoices.
  5. Finance syncs with legal. Once approved, invoices flow into accounting systems for payment, keeping budgets and records aligned.

This process eliminates repetitive tasks, reduces human error, and creates a digital record of every billing action taken. Law firms benefit too because they process payments faster, and set clear billing rules upfront.

Why legal billing matters for modern legal teams

Billing is one of those processes that can quietly drain hours from a legal department each month. And so, without automation, it’s easy for mistakes to pile up. Rates may differ from agreed terms. Tasks that fall outside of policy get billed. In many cases, approvals stall because the right person doesn’t see an email in time.

Legal eBilling fixes that by standardizing and streamlining how invoices move through review. As a result, the system enforces rules automatically and provides visibility into each invoice’s status. Then, teams can track pending items, approved expenses, and real-time spending.

legal eBilling and legal teams

This visibility is a game changer for legal ops. It allows teams to track spend by matter, law firm, or region, and uncover insights that drive smarter decisions. With clean, reliable data, legal departments can forecast budgets, monitor trends, and show measurable value to the business.

What to look for in a modern eBilling system

The best eBilling solutions are flexible, intuitive, and built to support collaboration between legal teams and law firms. Key features to prioritize include:

  • LEDES support and global capability: Ensure compatibility with industry standards and multiple currencies.
  • Configurable billing rules: Set your own policies, rate structures, and approval workflows.
  • Dashboards and analytics: Access spend reports and compliance tracking in real time.
  • Vendor collaboration tools: Make it simple for law firms to submit and track invoices.
  • Integration readiness: Connect seamlessly with matter management or financial systems.

An effective legal eBilling platform should be easy to implement, simple for firms to use, and powerful enough to scale with the department’s needs.

The benefits of legal eBilling

Once legal eBilling is in place, the improvements are felt quickly. Teams spend less time chasing down invoices and more time analyzing results. Finance gains accurate, up-to-date data, and law firms have a smoother experience submitting bills.

Some of the biggest benefits include:

  • Faster approvals: Automated routing reduces delays and shortens payment cycles.
  • Stronger compliance: Built-in rules enforce outside counsel guidelines automatically.
  • Better forecasting: Real-time data makes budgeting more predictable and accurate.
  • Improved visibility: Every invoice and matter is tracked and searchable.
  • Reduced rework: Standardized processes catch errors before they cause problems.

Together, these benefits add up to measurable ROI. Legal departments that adopt eBilling typically see a faster invoice turnaround, fewer disputes, and greater alignment with finance.

legal eBilling image of person signing contract or bill

Common misconceptions about eBilling

It’s common for teams to assume eBilling is too complex, too expensive, or only for large enterprises. The reality is that modern solutions are far easier to deploy and maintain than they used to be. Cloud-based platforms now offer intuitive interfaces, built-in templates, and quick onboarding for both internal users and law firms.

Another misconception is that eBilling is only for tracking costs. While cost control is a major benefit, the true value lies in visibility. With the right data, legal ops teams can benchmark performance, justify budgets, and drive continuous improvement across their department.

The future of legal eBilling

Legal eBilling continues to evolve alongside the rest of legal technology. Automation and AI are already changing how invoices are reviewed and analyzed. Smart systems can now identify unusual billing patterns, predict potential overspend, and suggest optimization opportunities before issues arise.

These advances will make eBilling even more proactive in the years ahead. Instead of simply managing invoices, it will help legal teams make strategic decisions about where to invest time and budget.

Why it matters

Legal eBilling isn’t just about paying bills more efficiently. It’s about gaining the clarity and control that every modern legal department needs. It gives teams confidence in their data, alignment with finance, and the time to focus on higher-value work.

For growing legal ops teams, eBilling is the foundation for smarter, more strategic operations.

Ready to see how Onit helps legal teams simplify billing and spend management? Book a demo today.

*Post updated on 11/6/2025

What is Enterprise Legal Management (ELM)?

Posted on October 16, 2025 by - Enterprise Legal Management

What is Enterprise Legal Management? ELM

Enterprise legal management (ELM) is the framework corporate legal departments use to bring structure, visibility, and strategy to their operations. It connects key functions like legal spend management, matter tracking, vendor oversight, and workflow automation in one cohesive platform.

For today’s in-house teams, ELM is more than an organizational tool. It is the foundation of a data-driven legal department that can manage complexity, respond faster to business needs, and demonstrate tangible value across the company.

Why ELM matters for modern legal ops teams

Corporate legal teams are balancing more matters, tighter budgets, and growing demands from leadership. Without the right system in place, work gets lost in inboxes, reporting becomes manual, and spend control slips through the cracks.

Enterprise legal management brings order to that chaos. By centralizing activity and automating routine work, ELM helps teams:

  • Gain visibility into legal spend, matters, and outside counsel performance
  • Improve accuracy and compliance with defined workflows
  • Replace manual data entry with automation
  • Collaborate easily with finance, procurement, and business units
  • Measure and report on the value legal delivers to the organization

In short, ELM allows legal operations to scale efficiently and stay aligned with business priorities.

Arrows upwards represending ELM enterprise legal management to help business growth

What enterprise legal management includes

Enterprise legal management software combines several core capabilities into a single environment. While each solution may vary, the most common components include:

  • Matter management: Track all legal work in one system, from internal projects to litigation and contracts
  • Legal spend management: Review invoices efficiently, enforce billing guidelines, and forecast budget with accuracy
  • Vendor management: Evaluate outside counsel based on performance and cost-effectiveness
  • Legal service request intake: Streamline how the business submits requests and route them automatically to the right team
  • Compliance and risk management: Maintain oversight of regulations, obligations, and potential exposure
  • Analytics and dashboards: Translate data into actionable insights that improve decisions

These features work best when connected through a unified platform that supports integration across the company’s legal tech stack.

Legal tech stack image to represent a company using Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) software

How enterprise legal management software works

Enterprise legal management software acts as a central hub for all legal operations. It gathers data from multiple systems, automates repetitive workflows, and gives legal professionals real-time access to information they need.

A well-designed ELM platform typically:

  • Centralizes matters, spend, and vendor data in one system of record
  • Automates approval processes and invoice review
  • Integrates with enterprise tools like ERP, CLM, and document management systems
  • Uses analytics to highlight spend patterns, cycle times, and workload distribution
  • Supports secure collaboration across departments and outside counsel

With these elements in place, legal teams can focus more time on strategic work and less on administrative tasks.

What makes modern ELM software different

Not all enterprise legal management solutions are created equal. Legacy tools often require heavy configuration, lack AI capabilities, or force teams to adapt to rigid workflows.

Modern ELM software changes that. It is designed to be:

  • AI-native: Built with intelligence that accelerates tasks like invoice validation, matter triage, and reporting
  • User-friendly: Intuitive interfaces help teams adopt new technology quickly
  • Configurable: Tailored to match each organization’s structure and processes
  • Connected: Seamlessly integrates with core business and legal systems
  • Insight-driven: Turns operational data into metrics that demonstrate value

The result is a legal department that operates efficiently, stays aligned with business goals, and makes data-backed decisions.

Image of admin tasks and analytics dashboard for ELM enterprise legal management

How Onit redefines enterprise legal management

Onit’s enterprise legal management software helps legal teams operate on their own terms. Designed by legal professionals, it brings together everything needed to manage matters, spend, and vendors in a single, AI-native platform.

With Onit, legal departments can:

  • Gain full transparency into spend and outside counsel activity
  • Automate manual review processes and approval workflows
  • Monitor vendor performance through detailed analytics
  • Connect seamlessly with finance, procurement, and compliance systems
  • Report on outcomes with dashboards that track time, cost, and efficiency

By putting automation and insight at the center of every workflow, Onit enables legal teams to work smarter, not harder.

Ready to see what ELM can do for you?

Use Onit’s ROI Calculator to estimate the value enterprise legal management could deliver to your department.

Ready to see Onit’s ELM in action? Book a demo today with one of our experts.

Legal Spend Just Got Its Groove Back 

Posted on August 13, 2025 by - Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Legal Management, Legal Operations

Legal Spend Groove Back Blog Image

There was a time when managing legal spend was supposed to transform the way legal teams worked. But what they actually got were clunky interfaces, disconnected tools, and manual workflows disguised as “digital solutions.” 

That ends now. 

Onit’s 2025 summer release marks a new era for legal operations, one where legal spend is easier to control and optimize.  

Introducing Unity, the AI-native framework built from the ground up to bring legal’s most critical workflows — spend, vendors, and data — within a more unified and intuitive experience. And yes, it actually does the work. 

This is what legal looks like, on your terms. 

Legal Ops Revolution - Legal Spend Just Got It Groove Back

What Makes Unity Different? 

With Unity, legal teams get a more connected interface. It’s designed to bring together work across legal spend, vendors, and data over time. And it offers AI agents that automate tasks and understand legal context, along with configurable workflows that scale. 

Say Hello to Unity e-Billing 

The first spend management pillar launched on Unity is our new ELM e-Billing experience. This was designed to help you manage outside counsel spend with precision, speed, and total control. 

ELM e-Billing centralizes all your spend management in one place. So this brings vendor data, invoice review, and budget tracking together for a clear, real-time view of legal spend. AI-powered automation speeds approvals and enforces billing guidelines. While flexible reporting and budgeting tools help you track performance, forecast accurately, and make smarter spend decisions as your team grows.  

Meet Spend Agent: Your First AI Assistant for Legal Spend 

Manual rule coding? Over. Vague invoice rejections? Gone. 

Spend Agent is your new AI-native reviewer for legal spend invoices. It interprets billing guidelines in plain language, flags issues on incoming invoices, and generates crystal-clear justifications. It even helps vendors understand and fix issues faster. 

