Make an Informed Decision - Tracker E-Billing & Matter Management

At Serengeti, we are constantly collecting feedback from customers, law firms, and industry associations. In fact, Serengeti Law conducts one of the industry's largest and most comprehensive surveys of legal departments. Through this survey and other interactions with hundreds of law departments, we have identified a number of common problems and complaints about other e-billing and matter management systems. The following is a summary of our findings and Serengeti solutions.

COMMON PROBLEMS WITH OTHER SYSTEMS - 7 Key Considerations

1. Incomplete Implementation (Avoid getting both paper and e-bills)
2. Charging the Firms (Avoid firm charges that come back to you)
3. Two Separate Systems (Avoid working with multiple vendors)
4. Hours of Training Required (Avoid complicated systems)
5. Lengthy Implementation (Avoid complex setup and customization)
6. Escalating Costs (Avoid pricing based on seats, firms, or bill amount)
7. Domestic Invoicing Only (Avoid systems that only accept LEDES)

Decision Point #1 - Incomplete Implementation

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Why are we still getting paper bills a year after we put in our e-billing system?"
Serengeti response: "Within 3 months, Serengeti delivers ALL of your legal bills electronically."

Informed Decision:
If your e-billing system connects only your largest firms, you’re left with a continuous stream of paper from your other firms, two different processes for handling bills, and incomplete spending reports and time-consuming data entry. Unlike many e-billing vendors, Serengeti consistently connects law departments with ALL of their law firms.

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Decision Point #2 - Charging the Firms

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Why is our e-billing vendor charging our firms, who then turn around and charge us?"
Serengeti response: "Serengeti doesn’t charge law firms to use the system."

Informed Decision:
Most e-billing vendors impose significant charges on law firms for the privilege of sending their bills electronically. Such charges lead to delayed implementations, refusal by some firms to use the system, and higher legal bills for clients who require firms to use such systems. Firms will generally recover the costs from their client in one form or another.

Serengeti does not charge law firms to submit electronic bills. Clients know exactly what the system costs without having to worry about charges showing up in their legal bills. The cost to the law department is generally much less than what other vendors charge law departments and their law firms.

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Decision Point #3 - Two Separate Systems

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Why do we have to work in two different systems for e-billing and matter management?"
Serengeti response: "Serengeti provides e-billing and matter management in one easy-to-use system.

Informed Decision:
Many vendors provide either e-billing or matter management. As a result, law departments have to deal with two different vendors, systems, trainings, charges, and incomplete integration between systems, partial reports, and finger-pointing when things don’t work as planned. Serengeti provides law departments a single place to track, process, and report on not only their spending, but also budgets, status, and results. Convenient online files keep all matter information organized for convenient collaboration and retrieval (including calendars, documents, and notes). The cost is generally much less than two systems, and training takes only an hour.

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Decision Point #4 - Hours of Training Required

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Our lawyers won’t sit through hours or days of training, and have refused to use our new system."
Serengeti response: "Training on Serengeti takes less than an hour, right at your computer.

Informed Decision:
A system is of little value if lawyers won’t use it. When lawyers don’t use a system, the law department ends up with untrustworthy data and misleading reports, negating the very reason that the system was purchased. Serengeti mirrors the ways that lawyers are used to working, and captures required information at the most logical source (which often is the law firm). Training takes less than an hour—any lawyer who can buy a book online can probably use Serengeti without any training. Serengeti also has built-in mechanisms to ensure that certain data required from law firms is kept current. Law departments on Serengeti will tell you that the system is actually used by their lawyers, and that they can trust the data in the system.

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Decision Point #5 - Lengthy Implementation

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "We don’t have years to implement our e-billing/matter management system."
Serengeti response: "Serengeti implements the world’s largest law departments (and all of their firms) in less than three months—most law departments in 4-6 weeks.

Informed Decision:
There is no reason why implementing a new system has to be like building one of the pyramids. With over law firms already connected, Serengeti probably has most of your law firms already working on the system. Configuration to tailor the system to your law department, brief training sessions which are done online, and upload of any data from existing databases generally takes 4-6 weeks—three months for the largest law departments. There’s no need to take the time, or run the risk, of putting in a system that requires a long, involved implementation.

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Decision Point #6 - Escalating Cost

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Why does the cost of our e-billing system keep going up each month?"
Serengeti response: "Serengeti charges a fixed monthly fee that includes the law department and all of its law firms.

Informed Decision:
Many e-billing vendors charge based upon the number of users or “seats” which changes as you add internal users and firms. Others charge a percentage of the bills coming through the system, which means the system costs more precisely at the time you can afford it the least. Serengeti charges a fixed monthly fee that does not fluctuate based upon users, amounts of bills, or any other variable. It is generally set for a year. And there are no charges to law firms that generally come back to the client as higher bills.

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Decision Point #7 - Domestic Invoicing Only

In-house counsel on competing systems often complain: "Why can’t our e-billing system handle invoices from foreign law firms?"
Serengeti response: "Serengeti processes bills from all of your foreign law firms, and automatically converts foreign currency charges (including VAT) into your preferred currency.

Informed Decision:
Why have an e-billing system that can only process some of your bills, requiring you to manually process paper bills from your foreign firms, enter data regarding such bills into the system manually, and calculate foreign currency conversions? Serengeti Tracker allows foreign law firms to pick their currency preference for electronic bills, and automatically converts foreign currency bills into the preferred currency of those reviewing them. Foreign currency spending, budgets, exposure estimates, etc. are all converted automatically for reporting into your preferred currency, with rates updated as often as you select.

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DECISION POINTS

Incomplete
Implementation

Charging
the Firms

Two Separate
Systems

Lengthy
Implementation

Domestic
Invoicing Only