GLE has continued its support of World Central Kitchen in 2023, and suggest their cookbook, “The World Central Kitchen Cookbook: Feeding Humanity, Feeding Hope” as a gift consideration during the holidays.
Author: Jane A. Bennitt
New Ebilling Admin Tool Available
I saw in my feed today that there is a new ebilling administration product available called BillSync by ScanLogic. They call it “the first ebilling platform to be launched in 20 years based on new technologies.” The platform is “designed to aggregate all ebilling data across multiple platforms and vendors” and their press release goes on to refer to it as “a solution to aggregating all billing data where others cannot.” I have not yet seen the product and am curious whether their technology really does access the dozens of ebilling platforms in the legal industry that law firms are required to use. If it truly lives up to this promise, then this is indeed a powerful solution.
Readers should investigate for themselves here.
Legal Week New York Conference
I will be attending the Legal Week New York conference on February 20 – 23, 2023. Will you be there too? Let’s meet up to discuss your questions on Legal Ebilling, Matter Management and Contract Management! You can message me here: Contact GLE
2022 Holiday Wishes
GLE has continued its support of World Central Kitchen in 2022, and applaud their efforts in providing assistance to citizens of Ukraine.
XML Ebilling Format Updates
Earlier this year, the LEDES Oversight Committee proposed revisions to the LEDES XML 2.0x, 2.1x and 2.2 ebilling standards. The public comment period for these changes closed on July 25, 2022 and there were no objections to the proposed changes.
While preparing the final paperwork to ratify these changes, additional discussion occurred on deficiencies that need correction in the XML formats. The documents presented here reflect these additional requested changes.
A new public comment period has opened and will close on December 9, 2022.
Significant to these changes are a number of requests by global ebillers to address insufficiencies in the current formats and processes. In particular, a change has been proposed that will require vendors to change the data element used for rate validation and require updating client electronic validation routines. While we have tried to minimize the number of changes required, this fundamentally changes how rate checking operates and represents a big effort on the part of vendors to enact.
Additionally, The LEDES Oversight Committee has scheduled 3 webinars on the proposed changes for which registration is required:
To attend the law firm-oriented webinar, scheduled on Wednesday, 7 December 2022 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, register here.
To attend the law department-oriented webinar, scheduled on Wednesday, 7 December 2022 at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, register here.
To attend the vendor-oriented webinar, scheduled 7 December 2022 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, register here.
To review the proposed changes or provide your opinion on the changes, click here.
See you at ILTA’s Educational Conference
It is with great joy that we announce a return to the ILTA Educational Conference, 22 – 25 August, 2022. ILTA was the first supporter of the LEDES Oversight Committee and finally, as the pandemic moves into endemic phase, we will be back this year in August.
Conference participants can find the LOC in booth #534, with GLE founder and LOC President, Jane Bennitt, and Nadia Strobbia, LOC Secretary and Thomson Reuters powerhouse, on-site.
In addition, we will have a hospitality room on Tuesday, 23 August where we will be hosting:
– 11:30 – 12:300 – the LEDES Oversight Committee mid-year members’ meeting
– 1:30 – 2:30 – Open forum discussion on Ebilling Issues and Best Practices. This session is a continuation of a discussion started by our London Regional Group, and the discussion will lead to a Best Practices White Paper on LEDES.org for Law Departments and Insurance organizations looking to implement legal ebilling.
Both events will also be held via webinar for participation by LOC global members not at the conference.
In addition to the above, GLE Founder Jane A. Bennitt will participate in session #1714: Leveraging Technology to Manage Outside Counsel Guidelines, to be held on Wednesday, 24 August 2022 from 2:30 – 3:30. Co-participants include Scott Springer from HBR Consulting and Mark Agin from Shearman & Sterling.
LEDES API Vendor Survey Available
In October I wrote about the LEDES API initiative, for which version 2 is expected to be released in the next couple of months. To encourage development of the API, the LEDES Oversight Committee (LOC) will create an API testing platform and make this available to vendors in the legal space. A survey has been posted to establish a timeline for making the test platform available. Please go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LEDES_API_Survey to access the survey.
Below is background on the testing platform and project.
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The purpose of the LEDES API is to facilitate system to system communication directly from the law firm to the third-party ebilling vendor. The API will facilitate the transmission of data files from the law firm to the ebilling vendor and accept notifications from the ebilling vendor back to the law firm.
Why an API? Legal ebilling is extremely time-intensive to support at the law firm. The API will ease the burden at the law firm by automating transmission and notification processes where possible. A unified LEDES API will allow vendors to implemented solutions more quickly than if a custom API is required for each of the dozens of ebilling solutions in the marketplace.