Spend Agent offers instant compliance without the complexity; audit-ready transparency; smarter decision-making with less manual effort. 

Legal spend - Spend Agent by Onit

CounselMatch: Find the Right Firm, Fast 

When outside counsel selection feels like guesswork, CounselMatch steps in. With access to more than 400,000 attorneys and 5,800+ firms, it lets you filter by performance, billing model, diversity, and practice area, then integrates your choice. 

Faster selection. Smarter partnerships. Better results. 

And That’s Just the Beginning 

In addition to Unity, this release brings major upgrades across the broader Onit ecosystem: 

SimpleLegal now keeps internal and external budgets in sync with matter-specific rate settings that put you in the driver’s seat. And the redesigned budget view makes it faster to filter, sort, and take action because budgeting should move as fast as the rest of the team.  

Legal Ops and Spend Management

ContractWorks now offers folder-level auto-tagging (Beta) for instant metadata capture, Retry AI Processing to refresh legacy contracts, and self-service tag activation for faster implementation and value. Contracts API adds e-signature support, enabling packets to be sent from external systems with fewer steps for quicker execution and a smoother path from draft to done.  

BusyLamp now allows users to track invoice revisions; automate WIP archiving; simplify dropdowns; tighten access controls to protect sensitive data. 

Built for Scale and Designed for Legal, by Legal 

Unity is more than a product. It’s a signal that legal tech software is finally evolving and that it’s evolving on legal’s terms. 

With Unity, legal departments gain more control over legal spend across your department; improved workflows across every part of the legal lifecycle; real-time visibility into vendors, matters, and contracts; automation that speaks legal’s language; a connected experience that replaces siloed systems. 

legal spend with onit elm ebilling spend agent and counselmath

Why Legacy ELM Fell Short 

For years, enterprise legal management software made promises it couldn’t keep. Legacy systems were built for a different era, before AI, before flexible workflows, and certainly before legal ops became the strategic driver it is today. They were hard to configure, harder to adopt, and forced legal teams to work around technology instead of with it. 

The result? Fragmented systems, manual workarounds, and limited visibility. Innovation stalled because the software didn’t move at the speed of legal. 

Unity changes that.  

Moving Legal Workflows Toward Connection and Scale  

Many legal ops teams struggle with time-consuming invoice reviews, vendor management spread across spreadsheets, and point solutions that do not connect. Unity is being built to address these challenges by bringing core legal workflows closer together in an AI-native environment that can scale over time.  

With Spend Agent reviewing invoices in real time as an add-on to Unity e-Billing and OnitX ELM, and contract data extracted in seconds via ContractWorks, legal teams are gaining back time and putting it toward higher-impact work. They’re spending less time fixing broken workflows and more time driving strategy. 

Who Unity e-Billing is Built For 

Unity e-Billing is designed for legal teams that want a lightweight, simple, and fast legal spend management solution. It’s built for in-house teams looking to enforce billing guidelines, accelerate approval workflows through automation, and gain clear insights into vendors and legal spend.  

Whether you’re a GC looking for visibility across departments, a legal ops lead managing complex budgets, or a contract manager streamlining workflows, Unity e-Billing was built with you in mind. 

Legal Ops on your terms. Spend management. Onit ELM ebilling. CounselMatch. SimpleLegal.

Why Onit Built Unity 

At Onit, we’ve always believed legal should lead, not follow. That’s why we built Unity from the ground up: to deliver a truly AI-native solution that’s powerful enough for enterprise scale but flexible enough to meet teams where they are. 

Unity combines intelligent automation, hands-on support, and a modular structure that adapts to each customer’s needs. It’s more than software. It’s a commitment to helping legal teams modernize on their terms with trusted intelligence, connected tools, and expert guidance at every step.  

Ready to See Unity in Action? 

Whether you’re rethinking spend management, centralizing vendors, or ready to use an AI spend agent, Unity gives you the tools to move faster, smarter, and with more confidence than ever before. 

Ready to see it in action? We’ll show you. 

Book a demo to explore how Unity can work… on your terms. 

38 top legal blogs to follow in 2022

Posted on October 27, 2024 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Gone are the days of only being able to learn by slogging through lengthy law books. Legal blogs offer quick, educational content that’s perfect for a mid-morning coffee break or commute. Whether you’re looking for the latest updates on a court case or tips and tricks for building your in-house career, there’s most likely a legal blogger out there who’s written on the topic.

To save you the hassle of scouring the net to find your new favorite legal blog, we put together this list of the 38 top legal blogs that cover everything from legal tech to legal ethics. Happy reading!

Top corporate law blogs

A lot of legal content out there is meant solely for law firm lawyers, making it difficult for corporate counsel to find resources that speak directly to in-house issues and topics. These top-notch blogs do just that, offering practical advice and the latest corporate legal news.

1. ABOVE THE LAW

This well-known blog has a great blend of both education and humor, making for helpful and relatable reads across a variety of legal topics. It has an entire section dedicated to in-house counsel content, from leveraging billing guidelines to improving cross-department relationships.

2. TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW AS IN-HOUSE COUNSEL

Hilgers Graben PLLC CEO and senior counsel Sterling Miller has served as general counsel three times in his decades-long legal career, bringing a wealth of valuable in-house experience to the (online) table. Miller breaks down complex topics into 10 digestible, actionable points per post, and we love this simple structure and his narrative writing style.

3. ACC DOCKET

This comprehensive blog from the Association of Corporate Counsel examines a wide variety of relevant topics with a corporate legal lens, including ethics and compliance, management, technology, professional development, and diversity. There are also a ton of excellent interviews with top in-house talent, sharing their opinions on the latest in-house trends and their own professional and personal tales.

4. INHOUSEBLOG

This focuses on the latest industry findings and what they mean for in-house legal teams. Like a lot of the best legal blogs, they also run a mantle of additional legal resources that will help in-house professionals improve the legal services they perform for the company.

5. IN-HOUSE OPS

The Law Business Media blog’s mission is to “deliver the essential information needed to be a successful general counsel.” They work closely with global corporate law department leaders and outside counsel to provide insightful, expert content to readers. Count on them for articles about law department administration, procurement, career development, and in-house legal technology.

6. LAW360 CORPORATE

Law360’s corporate blog shares the latest legal news and analysis of issues affecting corporate counsel and the companies they work for. Frequent topics include regulation, enforcement, litigation, legislation, and governance. You can subscribe to their newsletter to get the most recent posts delivered right to your inbox.

Top legal operations blogs

Legal ops professionals play a huge part in the success of corporate legal departments — and their responsibilities continue to grow. Whether you’re a legal ops specialist or a director, you’ll find something valuable on these websites.

7. CLOC

The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) blog is great for catching up on best practices in legal operations. They consistently publish high-quality posts, and their site is a go-to for conference information and data-driven reports on the latest trends in the field.

8. SIMPLELEGAL

Besides our advanced legal software, we deliver continuous value to legal ops professionals with our free Learning Center. With regular blog posts, whitepapers, and other resources covering everything from legal technology tips to vendor relations and legal analytics, our blog helps legal ops readers succeed and scale. Be sure to subscribe and get the latest updates sent straight to your email.

Top legal technology blogs

Technology never stops evolving. Legal professionals who fail to stay up-to-date on the latest in legal tech will miss out on incredible tools and powerful solutions that support their work. The following blogs take care of the heavy-lifting by investigating, reviewing, and reporting on noteworthy innovations and trends.

9. LAWSITES

LawSites founder Robert Ambrogi is well known for his previous roles as editor-in-chief of both the National Law Journal and LexBlog. He shares his expert insights on legal technology and interviews legal tech leaders about new products and trends. We also recommend tuning into LawNext, Ambrogi’s accompanying podcast that features legal innovators and entrepreneurs.

10. LAW TECHNOLOGY TODAY

This blog is published by the ABA Legal Technology Resource Center (LTRC) and provides guidance on how to leverage legal technology in a variety of legal practice settings. Come here for easy-to-understand legal tech tips, case studies, and a wide catalog of recommended resources such as books, videos, and podcasts.

11. ARTIFICIAL LAWYER

This blog does a great job of diving deep into the latest advances in legal technology, from machine learning and AI review to process and workflow automation. We also recommend checking out its Legal Tech Education Guide, which provides a huge list of courses to help you take your legal tech knowledge to the next level.

Top legal news blogs

Whether you want to do research for an upcoming case, dig into in-depth legal analysis, or discover upcoming legal industry events, legal news blogs can simplify your search. Check out these go-to sites for the latest on all things legal.

12. LAW.COM

Think of Law.com as your all-inclusive legal newspaper. Here, you’ll find trending legal stories and expert commentary across all legal areas. It also has a ton of useful tools, such as its verdict search, legal dictionary, and CLE center.

13. LEGAL DESIRE

Legal Desire is a beautifully designed website with a full range of global content, including posts from over 350 law firms and in-house teams. We appreciate the diversity of the legal community members who are profiled, and it’s also a great place to find upcoming legal networking events and conferences to attend.

14. LEGAL READER

Legal Reader is a legal news blog with an uncompromising ethos. They focus on the protection of consumers from corporate malpractice, making them an excellent resource for legal news junkies and corporate law specialists alike.

15. LEGAL DIVERITY

This not-for-profit blog covers all facets of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the legal industry, with much of its content written by individuals from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. As founder and paralegal Iqra Ali notes, the site aims to be a “catalyst for positive change,” especially for supporting diverse law students.

