08.01.2010 | Rob Thomas
The term “legal spend management” is appearing everywhere these days, and for good reason. When done right, legal spend management can increase efficiency and cut costs at any size law department, but what does it look like in practice? The scenarios below are written from the perspective of a fictional in-house lawyer to illustrate how legal spend management is accomplished day-to-day. ■ open
07.01.2010 | Rob Thomas & Melissa Pearlstein
Believe it or not, there is a silver lining in the dark economic cloud hovering over corporate legal departments. With many law firms struggling to attract or retain corporate clients, companies now often have the upper hand in negotiating new engagements. This increased bargaining power presents a great opportunity for corporate legal departments to re-tool their relationships to ensure that they receive more value from their outside counsel. ■ open
Alcatel-Lucent reports a 54 percent decrease in spending on outside counsel in 2009
06.10.2010 | New Jersey Law Journal
Managing outside counsel is not an easy job, and it's even
harder when a company's network of firms is worldwide.
"I'm a global traffic cop," says Stephen Reynolds general counsel of
Alcatel-Lucent, readily acknowledging the demands of overseeing dozens
of outside counsel working for a company with lawyers in 30 countries.
■
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05.12.10 | Melissa Maleske
In the beginning, there was paper—a lot of paper, in the form of inches-thick law firm bills. For many law
departments, the paper system remains. Others have turned to electronic solutions to their billing needs.
Some of those law departments are finding that approaching e-billing with a single goal—translating those paper bills onto the screen—is aiming low. Today’s e-billing systems incorporate matter management, allowing for easier budgeting, bill review and data culling. For some law departments, systems incorporating e-billing have become the foundation for better outside spending control and efficiency and more businesslike practices overall. ■ open
02.01.10 | Patrick Wilkins
In the following interview we dig even deeper into the background of the [Association of Corporate Counsel Value Challenge] and refer readers to the source of the ACC research: the annual ACC-Serengeti Managing Outside Survey Report. ■ open
01.01.10 | Gerry Blackwell
Law firms appear to have lost the battle for control of the electronic interface with their business clients. Cause for alarm? Probably not, in fact, possibly the reverse. ■ open
12.07.09 | Jocelyn Allison
The Association for Corporate Counsel's new online system for evaluating law firms embodies one of the key factors in-house counsel consider when hiring time comes: what other corporate counsel think. ■ open
09.23.09 | Jocelyn Allison
When James Sheets joined ModSpace as the only attorney in January 2004, he decided the modular building company needed a better way to control the number of law firms it was using and keep track of its various matters. “Basically, firm invoices were being paid without anybody looking at them, and not only that, there were no means of tracking how much we had been paying to law firm XYZ or law firm ABC,” he said. ■ open
05.01.09 | Chris Marlin, Stuart Roth, Rob Thomas
It has been three years since the first ACC Docket article about legal ebilling’s entry into the mainstream of law department technologies.Since then, the pace of adoption has accelerated and the new functions that it provides have multiplied. From its initial role as a way for a few innovative law departments to enhance control over their outside legal spending, ebilling has quickly become accepted as a work process familiar to most of the in-house bar and the law firms that represent business clients. ■ open
12.01.08 | ITLA
The law department team wanted to determine what law departments are really doing with their e-billing systems. Is e-billing today still mainly a pipeline to receive invoices or has it evolved into a matter-centric tool where e-billing is a component of the overall system? How collaborative is e-billing today? What features are being used by law departments? Who is participating in e-billing, is it only law firms or are other legal vendors using these systems? How global is e-billing today? What are client’s expectations? Are they using the data they receive and, if so, how? And how satisfied are they with the features and tools available within their systems? ■ open
Rees Morrison
This "blook" – a book made up of compiled and ordered blog posts – contains 471 selected posts in 203 pages from Rees Morrison's LawDepartmentManagementBlog. The six chapters cover when do you need outside counsel, how do you find them, what billing arrangements make sense, how do you manage them, how do you evaluate their performance, and what other considerations apply. Within each chapter, the posts are organized according to a two-level taxonomy. $75 for the 310-page PDF ($65 for Serengeti users) To Learn more or buy the blook: ■ open
03.08.08 | Jonathan Rayner
A change in the legal status of electronic bills is set to increase pressure on corporate firms to offer e-billing, the Gazette learned this week. Provisions in the Legal Services Act 2007, which come into force this week, will give electronic bills the same legal status as paper bills. ■ open
02.01.08 | Justin Hectus
