GLE has been fortunate to work consistently throughout the 2020 pandemic year at a time when so many are struggling. As you may have noticed on our 2020 holiday card, GLE made the largest donation in our 9 year history to World Central Kitchen and Chef Jose Andres. In addition to the obvious synergy (we are Global Legal Ebilling and they are World Central Kitchen), we have enormous respect for the mission of WCK. Imagine formulating and then executing a plan to tackle hunger on a global scale! You can learn more about the work of this very worthy organization here.
Author: Jane A. Bennitt
2020 Holiday Wishes
eDiscovery Proportionality Project
I have been asked to join an effort spearheaded by George Washington University and members of the US judiciary on eDiscovery proportionality. Proportionality considers the size of the claim and risk involved versus the amount of effort and associated cost for eDiscovery to be undertaken. The premise is that a small claim should not require a “drain the ocean” amount of cost and effort.
This project is similar to one undertaken by the judiciaries of England and Wales to create an electronic form bill of costs, which was PM’ed by a UK LOC board member.
Look for more information on this effort in this blog.
Growth of CTC Tax Systems
Years ago I had read a statistic that CTC (Continuous Tax Control) systems were expected to be in place in 80% of the countries worldwide by 2025.
Implementation of CTC represents an additional step in the billing workflow. If required for the sale of services, a law firm within the country must transmit information on the cost of services billed to the CTC system before rendering an invoice to their clients. A copy of the approved transaction should be provided to their client as part of the supporting documents when an invoice is uploaded to the ebilling system.
In the next two years, 22 countries are coming on-line with CTC systems, and a colleague expects that CTC will be implemented in every country globally except the US, Canada and the UK by 2035.
Tax compliance is an area of specialization within GLE. If you have questions on CTC systems, contact us at info@globallegalebilling.com.
Onit Interview Picked Up By JDSupra
I am pleased to report that my interview with Onit that was posed to their blog has been picked up by JDSupra. You can read their version here.
Onit Blog Interview
GLE founder Jane A. Bennitt is featured in an Onit blog post today discussing the potential impact of a recent GDPR Data Privacy ruling on the legal ebilling industry. Thanks to Onit for helping to spread our concerns and highlighting steps that should be taken today. You can read the interview here.
Update on Bogus Industry Awards
Those who are regular readers may recall that I published a post on the crazy awards that are basically pay-to-receive distinctions. A real award isn’t something that you pay for.
And while I continue to receive award notifications from all kinds of organizations, I saw a really great article echoing my comments on these non-distinctive awards in the ABA Journal, June/July 2020 edition. Here’s the link.
It seems that Lucy Davis of Davis Law Group in Seattle won an award as Lawyer of Distinction in the personal injury field in 2017. Lucy is a poodle. In submitting her application for the award, Lucy’s office mentioned that she had “Juris Dogtor” and was a member of the King Country Bark Association.
To those at Davis Law Group, I salute you!! And to Lucy, you’ve got my vote.
Pandemic Update
While the pandemic impacts businesses around the world, we are fortunate to have work underway and have not closed our doors.
Our best wishes for good health for you, your families and friends, and our thanks to all who continue to provide essential services and medical care during this time.
Please stay home to flatten the curve, wear masks if you need to go out and wash your hands!
New LEDES Standards
The LEDES Oversight Committee has ratified new standards for legal ebilling and I had the honor of leading the development effort. There were some basic changes:
- Increased the size of the invoice number and to increase the number of decimal columns for the tax rate (LEDES 99BI, XML 2.0, XML 2.1)
- Added a data element for the CTC tax authority invoice reference number and to clarify other fields where we have noted confusion (XML 2.0, XML 2.1)
- Moved the math statement to a separate tab and clarified math references (XML 2.1)
- Created functionality to support tiered taxes (new format XML 2.2)
The new formats are available on LEDES.org.
2019 Holiday Card