16. LEGALLY WEIRD

This FindLaw blog offers witty takes on zanier legal topics, from “How to Have a Gender Reveal Party and Not Get Arrested” to opinions on celebrity trials and fictional legal problems in movies. You’ll learn and laugh a lot while reading here.

Top business law blogs

Business law is a broad category that encompasses both public and private law. Blogs in this space cover topics such as small business law, intellectual property, contract negotiations, and more. Take a look at these popular business law blogs, each of which occupies a different niche.

17. ILLINOIS BUSINESS LAW BLOG

The IBLJ is an “independent peer-reviewed student publication of the University of Illinois College of Law” specializing in the intersection of business and law. It publishes content in quarterly clusters, and because part of its stated aim is “to give authors a creative and analytical outlet for legal areas that interest them,” the writing is often extra compelling.

18. LAW 4 SMALL BUSINESS

Small business law is impressively well-accounted for in the blogosphere, and Law 4 Small Business is one of the best outlets of its kind. If you deal with small businesses, this blog is a must-read, offering from-the-field reports and legal advice on the latest small business cases.

19. THE IP LAW BLOG

This is an excellent platform for anyone specializing in IP law or looking to learn more about it. The IP Law Blog offers deeper insight into developments in patent, copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property-related areas.

Top criminal law blogs

Criminal law cases may dominate newspaper headlines, but finding insightful content about them written by and for legal professionals is more difficult. These blogs tackle these often dramatic and complex topics with expert insight.

20. THE CRIME REPORT

This non-partisan blog publishes over 50 articles each week, making them an invaluable resource for staying on top of the latest in criminal cases. They boast a comprehensive sweep of subject areas, from policing to drug law, hate crimes, wrongful convictions, and more.

21. CRIME & CONSEQUENCES BLOG

A complaint you often hear from criminal law specialists is that most high-quality online content tends to focus solely on the defense side. That’s what makes Crime & Consequences so valuable. It offers a balanced perspective from both sides of the legal equation and is arguably the best non-defense-oriented legal blog out there.

22. THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

Staffed almost exclusively by law school professors with libertarian, conservative, or centrist leanings, The Volokh Conspiracy offers a thought-provoking array of opinions on US criminal law. Come here if you’re looking to explore different perspectives on hot legal topics.

Top law firm blogs

While many law firm blogs focus solely on their own announcements and legal specialties, others offer an impressive collection of legal content. In these top law firm blogs, you can discover expert opinion pieces, legal research materials, and even trending news.

23. KIRKLAND AND ELLIS

As one of the most internationally renowned law firms, Kirkland & Ellis operates a robust blog with a great search interface. Their content is easily digestible, and you can find top-quality stuff on everything from cybercrime to tax reform.

24. LATHAM & WATKINS

This robust website is divided into a whole matrix of subject- and sector-specific legal blogs. From Middle East developments to environmental law to fintech topics, L&W has an article for everything, making them an excellent one-stop shop for legal resources.

25. MYSHINGLE

This blog is an excellent resource for small law firms and solo practitioners, offering targeted advice and tips you won’t typically see on larger law firm sites. We especially love the heartwarming “Parents Who Practice” column, featuring inspiring stories from working parents in the field.

Top online legal magazines

Legal magazines feature a wide cast of writers and offer the kind of editorial variety you might associate with a traditional magazine as opposed to the narrower focus of blogs. You’ll also find a wider range of content types in them, from short-form articles to in-depth features.

26. ABA JOURNAL

The flagship magazine of the American Bar Association, the well-known ABA Journal offers a comprehensive overview of current events in the American legal landscape. When you’re done catching up on the latest news, be sure to check out the “Members Who Inspire” column for a feel-good boost.

27. VANGUARD LAW MAGAZINE

This resource shares fascinating profiles and philosophies of corporate counsel across the globe. Vanguard does a great job sharing diverse stories that frequently highlight individuals from underrepresented backgrounds in legal, including women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

28. LAWYER MONTHLY

This robust online legal magazine features plenty of legal news and sector insights. Their online content is categorized by practice area and region and is updated constantly throughout the day, helping you stay on top of the latest changes.

29. ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE

If you’re a private practice attorney, this is the legal publication for you. Here, you’ll find legal marketing and practice management advice, attorney Q&As, legal news, and local event listings.

Top legal ethics blogs

Professional conduct rules are constantly evolving, and a simple violation could cost you your hard-earned career. These blogs share tips and real-life reports of legal ethics violations, helping you avoid the same mistakes.

30. THE ETHICAL INVESTIGATOR

Phillip Segal, managing member of Charles Griffin Intelligence, shares expert insights on legal ethics on this blog. With decades of experience handling corporate investigations for Fortune 100 companies and AmLaw 100 firms, Segal’s posts are grounded in practical, real-world experience and research.

31. LAW PROFESSOR’S BLOG

While this blog does cover topics other than legal ethics, it’s still worth checking out for its “Judicial Ethics and the Courts” category. These bite-sized posts offer quick reports on the latest court and judicial dealings connected to legal ethics, particularly in workplace settings.

32. ETHICKING

This blog from Halling & Cayo shareholder Stacie Rosenzweig offers witty and informative takes on hot-topic ethics issues, from whether attorneys should have separate personal and professional devices to avoiding sharing confidential legal details with your spouse. Very fun reads on not-so-fun problems.

Top litigation blogs

These litigation blogs will help you stay on your A-game in court with the latest legal action news and expert advice.

33. LITIGATION DAILY

From personal injury cases to higher-profile class actions, this American Lawyer Media blog offers expert opinions on some of the biggest legal actions and court battles in the United States. We highly recommend checking out their “Litigator of the Week” column for practice tips and tricks from some of the nation’s top litigators.

34. PLAINTIFF TRIAL LAWYER TIPS

With a plaintiff law practice spanning nearly 60 years, retired attorney Paul Luvera is the go-to guy for tips on how to better present cases to juries. He’s consistently published expert advice on his blog since 2007, with a wealth of knowledge shared across his searchable monthly archives.

35. LITIGATION NOTES

This blog by Herbert Smith Freehills’ litigation team covers the latest developments in litigation law, cases, practices, and class actions. Subscribe to the blog to get the newest posts sent straight to your inbox.

Bonus: Notable mentions

While these 3 legal blogs don’t fall under any of the previous categories, we still had to include them on our list of the greats. 

36. LEGAL THEORY BLOG

If you like legal philosophy, you’ll love this thought-provoking blog from University of Virginia law professor Lawrence Solum. Solum breaks down complex legal theory aspects such as virtue ethics, legal positivism, legal realism, and neoformalism, giving you new lenses to appreciate and understand the world of law.

37. LEGAL HISTORY BLOG

Georgetown Law professor Dan Ernst and Penn Law professor Karen Tani run this interesting blog covering the history of law, from the history of legal education to the history of the legal system. Check out their “Weekend Roundups” for a comprehensive list of the latest legal history news and webinars.

38. VERDICT

We love the variety of perspectives featured on this opinion-driven legal blog from Justia. Expert legal columnists share their thoughts across practice areas, making it a great resource to examine the latest legal issues in your areas of focus.

Liven up your learning with the SimpleLegal Learning Center

Once you’re done binging on legal blog content, switch things up with our lists of the top legal podcasts and top law books. And speaking of legal blog content, be sure to check out and subscribe to the SimpleLegal Learning Center for the latest in legal ops, legal tech, and corporate legal.

The 29 best legal podcasts to listen to in 2023

Posted on September 26, 2024 by - Enterprise Legal Management

By 2023, 164 million people in the U.S. will listen to podcasts every month, according to Activate Consulting. That’s a staggering 412.5% increase since 2013.

Not only are podcasts a popular form of entertainment, they’re also an incredibly popular way to learn. Users learn anywhere at any time, and podcast episodes are much shorter than traditional mediums like textbooks. This is great for people with busy schedules who want to learn about complex topics — a perfect match for those in the legal industry.

From current court cases to diversity in law, there’s a topic for everyone. But it can be tough finding the “right” show amid the hundreds of thousands out there.

Skip the hassle of searching Spotify or Apple Podcasts and easily find a new educational favorite on our list of 29 of the best legal podcasts. These top legal podcasts combine great research, expert input, and engaging storytelling to help you expand your industry knowledge while making the most of your time. Happy listening!

Best legal podcasts for technology and innovation

At SimpleLegal, it goes without saying that we’re obsessed with all things legal tech. These podcasts are our go-to’s for discussions on the latest tools and advancements and how cutting-edge legal software will continue to transform the industry.

1. TECHNICALLY LEGAL

If you’re like us and love nerding out over legal technology, Technically Legal is the podcast for you. Each episode features a prominent leader in the legal industry chatting with host Chad Main, attorney and founder of alternative legal services provider Percipient, about their relationship with legal tech and best practices for implementation. Our very own co-founder and advisor, Nathan Wenzel, was even featured on one episode.

2. LAWNEXT

This podcast from lawyer and journalist Bob Ambrogi centers on the latest industry changes, many of which are driven by or include legal technology. Ambrogi’s interviewing skills shine as he holds conversations with innovative legal software CEOs, GCs, and other prominent industry figures.

3. LEGAL TOOLKIT

This Legal Talk Network podcast offers great advice for those looking to get into the management side of law. Host Jared Correia is the CEO of Red Cave Consulting, which offers law firm business management consulting and technology services. Each month, Correia introduces listeners to top lawyers and legal professionals who discuss the tools, services, and programs they use to improve their practices. You can catch SimpleLegal’s co-founder Nathan Wenzel on an episode about legal process management for in-house counsel.

