New Ebilling-Specific Conference in Planning Stage

Posted on by in Conference, GLE On the Road

Inemesit Edet, the principal at Smart eBilling Team, announced recently that she is putting together a legal ebilling-only conference in 2026 called Smart eBill Con. This will be the first legal ebilling only conference ever, which is surprising since our industry is now 30 years old, and it is desperately needed to increase not only law firm skills, but also law department awareness.

Most interestingly, the conference will offer both on-site and virtual registration for attendees.

I worked with Inemesit on the LEDES Oversight Committee Board of Directors and really got to know her when we manned the LEDES booth together at the ILTA Educational Conference in August 2024.  She is really smart and an influential voice in our industry.

When I saw the first notice about the intended conference on LinkedIn, I reached out to her and asked how I could help. In addition to assisting however I can with the planning, I will be speaking at the conference in 3 sessions: one on the rise of Jurisdictional Tax Authority Systems (generally referred to as “CTC Systems”); another on the CTC requirements and the impact on legal ebilling; and another on the LEDES XML formats (why, what and how).

Look for more posts on this conference as planning progresses.  Learn more about Smart eBill Con.

Bottomline Legal Spend Management Acquired by Sedgwick

Posted on by in Product Acquisition

It was announced today that Sedgwick TPA has acquired Bottomline’s Legal Spend Management Division, including the Legal-X and Legal eXchange platforms. Bottomline’s legal spend products are leading solutions in the insurance industry and include TPA features for managing claims, so this looks like a good fit. The acquisition combines Bottomline’s legal spend platforms with other Sedgwick claims and bill review solutions, allowing for a full suite of solutions under a new Sedgwick Legal Spend Management division.

Happy 30th Birthday Legal Ebilling

Posted on by in General

The legal ebilling industry was born on November 28, 1994, when I started as the first employee at what later became known as TyMetrix.

TyMetrix founder Bob Heinemann and an insurance GC believed that legal invoices contained information that was impossible to distill because of how it was presented, leading to little understanding of the services provided by outside counsel. They believed there had to be a better way, and I was hired to help turn the idea into a business.

We viewed ebilling as more than just a pipe to receive and pay invoices. We believed that combining billing data with matter information would create rich reports to provide insight into how different approaches to handling a matter can result in different outcomes.

Bob fostered a collaborative environment and our early team members (Steve Zielinski, Nancy Doyle, Scott Holliday and Frank Mikulak, among others) were key to our success. I am enormously proud of the decisions we made with the product in those early days: we created functionality that is foundational to legal ebilling today.

So happy 30th birthday legal ebilling, and my thanks to all who contributed to moving the industry ahead over the last 30 years.

 

New Products in Legal Ebilling

Posted on by in EBMM, Innovation, New Product

At ILTACon 2024, I found some new products available with functionality for different purposes in legal ebilling.

Hercules AI is offering a new product called Verify that is designed to assist with Outside Counsel Compliance. So slick. Very next generation. It knocked my socks off, and I sent 6 people over to look at the product. You can learn more here: https://hercules.ai/verify/.

The week prior to the conference I received a Google Alert mentioning FulcrumGT’s Salvo product. No one on the LEDES Board had heard of it, and it was the one product that I was in search of more information on as I headed to the conference. Salvo is a new entrant in the Ebilling Administration tool market, competing against Elite eBillingHub and Aderant BillBlast. This market has long been in need of additional products, and now one exists. Interestingly, they state, “The solution can provide real-time updates across all vendor sites” which I think is a differentiator. You can learn more here: https://legacysite.fulcrumgt.com/products/salvo/.

FulcrumGT also is offering a collaborative ELM system called RapidX. It is worthy of a look from any law department or insurance organization wanting to implement legal ebilling or to change vendor systems.  The system is similarly available to law firms that would like to better collaborate with non-ebilling clients. You can learn more here: https://fulcrumgt.com/.

Finally, I wanted to mention seeing Oddr’s Invoice to Cash Platform.  I have seen this product at a couple shows now, and still am struck by their creative solution for invoice/collections/payments.  I am not aware of any other product aimed at this particular segment of the “problem” with legal ebilling.  It is not unexpected that they are picking up traction in the marketplace.  To learn more:  https://www.oddr.com/.

LEDES Educational Session at ILTACon

Posted on by in ILTACon

I am just back from ITLACon where Inemesit Edet and I gave a presentation entitled “Frustrated with Legal Ebilling? Let’s Do Something About It.”

We started by providing some background on the LEDES ebilling formats and information that is available on the www.LEDES.org web site. Then came the time for the discussion. As I opened the floor up to the session participants, asking for information on their issues … nothing. Crickets. (This is so typical of US meetings. People are so reluctant to speak up.) But Inemesit and I came prepared for just this situation. We had created lists of questions that we are often asked or issues that people need help with relative to legal ebilling. So we just started talking. Inemesit asked the questions, and I began to answer. As soon as I took a breath, Inemesit chimed in with more information. It was like a ping pong match! And absolutely wonderful. We both provided relevant, real life examples that helped to illustrate the issues and respond to the questions.

Once the session completed, we had about 10 people approach us to say how informative they found the session to be and how well we worked as a team in presenting. A handful more stopped by the LEDES booth to tell us about how they enjoyed the session.

If you would like a copy of the presentation, please use the Contact GLE feature in the menu.

By the way, this is the first time I have met Inemesit in person; she is new to the LEDES Board in 2024. I really enjoyed the opportunity to present with her. She is so smart!

LegalOps.com’s RLLB Conference

Posted on by in GLE On the Road

GLE founder Jane Bennitt will be attending LegalOps.com Running Legal Like a Business Conference in Las Vegas NV, 3-6 September 2024. Jane will be manning the LEDES Oversight Committee booth, and will be moderating an IP track session on September 4th at 11:00 AM entitled “IP Legal Spend Management: What Legal Operations Needs to Know.” Speaking with Jane on this topic will be Preston Heard (Womble Bond Dickinson), Carl Bowers (Lyft), Phil Henderson (Prokurio), and Subroto Bose (AsteraLabs).

This is Jane’s first time at RLLB and she is very excited about their new 9-session IP track. RLLB is the first major, general legal conference to include an IP track. Kudos to LegalOps.com!!!