There is a new trend in law firm billing: functionality to check compliance with a client’s outside counsel guidelines.
As law firm ebilling professionals can attest, it is virtually impossible to remember all of a client’s billing requirements, especially when law departments that don’t require ebilling also issue billing guidelines.
This new feature allows firms to capture quantifiable client requirements so that the system can validate line items at the point of entry for compliance. The idea is to mimic the functionality provided in law department ebilling systems that test time entries so that law firms are more likely to submit a compliant invoice on their first submission.
While the structure and composition of a time or expense entry is the focus of many rules, others look at the invoice structure and other aspects (like rates and budgets) which are not available to the law firm at the point of time entry.
Nonetheless, this is a great new feature that law firms should look for when shopping for tools.