4. LEGAL TECH MATTERS

The title of this podcast says it all. What’s unique about this tech-centric show is that there are 5 hosts, each with their own different legal background and approach to interviewing. This variety of personalities makes for extra-compelling episodes that cover everything from using software in dispute resolutions to pro bono programs.

Best legal news and current legal events podcasts

In the ever-changing world of law, keeping up with landmark rulings and legal debates is crucial. Tune into these podcasts to hear the latest news from courtrooms, legal newspapers, and law classrooms across the country.

5. LAW360’S PRO SAY

Think of Pro Say as the CliffsNotes of legal news. Every week, this Law 360 podcast shares a recap of what happened in the legal world in the past seven days. The two hosts — legal journalists Amber McKinney and Alex Lawson — chat about big stories as well as a few that didn’t make the headlines. With the help of their expert guests, they break down legalese and present stories in a clear and accessible format.

6. LAWYER 2 LAWYER

This award-winning Legal Talk Network podcast has been going strong since 2005, making it one of the longest-running online podcasts. It remains a trusted resource for current events in the legal industry and discussions of recent rulings. Each episode is hosted by criminal defense lawyer J. Craig Williams and features many industry experts as guests. Get ready for insightful debates about hot topics from courts across the United States.

7. BLOOMBERG LAW

Emmy Award-winning journalist June Grasso hosts this podcast, which analyzes legal issues and major cases in the news. While the show doesn’t release episodes on a set schedule, you can usually count on a handful of releases each month. The short episodes examine different areas of law through interviews with legal scholars and practicing attorneys.

Best legal thought leadership podcasts

These shows feature thought-provoking conversations on ethics, politics, and the future of law. The discussions bring multiple perspectives to light, giving you the opportunity to reflect on issues from new points of view.

8. EVOLVE THE LAW

Above the Law manages one of the most popular legal blogs, so it’s no surprise that their podcast, Evolve the Law, is top-notch as well. Attorney Ian Connett, founder of Quantum Jurist, interviews a prominent legal figure in each episode to discuss industry trends and the future of law.

9. LAWYERS GONE ETHICAL

While this podcast ended in 2020, we still remain fans of its extensive library of episodes dedicated to deep dives on the evolution of legal ethics. State Bar defense attorney Megan Zavieh and her guests tackled key questions and points surrounding the tricky ethics of attorneys and legal professionals using social media, protecting data, legal marketing, and more.

10. THINKING LIKE A LAWYER

Above the Law’s Kathryn Rubino and Joe Patrice combine their experiences as journalists and litigators on this great podcast that takes a unique approach to legal discussions. Together, the hosts talk through an everyday experience and reexamine it through the eyes of a lawyer. If you’ve ever wanted to dig into the legal side of an impeachment proceeding or the accuracy of how attorneys are portrayed on TV, this show’s for you.

Best legal diversity, equity, and inclusion podcasts

Many industries are focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the workplace, including legal, which has historically struggled in these areas. These podcasts will help you understand the barriers to DE&I and how we can work together to eliminate them.

11. LGBT BAR NY

You can’t beat this podcast when it comes to legal perspectives on LGBTQIA+ issues. LGBT Bar of NY executive director Eric Lesh and New York Law School professor Art Leonard co-host monthly episodes. The duo tackles relevant topics like the legality of bakeries refusing to bake for gay weddings, adoption agencies discriminating against same-sex couples, and more.

12. TODAY’S WORKPLACE

Hosted by attorney Barbara Johnson and human resources executive and DE&I strategist Belinda Reed Shannon, this award-winning podcast covers diversity topics as well as other issues connected to employment law. From systemic discrimination cases to creating effective DE&I programs, the duo and their thought leader guests have honest, compelling conversations that keep us coming back for more.

13. HEELS OF JUSTICE

Sarita Venkat, head of IP Transactions Worldwide at Apple, and Katherine Minarik, Vice President of Legal and Deputy General Counsel at Coinbase, co-hosted this women-focused legal podcast. While the show ended in 2021, we still re-listen to the interviews with trailblazing women attorneys who made waves in politics, courtrooms, and boardrooms.

14. THE JABOT

An offshoot of legal blog Above the Law, this podcast focuses on stories of women, people of color, LGBTQIA, and other marginalized groups in the legal industry. Named for the collar Ruth Bader Ginsberg wore on the bench, the show wants to serve as “a reminder that, even when we aren’t winning, we’re still a powerful force to be reckoned with.”

15. DIVERSITY EVER AFTER

Baker Donelson’s DE&I podcast does an excellent job of examining diversity from all different angles, from discussions on how a lack of DE&I impacts mental health to the history of code-switching. And most of the episodes are under 30 minutes, making it a binge-worthy favorite.

16. DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY

Hosted by Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney’s Chief Diversity Officer, Lloyd Freeman, this podcast is an especially great listen for aspiring legal leaders. Many of Freeman’s prominent guests include C-suite executives and senior attorneys who share their practical advice and insights on all things DE&I in the legal industry. All their episodes captivate our attention, but we especially recommend the conversation on what white male allies can do to boost DE&I.

Best law school and professional development podcasts

Whether you’re fresh out of law school or an experienced attorney looking to build your career, the expert hosts and guests on these podcasts can help you meet your goals.

17. ABA LAW STUDENT PODCAST

This podcast from the American Bar Association Law Student Division is a must-listen for all current law students and recent grads. This show covers everything from current court cases to practical advice on using your degree. There’s also a solid roster of inspiring interviewees who share their unique professional journeys in law, whether at a firm, in-house, or elsewhere.

18. LAWYERIST

On the Lawyerist podcast, hosts Stephanie Everett and Jennifer Whigham invite a successful lawyer to talk about the future of practicing law. Weekly podcast episodes cover a range of topics, such as law school, entrepreneurship, marketing, and business models — including models suitable for small firms and solo attorneys — in the legal industry.

19. UN-BILLABLE HOUR

Experienced attorney and law firm management professional Christopher T. Anderson spends one (un-billable) hour each month giving advice about managing a law firm. He covers topics such as finding your niche in the legal industry, leveraging AI, and hiring top talent. This one’s a great listen for aspiring managing partners and CLOs.

20. ASKED AND ANSWERED

This American Bar Association Journal podcast discusses topics relevant to lawyers both in and out of the office. Host Stephanie Francis Ward interviews top-of-the-industry guests to learn about their careers as well as professional and personal obstacles they’ve overcome.

21. NEW SOLO

If you’re interested in going solo or improving your solo practice, be sure to subscribe to this show. Legal consultant Adriana Linares hosts conversations about legal entrepreneurship. Each month, Linares invites a guest to talk about networking, helpful legal technology, and law practice management.

22. LADIES WHO LAW SCHOOL

Recent law school grads Haylie Davis and Samantha Lemke describe their podcast as perfect for “everyone who ever thought ‘hmmm, maybe law school seems fun.’” This duo shares their own law school experiences with humor and heart, helping other current and prospective students navigate their journey. We love their down-to-earth personalities and their colorful line of merchandise.

23. LAW SCHOOL TOOLBOX

This legal podcast takes an entertaining approach to conversations about law school, legal careers, and life. Each week, Alison Monahan and Lee Burgess — both law school and bar exam experts — share practical advice to help students navigate academic matters, careers, and more.

24. LAWYER STORIES

A spinoff of the Instagram account with the same name, this upbeat and motivational podcast features different legal guests sharing their professional and personal journeys. Tune in to hear about all different forms of what success in law looks like.

Best legal pop culture analysis podcasts

These creative and compelling shows examine noteworthy legal cases and topics in both real-world and fictional settings. Ready, set, binge.

25. COURT JUNKIE

As the name implies, this podcast is geared toward anyone who loves digging into the criminal law aspects of true crime. Founder and host Jillian Jalali highlights injustices and issues within the U.S. judicial system by reviewing court documents, attending trials, and interviewing key people involved in cases.

26. THE LEGAL GEEKS

Self-proclaimed geeks and licensed e-discovery attorneys Jessica Mederson and Joshua Gilliland host this innovative podcast examining superhero and sci-fi favorites through a legal lens. Grab your popcorn and listen to fun and thought-provoking episodes like “Legal Analysis of Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” and “Did Ultraman Commit a War Crime?”

27. LEGAL WARS

This riveting show dives deep into some of the most famous U.S. court cases. Author, actor, entrepreneur, and Harvard Law School graduate Hill Harper hosts this well-researched and entertaining law podcast. In each episode, Harper works through court transcripts and interviews in real-time, making you feel as if you’re listening from the jury box.

Bonus: Notable mentions

These high-quality shows may not fall into one of our previous categories, but we just couldn’t leave them off our list of the best podcasts.

28. AMICUS

Slate writer Dahlia Lithwick hosts this legal podcast that centers on the 9 Supreme Court justices. Lithwick highlights the extreme influence these 9 individuals have over how U.S. laws are written, interpreted, and enforced. Episodes often feature politicians, professors, and legal professionals, who provide expert insight into Supreme Court issues.

29. HANDEL ON THE LAW

Witty and humorous attorney Bill Handel has hosted this radio show-turned-podcast since 1985. It’s stayed popular because of Handel’s bold, funny, and helpful advice to callers on the weekly show. It’s a great way to learn another lawyer’s perspective on legal questions — and to have a good laugh.

Expand your education with the SimpleLegal Learning Center

After you get your fill of legal podcasts, be sure to check out our lists of the top legal blogs and top law books. And if you’re looking to learn more on a specific topic, visit our free Learning Center for educational blog posts, whitepapers, and videos on all things corporate legal. Subscribe and get the latest updates delivered right to your inbox!