Helping your client select an e-billing system is a great opportunity to bolster the firm’s reputation as a partner in their business. Your client may have little or no production experience with legal e-billing and, by contrast, your firm probably has intimate production experience with a dozen vendors. ■ open
02.15.08 | Mary K. Pratt
In-house legal departments have always felt pressure to keep costs from spiraling upward, but a recent study shows that in-house counsel are becoming much more aggressive in managing their relationships with -- and payments to -- outside counsel, which experts said is a sign of the budget concerns they're facing. ■ open
01.01.08 | Karen Santagata
About five years ago, our choice was Serengeti Tracker (“Serengeti”). Serengeti is a web-based matter management, electronic billing, contract management and on-demand reporting package. At the very beginning of our utilization of Serengeti, we primarily used it for a basic matter management system for our litigation matters. As time went on, and with the assistance of the staff of Serengeti, we were able to include the majority of all of our in-house legal work, including corporate, securities, intellectual property, contracts, and environmental — to name a few areas. ■ open
11.01.07 | Michael Reilly
Surging compliance requirements are driving corporate general counsel to find better methods to improve management of their legal departments, especially when it comes to outside counsel and related matters. But it will take more than better management to conquer difficulties in the relationship? ■ open
10.31.07 | The Associated Press
Gone are the days when in-house counsel send out major projects to outside counsel, pay vague bills "for services rendered," and remain uninvolved while outside counsel determine what is necessary, according to the results of the 2007 ACC/Serengeti Managing Outside Counsel Survey, a collaboration between the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) and Serengeti Law, released at ACC's Annual Meeting on Monday in Chicago. The survey requested information about the ways in which in-house counsel are managing the work handled by outside counsel, and gathered metrics regarding the management techniques being used. It also collected data on hourly rates corporate clients are paying for specific types of work in the largest metropolitan areas across the country. ■ open
10.01.07 | Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Helping in-house and outside counsel work together more efficiently is also the goal of Web-based platforms like Serengeti Law, founded by Rob Thomas '78 and Tom Melling '94, which enable law departments to process bills, budgets, status reports, and documents online. According to Thomas, Serengeti Tracker connects more than 11,000 in-house counsel (including Stanford's law department) with more than 12,000 law firms in 125 countries worldwide. ■ open
09.28.07 | Eric Young
For Trudy Johnson, keeping track of legal spending at Blue Shield of California required repetitive, old-fashioned techniques. "It was very, very manual," said Johnson, who was determined to find a better way. Johnson found it six months ago when Blue Shield dropped its paper-based procedures for an electronic billing system. The web-based program allows Blue Shield to automate the billing process and quickly sort data, meaning Blue Shield can keep closer tabs on legal spending. "We have been reaping the benefits ever since," said Johnson, whose company installed a program by Serengeti Law. ■ open
06.29.07 | Gerry Blackwell
A change is coming. If your firm works for large or medium-sized corporate clients, chances are some will soon be demanding that you submit bills electronically - if they haven't started already. It's called e-billing, and it's the way of the future.
What will it mean to your firm? That depends on which e-billing service or system your clients adopt. There are several, and many law firms will find themselves having to use more than one. The impact e-billing will have on your firm also depends on the time and billing system you currently use internally, and on your firm's level of technological expertise. ■ open
06.01.07 | Jeff Carr
The FMC Technologies legal team is relentless in trying to find new and better ways to deliver legal services to our customers – the FMC Technologies business units. Key tenets of the team’s approach are to focus on three core functions: acting as the trusted strategic advisor to the business, managing risks and protecting assets while maintaining the company’s ethical compass, and delivering cost-effective legal services appropriate to the business. This is done by looking at strategic alignment of services with objectives, value rather than just cost savings, proactive practices, and continuous improvement. ■ open
05.01.07 | Rob Thomas
All is not working perfectly in the legal e-billing world. Last year, the General Counsel Roundtable, an organization of more than 600 law departments, conducted a technology survey which asked law departments to rate their electronic billing systems. Their report showed significant differences in the ratings of the most widely-used systems.
Similarly for law firms, American Lawyer Media Research conducted a recent survey in which more than 600 law firms gave their opinions regarding the benefits and problems of e-billing, as well as their evaluations of specific vendors. The significant differences in ratings among the vendors indicate clear and strong preferences for a very small number of the e-billing vendors. ■ open
