Unity ELM: AI-Driven Legal Operations and Spend Management

Legal e-billing is the electronic submission, review, and approval of outside counsel invoices. Law firms submit invoices, typically in LEDES format, to the client’s e-Billing system. The system checks each invoice, looking for violations of billing guidelines, timekeeper rates, and budgets before routing it for approval.

With Unity ELM, law firms submit invoices through Counsel Exchange. Once submitted, Unity ELM validates the invoice charges against your configurable billing rules and your approved timekeeper rates. It routes invoices through automated approval workflows and logs every action in an audit trail. If an invoice is rejected, the reason appears in Counsel Exchange, so firms can correct it without manual follow-up. Unity ELM e-Billing dashboards show spend and vendor performance across multiple metrics. Spend Agent, an add-on to Unity, provides additional AI-powered invoice review of line items to find additional categories of savings.

UTBMS (Uniform Task-Based Management System) codes are standardized codes that classify the legal work on an invoice: the phase, task, activity, and expense. Because every firm uses the same codes, legal departments can compare cost and effort across matters and firms and analyze spend consistently. 

UTBMS codes also let e-billing systems, like Unity ELM e-Billing, manage invoices automatically. UTBMS codes enable systems to automatically flag mismatches, such as an activity code that doesn’t fit the task, before a human reviews the invoice. Law firms typically pair UTBMS codes with the LEDES file format. 

LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard) is the standard file format law firms use to send invoice data to their clients. It structures time entries, rates, UTBMS codes, and expenses into a consistent layout that e-billing systems can read and validate automatically, with more line-item detail than a PDF. Unlike an unstructured PDF, a LEDES file provides invoice data in defined fields that support automated processing and analysis. 

With Unity ELM, law firms can submit invoices through Counsel Exchange by uploading LEDES or PDF files or entering invoices manually. 

A legal billing guideline sets the rules for how outside counsel staff matters, bill for work, and get paid. Onit recommends five components: 

• Introduction: the effective date, the department’s right to adjust or reject non-compliant invoices, and a reminder for firms to accept the terms. 

• Staffing: who can hire vendors, expected staffing levels for projects, and how staffing changes are approved. 

• Legal invoicing and billing procedures: how invoices must be formatted, such as LEDES, and what data they must include, including matter identifiers, detailed work descriptions, timekeeper information, approved rates, and reimbursable expenses. Specify required UTBMS codes, prohibited billing practices, and how exceptions are approved. 

• Timing: how often invoices are submitted, payment timelines, and any agreed consequences for late submissions. 

• Signature page: confirmation that the firm has read and agreed to the guidelines. 

In Unity ELM, configurable billing rules and approval workflows support consistent guideline enforcement. Spend Agent, an add-on to Unity, reviews invoice line items against uploaded billing guidelines and applicable matter-level engagement documents, helping identify issues that require contextual review. Your team controls how findings are handled and how much of the process is automated. 

The most common legal invoice billing errors are: 

• Guideline violations: charges that break agreed billing rules. 

• Inappropriate staffing or rates: work done by a timekeeper whose role does not align with the task, or rates above the approved rate card. 

• Non-reimbursable expenses: costs the guidelines don’t allow. 

• Block billing: multiple tasks lumped into one time entry, which hides how much time each took. 

• Vague descriptions: entries like “services rendered” that don’t show what work was done. 

Unity ELM e-Billing catches these through automated invoice validation, configurable billing rules, and timekeeper rate checks. The optional Spend Agent adds AI review for issues rules alone can miss, such as block billing.  

Rollout time could be as little as 45 days, depending on how many billing rules, vendors, and integrations you configure. Your dedicated Onit implementation team can confirm a Unity ELM rollout plan based on your requirements and readiness.

Yes. Law firms submit invoices directly through Counsel Exchange, Onit’s vendor portal for electronic billing and collaboration. Firms can upload LEDES or PDF files or enter invoices manually, and they can track invoice status from submission through approval. 

If an invoice is rejected, the reason appears in the portal, which reduces follow-up between the firm and the legal department. Invoice status and validation feedback help firms understand issues and support correction and resubmission, reducing back-and-forth with the legal department. Counsel Exchange also supports timekeeper and rate management, budget collaboration, and file sharing.  

AI can help legal teams explore spending patterns, summarize matters and invoices, identify missing or outdated information, and investigate discrepancies using natural language.

Ask Unity, included with Unity ELM, lets users ask questions such as “How much did we spend on outside counsel last quarter?” or “Which matters are over budget?”. Teams can also review invoice status and approval timing, explore vendor and timekeeper information, and analyze budgets, accruals, purchase orders, and custom attributes. Support for follow-up questions enable users to refine the analysis or drill into the results.

Ask Unity returns answers, tables, and charts based on Unity ELM data and respects role-based permissions, helping teams understand costs and prepare for conversations with other departments and business leaders. Results can be downloaded for reporting and sharing. Available from any page, Ask Unity also answers product questions, such as how to create a matter or budget, so users can get help while they work.