Legal billing guidelines: what to include & how to enforce them

Posted on September 26, 2024 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Legal billing guidelines are a binding agreement between a legal department and a law firm, ensuring payment in exchange for legal work. The guidelines establish rules for legal invoicing formats, staffing, deadlines, and other important aspects of the working relationship.

Think of your legal billing guidelines (also known as outside counsel guidelines) as the underlying foundation for creating a positive and meaningful partnership between legal departments and law firms. Guidelines are one of the most effective ways to control your legal spend and build stronger working relationships.

Here’s how to create your own legal billing guidelines to set up a successful, thriving relationship with your outside vendors.

Why it’s crucial to set clear expectations for law firm billing

The foundation of any great relationship with your outside counsel is clear expectations. If law firms aren’t aware of your goals or what you expect of them, they will likely miss the mark when they begin billing. Clear, actionable, easy-to-understand billing guidelines are the key to getting your outside law firms up and running at maximum efficiency.

When creating billing guidelines to better onboard outside counsel, in-house legal departments can be intimidated by the detail needed in these documents. Contrary to popular belief, billing guidelines don’t need to be long, complex, and riddled with legal terms. Often, you can start with your main billing requirements, adding and improving detail as your needs change, your team grows, and your expectations become more specific.

What to include in legal billing guidelines

You want to convey to your law firms why billing guidelines are important. Guidelines aren’t meant to set unachievable standards for your law firms; instead, they create a baseline for expectations, so you can ensure that everyone is on the same page.

In working with our clients and legal departments of all sizes, we’ve found five key elements common in legal billing guidelines:

1. Introduction
2. Staffing
3. Legal invoicing and law firm billing procedures
4. Timing
5. Signature page

Introduction

The billing guidelines introduction states the purpose of the document and the expectations of the relationship. Use this section to define what a great working relationship is for both parties. Keep in mind that your legal billing guidelines are not a set of demands; they are a guide for building strong partnerships between legal ops and vendors.

Your introduction to your law firm billing guidelines should include the following:

  • The date when the billing guidelines will go into effect
  • A declaration of your legal department’s right to modify or reject invoices that do not comply with the guidelines
  • A reminder for law firms to accept the terms by signing the signature page included with the guidelines


Keep your introduction brief — three or four short paragraphs — so you don’t overwhelm your vendors right at the beginning.

Staffing

The staffing section dictates dictates who has the right to hire vendors, addresses appropriate levels for staffing certain projects, and outlines the approval process for staffing changes.

Set the expectation that you will only pay for work that is appropriate for the timekeeper’s role and expertise. In other words, clearly state that you won’t pay partner-level rates for work that could be completed by an associate or paralegal. If your department does not pay for work completed by interns or first-year associates, include those rules as well.

It’s also important to address inevitable changes in staff. If an attorney working on your matter leaves the law firm or moves to another account, how do you want the situation to be handled? Consider requiring vendors to notify your team within a certain number of days of a timekeeper’s departure. You may also want to invoke your right to approve or reject the replacement timekeeper.

Legal invoicing & law firm billing procedures

Your billing procedures explain how outside counsel must submit invoices and define your preferred legal invoicing format.

First, establish how you would like to receive invoices. If you use an e-Billing platform such as SimpleLegal, include instructions (or a link to an external resource) for how to submit invoices through the system.

Next, describe how invoices should be formatted and what they should include. For example, you could write that all invoices must include:

  • Matter name and ID
  • Description of work completed
  • Timekeeper name, title, and rate


If you have a preferred format, such as LEDES files, state your preferences and acceptable substitutions.

Timing

This section outlines how often vendors should submit invoices and how they will be paid.

If you want to stay on top of your budget and accruals management, you need to control your invoicing timeline. Use this section to establish the following:

  • Frequency of invoice submissions (e.g., vendors must submit invoices weekly, monthly, etc.)
  • Timeline for invoice payment (e.g. we will pay invoices within 30 days of receipt)
  • Penalties for late invoices (e.g., invoices submitted 1-30 days after the due date will be discounted by X%)
  • Invoices that will not be paid (e.g., invoices submitted more than 90 days after the work has been completed will not be paid)
  • Method of payment (check or electronic payment)

Signature page

The signature page is your insurance that your outside law firms have read the billing guidelines.

It’s difficult to enforce guidelines if your vendors can claim they never received or read them. A simple signature page that states, “Our firm acknowledges receipt and accepts the terms of these legal billing guidelines” can prevent a lot of disputes and headaches down the line.

How to enforce legal billing guidelines with e-Billing solutions

When leveraging a legal spend and a matter management solution, it’s essential to specify how you want outside counsel to submit invoices and explain how you’ll enforce billing guidelines. Law firms are accustomed to using various legal billing systems, so don’t be afraid to get specific with your requirements.

If you use a system like SimpleLegal, you’d describe the process for submitting invoices via CounselGO. Outline the process for getting started with a new legal billing system, establish the timeline for submitting invoices, and provide any key contacts for billing related inquiries.

You may want to go beyond general law firm billing procedures — like explaining how vendors should bill specific expenses and fees. For example, if you limit the number of hours that can be billed to certain UTBMS task codes, make sure to include those details in your billing guidelines.

You should also include a section on prohibited fees so you can be clear about what you aren’t willing to pay for. Below is an example of a section addressing prohibited charges:

[Company] does not accept invoices with block billing. We ask that all invoices include line item detail for work performed. Furthermore, we do not accept invoices that bill for:

  • First-class travel
  • Administrative work
  • Time spent preparing invoices
  • Expenses associated with printing, scanning, photocopying, or postage

Lastly, don’t forget to explain how these rules will be enforced through your e-Billing system. If you’re using SimpleLegal, you can automatically reduce or reject invoices that do not adhere to your legal billing guidelines — but you don’t want that to come as a surprise to your vendors. Be up front about the reduction/rejection process so you can avoid disputes in the future.

Align with finance & accounting

Legal teams must align closely with their finance and accounting teams. Use legal billing guidelines to define processes that will help reduce billing errors and streamline collaboration between legal and finance.

For instance, if you’re collecting monthly unbilled estimates from your law firms, it’s important to explain how outside counsel should submit those estimates. If you’re using SimpleLegal, we’ll email and collect these from your law firms automatically.

Use legal billing guidelines to outline the processes for the following:

  • Accruals: How should they be calculated, and when should they be submitted?
  • Budgeting: Do you want your law firms to submit budgets and forecasts? If so, how often and in what format?

Work with finance and accounting to determine processes that will make their jobs easier. When the legal department and finance/accounting departments are on the same page, it’s easier to gain better visibility in current and future legal spend.

The ultimate goal of legal billing guidelines

The goal isn’t to overwhelm your law firms with terms that paralyze their ability to do good work. The key here is to set clear expectations. Legal billing guidelines don’t need to be complex. View your guidelines as a living document that you are constantly building and reiterating as your legal team grows and changes.

If you’re looking for a more detailed breakdown of billing guidelines and what detail you should be including, download our white paper Legal Billing Guideline Best Practices. This comprehensive guide covers the key segments of billing guidelines and provides strategies for effectively communicating and enforcing them.

Empowering Legal Departments: Onit Named as a Leader in IDC MarketScape for Enterprise Legal Management Software 

Posted on August 11, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management

In a world where businesses face macroeconomic pressures to demonstrate value in new and visible ways, Onit is a dedicated partner in the journey. Legal’s impact is now, and Onit is at the forefront of ensuring that impact is transformative, efficient, and growth oriented. 

As a longstanding provider of enterprise legal management (ELM), contract lifecycle management (CLM), and business process automation tools, Onit is proud to announce its recognition as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Legal Management Software (Doc #US49842023, August 2023).  

“We are honored to be named a leader in enterprise legal management solutions,” commented Eric M. Elfman, CEO and co-founder of Onit. “At Onit, our mission has always been to empower legal professionals to do their best work through more intelligent and efficient workflows. We will continue to invest in innovation to deliver leading solutions that help legal departments drive material impact.” 

A Portfolio of Solutions for Legal Departments of All Sizes  

With solutions for businesses of all sizes, Onit enables legal departments to modernize workflows, improve operational and cost efficiency, and contribute to faster revenue generation and business growth.

Onit’s commitment to empowering legal professionals is reflected in its diverse portfolio of solutions designed to cater to legal departments of all sizes. Onit has continued to enhance its portfolio to include the following: 

  • OnitX: The next generation of Onit’s highly configurable platform for automating complex legal workflows for enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management  
  • Onit Catalyst: A family of AI-enabled products purpose-built to elevate the impact of ELM and CLM solutions  
  • SimpleLegal: Tailored for the mid-market, this ELM solution brings transparency and management to e-Billing, matters, vendors, and reporting 
  • ContractWorks: A modular, out-of-the-box solution to manage contracts and legal documents at specific contracting stages or across the entire contract lifecycle 

Customer-Driven Innovation 

Onit’s mission extends beyond technology – it’s an organization that values the voice of customers. The naming as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape report follows a period of customer-driven innovation, including: 

  • Smarter spend management: OnitX Spend Management’s integration with Onit Catalyst empowers legal operations teams with external benchmarks for quicker, data-informed decisions on timekeeper rate approvals. 
  • Complete European ELM solution: OnitX Matter Management’s integration with Onit BusyLamp offers European corporate legal departments a flexible and configurable means to manage legal matter workflows, addressing specific currency, regulatory, and tax requirements. 
  • Seamless litigation compliance: OnitX Legal Holds Management streamlines litigation compliance management and reduces the risks associated with pending litigation. 
  • Visual forms builder: Build custom applications powered by the OnitX workflow engine to address simple legal-related requests like invention disclosures, trademark or logo usage and data breach incident reporting. 
  • Smarter contract lifecycle management: Onit Catalyst ReviewAI and Catalyst Contract Extraction help streamline the contract lifecycle pre- and post-signature processes by using AI to review contracts and extract essential data — such as key terms and obligations, dates and other relevant information — to quickly identify contract risks and opportunities. 
  • Application and data integrations: OnitX leverages scalable technology from Workato, an industry-leading iPaaS technology provider, to integrate with applications such as Salesforce, SAP Ariba and Microsoft 365 so users can work in their preferred tools while data flows into other critical business systems that support revenue and operating expense management. 