It is expected that several versions of the LEDES API will be released by the LEDES Oversight Committee over time, with each new version increasing the functionality supported by the API. V2 of the API is expected to be released in 2022.
To facilitate the creation of these API connections, the LEDES Oversight Committee will create a testing platform for vendors to test their API functionality.
Use-cases have been defined by the LEDES Oversight Committee to ensure the full breadth of functionality of the LEDES data exchange formats is supported by both types of systems. The LEDES Oversight Committee will provide written documentation to setup the test environment, including test clients, test law firms with timekeepers and rates, and test matters. Using this information, file transmissions supporting the use-cases will be tested, and based on the performance of the systems, the LEDES Oversight Committee will be able to score the quality of the API supported by the system, enforcing compliance with the full feature set supported by the LEDES formats.
The LEDES Oversight Committee has selected LogicShark to build and support the test environment. LogicShark helps organizations design and implement digital transformation strategy to facilitate organizational change by using their low-code, application development software, the LogicShark CNECT Platform. Of importance to the LEDES Oversight Committee, LogicShark does not offer law firm or law department systems that utilize LEDES standards and is fully independent in this regard.
Understanding that vendors need to place the API on their development roadmap and secure funding and resources for its development, once the test environment goes live, it will be supported by the LEDES Oversight Committee for a minimum of five years.
It is important for the law firm back-office systems to consider how information can be incorporated into their data set. For example, it will be possible to
- Note the date an ebill was submitted
- Provide the current status of an ebill submission.
- Note the amount approved for payment by the client
- Calculate, based on the date a payment request is sent to Accounts Payable plus the days-to-pay specified by the client, an estimated date on which payment is expected
- Note the actual date paid, plus the check number, transaction ID or other information associated with the payment provided by the ebilling vendor
Definitions
System to system. We do not anticipate “home-grown” connections from the law firm to the ebilling vendors. Our intention is that the law firms’ back-office software (financial, time and billing, timekeeping, etc.) which generates LEDES invoice files would be the source of the law firm API.
It may be the case that middleware could be developed as a transmission point from the law firm to the ebilling vendor, enabling support for smaller global firms that do not have the benefit of western-style back-office systems. We find it unlikely, however, that larger firms that have western-style back-office software would use this type of connection.
Notifications. The type of notifications from the ebilling vendor envisioned are those currently sent via email or via posted in the ebilling system. These include, but are not limited to, invoice submission results, rejection information, payment confirmation information, accrual requests, timekeeper/rate approvals, etc.
Increasing Functionality. v1 of the API supports the transmission of LEDES invoice files and the return of notifications on these submissions, and the ability for law firms to request the status of invoices. v1 assumed that when a legal service provider application communicates with an e-billing system it would require separate credentials for each client with which it would want to exchange information.
In v2, we are adding the ability to only require one set of credentials when communicating with an e-billing system and support a call to identify the clients for whom the legal service provider is exchanging information, facilitating more easily the submission of invoices to a specific client. The request to get the status of a set of invoices has been changed to use a “Modified Since” date/time instead of requiring the third-party ebilling vendor to support an “InvoiceStatusMarker.”
The API subcommittee has also done some preliminary work to establish a JSON LEDES file format based on XML 2.2 and calls to exchange matters, timekeepers and rates, however these specific processes may be put off to a v3 release.
(This post was also shared on LinkedIn.)
Many New Ebilling Systems Available
Just a quick note to advise that our updated Law Department ELM Solutions Resource Room page includes numerous new systems. The legal ebilling space is growing again!
Industry Acquisitions
While I have been busy with client work over the past few months, the legal ebilling industry has gone acquisition mad. Below are some highlights.
- On 1 September, 2021, Bodhala was acquired by Onit
- On 22 September, 2021, Alyne, a GRC company, was acquired by Mitratech
- On 28 September, 2021, BusyLamp was acquired by Onit
- On 3 November, 2021, Brightflag acquired Joinder, a corporate record keeping system
- On 1 December, 2021, Integrum, a health, safety and environment platform was acquired by Mitratech
- On 16 December, 2021, Continuity, a GRC provider, was acquired by Mitratech
- On 17 December, 2021, Bottomline Technologies, a business payment conglomerate and owner of Legal-X, was acquired by Thoma Bravo
- On 11 January, 2022, SecureDocs was acquired by Onit
- On 19 January, 2022, Quovant was acquired by Mitratech
2021 Holiday Greetings