Elevating Legal’s Role Within the Enterprise  

Legal is most often viewed as a stellar guardian of the enterprise and outstanding advisor — yet its perception as a business partner is not quite as golden. In the 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, four in five (78%) corporate employees perceive Legal’s enduring image as a trustworthy protector of the business that imparts sage advice. Yet even though respondents view Legal as an authority figure and business protector, nearly three in four (73%) do not consider Legal an approachable business partner. In fact, many view Legal as a “bottleneck,” as “adding unnecessary roadblocks,” or “simply expect to experience holdups” when interacting with legal teams. As a result, relationships between Legal and its internal clients have declined year-over-year (YoY) in every department — by almost 10% in HR, 18% in Finance, 30% in Sales, 27% in Marketing, and 41% in Procurement. 

Onit’s mission is to elevate Legal’s stature within the enterprise by automating business-critical workflows that drive material impact,” said Scott Wallingford, President of Onit’s Enterprise Business. “With the next generation of our platform in OnitX and key product updates from Onit Catalyst, customers can optimize legal workflows across their entire enterprise — from ELM functions like matter and spend management to CLM functions like contract management and review. Macroeconomic pressure influences enterprise functions to show value in new and visible ways, and we’re partnering with our customers to do just that. Legal’s moment of impact is now.” 

Additional Resources 

For more company news, industry trends and best practices from corporate legal innovators, read the Onit blog and follow us on LinkedIn. 

The Death of the Billable Hour — Long Forecast, But Refusing to Go Away

Posted on July 30, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

The mantra that “the billable hour is dead” has long been spoken about within legal circles, and the reasons for its survival and forecast demise have been the subject of many debates. Still, despite being “unloved” by most clients and subjected to significant pressures for many years, time-based billing has refused to die. Those involved in legal billing on a day-to-day basis still see this method as the primary billing arrangement for most legal work completed by mid-size and large commercial law firms. Their corporate clients have grumbled about the billable hour for years, and alongside other factors, it receives blame for high rates of burnout and stress in the legal profession. Many agree that charging by the hour is inefficient and non-transparent, yet it remains the mainstay of how most law firms charge clients for their work.

Here, we will look at why organizations still use the billable hour, what other ways law firms can charge for their matters, and what is holding back firms and clients who want to embrace alternative fee arrangements. Although many in-house legal teams ask their law firms to suggest different ways of charging for their services, we believe that hourly billing will continue to be part of a wider portfolio of methods.

What is Time-Based Billing?

Before looking at different charging models, we should review what hourly billing means and how it has such a firm place in the charging of legal services. Historically, the charging for legal services by the hour is not that new, especially considering how long lawyers have existed. In fact, before the 1950s, lawyers based their fees on considering such things as the nature of the matter, an agreed scale of costs, and/or the ability of the client to pay. However, from the mid-1900s, time recording became widely used, initially to monitor efficiencies within the law firm and review whether work was profitable. From then onwards, time recording increasingly became the way to bill clients.

With the advent of computerized time and billing systems in law firms, lawyers began to record their time in (mainly) six-minute increments – or multiples of this – (i.e., 0.10 of an hour) along with a narrative of the work done and often a code to define the task/activity undertaken. This is multiplied by an hourly rate to give a cost or charge for that item of work. In addition, many US and UK firms utilized time recording software designed to capture activities completed by lawyers exclusively based on their time spent completing that work.

This focus on time makes it difficult, if not impossible, for firms to capture the value of the work based on any other measure. The current legacy PMS (practice management systems) are not flexible enough to offer, manage, and track different fee arrangements.

Why is Hourly Billing Still the Dominant Charging Method?

Management Reporting. As well as recording lawyer efforts based on time spent, legal practice management systems produce reports for senior partners and the finance function to show the productivity of the fee earners and the chargeable work undertaken. Often US, Canadian, and UK law firms (in particular) have focused on resources, billed hours, and cost recovery rates. Targets, budgets, and rewards get set by reference to the time expected to be charged and paid for by the client.

Time and value. Generally, law firms are traditional organizations and have developed cultures that often expect fee earners to spend long hours in the office. Employees intuitively understand that to receive a reputation as hard workers, they must put in the time. Whether this “time equals value” culture will change post-Covid, and what the recent working-from-home experience has shown will have to be seen.

Reward structures. For many firms, there is a belief that “the more you bill, the more that you are worth.” When linked to legacy billing systems and the focus on time, this has often led to fee earners being rewarded according on how much work they do, or instead, the hours spent doing it. This will inevitably lead to a belief that hourly rates and the billable time spent on the work are essential, if not vital, to success.

What Are the Alternatives?

Some commentators have said that it is misleading to talk about “alternative” charging methods, as though hourly billing is the “norm” and anything else is an alternative to this. In fact, we should probably include hourly billing alongside other methods of charging for legal work – as some of these methods existed long before organizations used time-based billing.

Fixed Fee Arrangements

One increasingly used billing method is described as “Fixed Fee.” This is when the law firm and the client agree to a fixed fee for a piece of work and where both the client and the law firm accept an element of risk for any cost variances. This charging method is oft used for repeated transactions, where the amount of work done does not vary too much, and both parties are comfortable with the agreed fixed fee for every transaction. In this case, cost differences (either lower or higher) are shared between the client and the law firm and accepted as a low business risk.

Fees Based on Value

Another method of charging comes based on the value the client believes it will gain from having the work done – and if the law firm agrees to deliver this work, either advice, documents, or a transaction, for the “value” given to it by the client. This solution does rely on a good working and trusted relationship between the parties and a discussion taking place before the work commences. It also depends on both parties agreeing on what the delivered “end product” looks like and should involve a process for any changes to be resolved along the way.

Caps and Extended Fees

A further model now used is for the law firm and client to agree on a fixed or capped sum to be paid for the legal work done over a given time period – often 12 months. Again, both the law firm and the client accept a degree of risk for any changes over time, but the client has the benefit of the certainty of quality legal advice being available for a known cost and the law firm the certainty of fee income for a year.

Hybrid Charging Method

Finally, there is the hybrid charging method – which is part time-based and part fixed fee. Ideally, the law firm will use the standard UTBMS (Uniform Task-Based Management System) phase/task codes to identify the initial stage(s) of a transaction where time-based billing might be appropriate and can scope the rest of the work needed to complete the matter. Both parties can agree upon a fixed fee. Electronic invoicing (e-billing) lends itself to this model – where both parties can easily see and agree on the work done and at what phase or stage of the transaction it applies.

Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp can fully support all the current methods of charging for legal work. Whether the law firm is importing their work-in-progress and invoice information as LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard) files or submitting their data directly into the system for the client to review, the product works with hourly billing, fixed fee, or any of the other models in use. In addition to the traditional e-billing functionality, the solution provides a comprehensive range of features to the legal procurement and billing process, and this includes support for the request for proposal, matter budgets, resource planning, matter project management, and in-depth reporting. Click here to learn more.

Conclusion

Many people working in the legal world believe it is unlikely that time-based billing and the billable hour will ever completely die out but that there will be a revision of this billing method from being the primary method used to the acceptance that it is just one of many. As clients look for different approaches to billing and more innovative fee arrangements grow, partners of commercial law firms need to meet these demands. Interestingly we may see a return to the pre-1960s approach to client billing, specifically, to one where lawyers use a more client-focused or value-based approach and consider the client’s requirements. Using newer technical solutions, including AI, machine learning, workflows, and advanced data analytics, will help us move away from the billable hour and towards fixed fees, value charging, or capped prices.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

Go Beyond Siloed Legal Reporting to Manage and Mitigate Risk

Posted on July 16, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Easy-to-use, clear, and comprehensive reporting functionality has evolved from a bonus to a must-have requirement for corporate legal teams evaluating legal technology. The pressure on legal operations to demonstrate improvements and return has led to reporting features being almost as important as the fundamental benefits of the software tool in use.

Using legal spend management software, out-of-the-box spend reports and user-friendly analytics wizards allow legal departments to monitor work in progress, measure actual spend, and forecast budgets accurately.

Organizations can analyze data across variables such as matter type, jurisdiction, or timekeeper seniority within a spend management tool. Legal operations use this data to decide improvements to ensure legal is contributing towards the business reaching its objectives. Such tactics borne from using data in this way include:

  • Making better matter resourcing decisions
  • Negotiating discounts
  • Getting more value from firms
  • Making the business case for hiring more internal staff

However, Legal Operations miss a trick when data analysis from a particular tool is used in isolation. This means that it is critical that Legal Operations look at reporting insights in combination with political, economic and regulatory information from the market sector. For example, legal spend budgets can become distorted during periods of significant regulatory change or through an uplift in litigation and/or regulatory investigations, creating outliers to regular activity. A clear view of how the underlying legal spend is trending for normal business-as-usual activities (based on matter types) will help the decision-makers support any budget changes. For example, when the European data protection regulation GDPR came in, many companies would have seen an increase in their legal spend as they sought advice to implement the new rules, thereby increasing their legal budgets.

Where the in-house legal function is working closely and in partnership with the business units across the company, the range of information and data it holds will often put it in a unique position within the organization by having a holistic view of what is going on across the company. This data supports an awareness of what the business is doing and forms part of the historic corporate knowledge built over the years, such as previous contracts, decisions, and outcomes. Historically, this information was not in a structured electronic format, which meant any form of data and trend analysis or knowledge management was very manual and time-consuming.

With the increase in legal matter management, legal spend management solutions, and better document search and retrieval, there is a growing need and clamor for data processing, analysis, and knowledge management. Capturing basic contract terms and/or details of legal opinions in a matter management system provides a very simple knowledge management tool and a rich source of data. Other tools that will help provide data are solutions to create standard contracts, access to benchmark reports, and internal resources (finance reports, etc.).

The legal operations teams seeing the most value combine data from various technology tools to take their strategic input to the next level. One such area, which is of massive importance to the entire business, is the management and mitigation of risk.

A legal operations team that is carrying out data analysis on all the data at its disposal will be able to identify trends that will lead to a range of questions that should spark further debate, such as:

  • How much work gets done in-house versus being sent externally?
  • Are the correct processes being followed?
  • Is the right level of technical support given for the type of transaction? Is there a change in the fee arrangements used?
  • Is there growth in the types of transactions at a business unit or country level?
  • Is one firm being used more than others for similar transaction types from a particular part of the business / legal team?
  • How does the firm perform against others for similar transactions, both in price and performance?
  • How does the business differ from market peers?
  • What is required to manage a specific regulatory change?
  • Are the in-house legal function and its staff compliant with the relevant regulatory authority guidelines, such as the Solicitor Regulation Authority (SRA), etc.?

Below are some examples of how the answers to these questions could demonstrate a change in the risk profile and appetite.

By monitoring the volumes of work, the type of work, who is doing it (in-house lawyers, external lawyers, or a combination of both), the time taken, the costs, etc., the legal operations team can better advise on the organizational design, support, and management of the legal function as well as the risk profile and the risk appetite of the legal function and in some instances the supported businesses. Comparing this data to benchmarks would highlight variances that help support any decisions.

A better understanding of the work (and who is doing the work) will help ensure that the legal function stays properly resourced and is not taking on activities better placed in other parts of the organization and that the appropriate processes, controls, and procedures are in place. This might cover such things as law firm engagement and/or payment of invoices by appropriately authorized individuals within the legal function. For the legal function and its in-house staff, this might include ensuring that they comply with the rules of the governing bodies such as the SRA, NALP or the Federal Bar Association in Germany.

A lack of the appropriate technical support (whether from work done in-house or by external law firms) on deals could lead to drafting errors and/or incorrect advice distributed, potentially leading to greater exposure to legal risk. For the more complex arrangements, it would be normal to see more senior lawyers engaged in the matter.

Spotting an uplift in a particular type of work (such as litigation) or activity (such as drafting) could indicate a lack of understanding of the contract terms within the front-line business areas who are requesting contract changes, bad working practices, poor standard documentation, or changes in the markets and/or economic climate (each of which also presents opportunities). Legal operations teams can help to mitigate these by highlighting trends and ensuring that the legal function:

  • Delivers better training and communication to the business,
  • Carries out regular reviews of standard documentation,
  • Supports reviews of policies, practices, and procedures, and
  • Develops a better understanding of the market.

Consistent use of one firm over others should raise questions. They may be competitive in price or have the appropriate skill sets. When analyzed against performance and cost, this may become self-evident, but if not, there may be other reasons to be investigated. As part of the legal operations team’s vendor management program, they should ensure that the firm maintains the right skill sets for their work, as this will help mitigate legal risk caused by a lack of technical knowledge and support.

A significant move to fixed fee arrangements with law firms is beneficial if a) both parties are clear on what activities should be covered, by whom, and when, and b) confident that the agreed pricing is fair and balanced. However, suppose the firm is not providing any supporting timekeeper activity data. In that case, it becomes difficult to know whether the firm is providing the proper technical support and whether the fee structure is still fair and balanced. A legal operations team can help ensure that the legal function obtains the best fee arrangements through regular firm reviews and enforcing governance of the billing rules. They can also ensure that the firm is providing the proper technical support for this type of work, as this will not be evident from the invoice data.

Capturing brief details of the contract terms and using software to create standard term contracts will allow the legal teams to identify contracts impacted by new regulatory changes. An example of this is the proposal from the Bank of England for banks to carry out climate change stress testing. Due to this regulation an awareness of the type of contracts and contract terms will become more relevant. A legal operations team that can quickly pull this information together can help support the business by ensuring the scope of work is understood and adequately resourced.

With the increase in cyber security and greater scrutiny by regulators who are starting to require more rapid, robust, evidence-based reporting, the need for greater use of these solutions is becoming more prevalent to avoid compromised data and eventual fines. Understanding what data goes to which supplier helps ensure that those suppliers have appropriate controls to manage that information in line with Information Governance and Records Management policies and procedures and that any breaches get promptly reported.

It is also worth noting that a lack of data in the legal systems is equally as insightful as it will show where parts of the business and/or legal function need to follow agreed practices and procedures. Using data from the legal spend management solution will help identify where within the organization external legal costs have been incurred and with whom, which can assist in building an awareness of the use of external legal support and potentially close any gaps or tighten any controls. Furthermore, using “gap” reports in the legal systems helps identify problems within the data that will distort any data analysis.

For legal operations teams to deliver process improvements and efficiencies, ensure compliance with policies and regulatory requirements, optimize their spend and manage risk, they should analyze the available data from all the data sources at their disposal. As they start to analyze all their data, instead of analyzing point solution data in isolation, they will begin to discover new trends and insights not previously seen or understood.

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WIE DAS BETRACHTEN VON KOMBINIERTEN REPORTING-DATEN HILFT, RISIKEN ZU MINDERN 

Posted on July 16, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Möchte man eine Rechtstechnologie implementieren, werden viele Funktionen der einzelnen Lösungen evaluiert. Intuitiv bedienbare, klare und umfassende Reporting-Funktionen haben sich dabei zu einem absoluten Muss für Inhouse-Teams entwickelt. Rechtsabteilungen müssen ihren Mehrwert für das Unternehmen demonstrieren können – Reporting-Funktionen erlauben dies und sind deshalb mittlerweile fast so wichtig, wie die grundlegenden Vorteile der Software. 

Die Datenanalyse eines Tools sollte niemals isoliert genutzt werden. Ein Beispiel: Eine Legal Spend Management Software ermöglicht es Rechtsabteilungen durch Spend-Reports in Echtzeit sowie durch benutzerfreundliche Analyseassistenten, laufende Arbeiten zu überblicken, tatsächliche Ausgaben zu messen und Budgets genau zu prognostizieren. 

Das soll nicht heißen, dass Daten über den Legal Spend für sich allein genommen nicht nützlich sind. Im Gegenteil, innerhalb eines Spend Management-Tools können die Daten über eine beliebige Anzahl von Variablen analysiert werden, wie die Art des Projekts, Gerichtsbarkeit oder Dienstalter des Timekeepers. Durch die Daten sind Rechtsabteilungen in der Lage zu entscheiden, welche Verbesserungen vorgenommen werden sollten, um die Unternehmensziele zu erreichen. So können bessere Sourcing-Entscheidungen und Rabattverhandlungen getätigt werden. Zusätzlich kann der Wert der Kanzleien erhöht werden oder ein Business Case für die Aufstockung von Inhouse-Personal erstellt werden. 

Das Verständnis der Rechtsausgaben kann bei der Budgetplanung helfen – vor allem, wenn es mit politischen, wirtschaftlichen und regulatorischen Informationen des Marktsektors kombiniert wird. Die Legal Spend Budgets können beispielsweise in Zeiten signifikanter regulatorischer Veränderungen oder durch einen Anstieg von Rechtsstreitigkeiten und/oder behördlichen Untersuchungen verzerrt werden – was zu Ausreißern gegenüber der normalen Aktivität führt. 

Durch einen klareren Überblick über die Entwicklung der zugrundeliegenden business-as-usual Rechtsausgaben (basierend auf den verschiedenen Matter-Arten) können die Entscheidungsträger:innen benötigte Budgetveränderungen untermauern. Als beispielsweise die Datenschutzgrundverordnung (DSGVO) eingeführt wurde, verzeichneten einige Unternehmen einen Anstieg der Rechtskosten, da sie sich bei der Umsetzung der neuen Regeln beraten ließen und somit ihre Rechtsbudgets erhöhten. 

Inhouse-Rechtsabteilungen verfügen über eine Vielzahl an Informationen und Daten über das gesamte Unternehmen. Arbeiten diese dann noch eng mit den einzelnen Business Units des Unternehmens zusammen, befinden sie sich oft in einer einzigartigen Position innerhalb der Organisation – denn sie haben einen ganzheitlichen Überblick über alle Vorgänge im gesamten Unternehmen. Diese Daten sind Teil des historischen Unternehmenswissens, das über die Jahre aufgebaut wurde, durch frühere Verträge, Entscheidungen und Ergebnisse. In der Vergangenheit wurden diese Informationen nicht strukturiert in einem elektronischen System erfasst, weshalb jede Form der Daten- und Trendanalyse sowie des Wissensmanagements extrem manuell und zeitaufwendig war. 

Mit der Zunahme von Legal Spend- und Matter Management-Lösungen sowie einer besseren Dokumentensuche und -abfrage wächst der Bedarf und die Nachfrage nach Datenverarbeitung, Datenanalyse und Knowledgemanagement. Erfasst man grundlegende Vertragsbedingungen und Details von Rechtsgutachten in einem Matter Management-System, so wird dieses zu einer reichhaltigen Datenquelle und auch zu einem einfachen Knowledgemanagement-Tool. Weitere Tools zur Datenbereitstellung sind Systeme, die zur Erstellung von Standardverträgen verwendet werden, Benchmark-Reports sowie interne Ressourcen wie beispielsweise Finanzberichte. 

Kombiniert man die Daten aus verschiedenen Technologie-Tools, erzielt man den größten Wert und der eigene strategische Input lässt sich maximieren. Von großer Bedeutung für das gesamte Unternehmen ist dabei das Managen und damit verbunden vor allem das Minimieren von Risiken. 

Legal Operations-Teams, die eine Datenanalyse aller ihnen zur Verfügung stehenden Daten durchführen, können wichtige Trends erkennen. Diese Trends führen dann zu einer Reihe von Fragen, die weitere Diskussionen auslösen sollten, wie zum Beispiel: 

  • Wie viel Arbeit wird inhouse erledigt und wie viel wird extern vergeben? 
  • Werden die richtigen Prozesse befolgt? 
  • Erhalten wir das richtige Maß an technischer Unterstützung für die Art der Transaktion? 
  • Gibt es eine Veränderung bei den verwendeten Gebührenvereinbarungen? 
  • Gibt es eine Zunahme der Transaktionsarten entweder auf der Ebene der Geschäftseinheit oder des Landes? 
  • Wird eine Kanzlei mehr als andere für ähnliche Arten von Transaktionen von einem bestimmten Teil des Unternehmens/Rechtsteams beauftragt? 
  • Wie schneidet die Kanzlei im Vergleich zu anderen für ähnliche Arten von Transaktionen sowohl beim Preis als auch bei der Leistung ab? 
  • Wie unterscheidet sich das Unternehmen von seinen Wettbewerbern? 
  • Was ist erforderlich, um eine bestimmte regulatorische Änderung zu bewältigen? 
  • Erfüllen die inhouse Rechtsabteilungen und ihre Mitarbeiter:innen die Richtlinien der zuständigen Aufsichtsbehörde, wie z.B. der Solicitor Regulation Authority (SRA)? 

Im Folgenden finden Sie einige Beispiele dafür, wie die Antworten auf diese Fragen eine Veränderung des Risikoprofils und der Risikobereitschaft aufzeigen können. 

Durch das Monitoren verschiedener Variablen wie Arbeitsvolumen, Art der Arbeit, wer sie erledigt (interne Anwälte, externe Anwälte oder eine Kombination aus beidem), Zeitaufwand und Kosten können Legal Operations-Teams bessere Beratungsarbeit leisten. Ein Vergleich der erhobenen Daten mit Benchmarks zeigt Abweichungen auf, welche wiederum bei der Entscheidungsfindung helfen. So kann ermittelt werden, ob die Rechtsfunktion über die richtigen Ressourcen verfügt, keine Aktivitäten übernimmt, die in anderen Teilen des Unternehmens besser aufgehoben wären, sowie ob benötigte Prozesse und Verfahren vorhanden sind und kontrolliert werden. Dazu gehören unter anderem die Beauftragung von Kanzleien und/oder die Bezahlung von Rechnungen durch entsprechend autorisierter Personen innerhalb der Rechtsabteilung. Für die Rechtsabteilung und ihre internen Mitarbeiter:innen könnte dies beinhalten, dass sichergestellt wird, dass sie die Regeln der maßgeblichen Gremien wie der SRA, NALP und der Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer einhalten. 

Ein Mangel an angemessener fachlicher Unterstützung bei Geschäften könnte zu Formulierungsfehlern und/oder falscher Beratung führen und damit potenziell ein größeres rechtliches Risiko mit sich bringen. Bei komplexeren Geschäften ist es normal, dass sich mehrere erfahrene Anwält:innen mit dem Projekt befassen. 

Stellt man fest, dass eine bestimmte Art von Arbeit (z.B. Litigation) oder Aktivität (z.B. Entwürfe) ansteigt, könnte dies ein Indiz für einen Mangel sein. Deshalb gilt es im zweiten Schritt zu überprüfen, was diesen Mangel auslöst – etwa ein unzureichendes Verständnis der Vertragsbedingungen innerhalb der Frontline-Bereiche des Unternehmens, schlechte Arbeitspraktiken, schwache Standarddokumentation, Marktveränderungen oder Veränderungen des Wirtschaftsklimas. Legal Operations-Teams können aktiv dazu beitragen, die Mangel zu erkennen, indem sie Trends aufzeigen und sicherstellen, dass die Rechtsfunktion: 

  • für eine bessere Schulung und Kommunikation mit der Geschäfts- und Rechtsfunktion sorgt, 
  • regelmäßige Überprüfungen der Standarddokumentation durchführt, 
  • das Überprüfen von Richtlinien, Praktiken und Verfahren unterstützt und 
  • ein besseres Verständnis für den Markt entwickelt. 

Wenn eine Kanzlei immer wieder anderen vorgezogen wird, sollte man sich fragen, warum diese bevorzugt wird. Es kann sein, dass sie preislich sehr wettbewerbsfähig ist oder über die entsprechenden Fähigkeiten verfügt. Eine Analyse der Leistung und der Kosten zeigt dann, ob die Kanzlei wirklich sehr gute Arbeit leistet oder ob vielleicht ein anderer Grund vorliegt, der untersucht werden sollte. Legal Operations-Teams müssen als Teil des Dienstleistermanagements sicherstellen, dass die Kanzlei die richtigen Qualifikationen für die anfallende Arbeiten aufweist. Dies trägt dazu bei, etwaige rechtliche Risiken zu minimieren, die durch einen Mangel an technischem Wissen und Support verursacht werden. 

Ein Wechsel zu Festhonorarvereinbarungen mit Kanzleien kann vorteilhaft sein, wenn sich beide Parteien a) äußerst klar darüber sind, welche Tätigkeiten von wem und bis wann abgedeckt werden sollen und b) darauf vertrauen, dass die vereinbarte Preisgestaltung fair und ausgewogen ist. Liefert die Kanzlei jedoch keine unterstützenden Daten zu den Timekeeper-Aktivitäten, wird es schwierig zu evaluieren, ob die Kanzlei das richtige Maß an technischer Unterstützung bietet und ob die Gebührenstruktur fair ist. Das Legal Operations-Team sollte die Kanzlei also regelmäßig überprüfen und sicherstellen, dass die Billing Guidelines durchgesetzt werden – so begünstigt das Team optimale Honorarvereinbarungen für die Rechtsabteilung. Auch können sie so sicherstellen, dass die Kanzlei das richtige Maß an technischem Support für die durchgeführte Art der Arbeit bietet – aus den Rechnungsdaten allein wird dies nämlich nicht ersichtlich. 

Durch das Erfassen von kurzen Vertragsbedingungs-Details und das Verwenden von Software-Tools zum Erstellen von Standard-Verträgen können Rechtsteams diejenigen Verträge identifizieren, die von neuen gesetzlichen Änderungen betroffen sind. Mit dem Vorschlag der Bank of England, dass Banken Stresstests zum Klimawandel durchführen sollen, wird ein Bewusstsein für die Art von Verträgen und Vertragsbedingungen noch relevanter werden. Kann das Legal Operations-Team diese Informationen schnell zusammenstellen, so unterstützt es das Unternehmen, da der Arbeitsumfang verstanden wird und die entsprechenden Ressourcen bereitgestellt werden können. 

Mit der Erhöhung der Cybersicherheit und den immer stärkeren Kontrollen durch die Aufsichtsbehörden, die schnelle, robuste und evidenzbasierte Reports fordern, wird die Nutzung dieser Lösungen zunehmen. Sie sollen verhindern, dass Daten kompromittiert und Geldstrafen erhoben werden. Wenn klar ist, welche Daten an welche Anbieter weitergegeben wurden, kann man sicherstellen, dass diese Anbieter über angemessene Kontrollen verfügen. So können die Informationen in Übereinstimmung mit den Richtlinien und Verfahren für Information Governance und Records Management verwaltet und etwaige Verstöße umgehend gemeldet werden. 

Ein Datenmangel in den Rechtssystemen dabei ebenso aufschlussreich – er zeigt, wo Teile des Unternehmens und/oder der Rechtsfunktion nicht die vereinbarten Praktiken und Verfahren einhalten. Durch das Verwenden von Legal Spend-Daten aus dem Finanzwesen lässt sich erkennen, wo und durch wen innerhalb der Organisation externe Rechtskosten angefallen sind. So lässt sich auch das Bewusstsein für die Inanspruchnahme externer rechtlicher Unterstützung stärken und mögliche Lücken können geschlossen werden. Durch die Verwendung der „Gap“-Reports in den Rechtssystemen werden zudem die Schwachpunkte innerhalb der Daten, die die Datenanalyse verzerren würden, identifiziert. 

Es wird deutlich: Analysieren Legal Operations-Teams all die zur Verfügung stehenden Daten, ergeben sich unzählige Vorteile für sie. So können Prozessverbesserungen und Effizienzsteigerungen erzielt, die Einhaltung von Richtlinien und gesetzlichen Vorschriften sichergestellt, Ausgaben optimiert und Risiken verwaltet werden. Wenn die Teams also damit beginnen, alle Daten gemeinsam zu analysieren, statt sie isoliert zu betrachten, können neue Trends und Erkenntnisse entdeckt werden – die vorher möglicherweise nicht gesehen oder verstanden wurden. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt. Eine gekürzte Version dieses Artikels wurde zuerst von CLOC am 3. Januar 2020 veröffentlicht. Der Beitrag erscheint hier in voller Länge.