There’s a really great posting by Marie Burgess of Aderant for law firms called “Navigating the Complexities of Outside Counsel Guidelines” available here. (Couldn’t have said it any better myself.)
LOC Survey to Support Disrupting EB Status Quo Campaign
The LEDES Oversight Committee has launched a survey to identify ebilling issues as part of our “Disrupting the Ebilling Status Quo” campaign started last August. Our plan is to identify issues that can be “fixed” by the LOC. Follow-up may include: offering training programs; possibly retiring or updating existing standards or creating new standards; and writing about best practices and best of breed features to create demand for better solutions. For more information on the survey and our Disrupting the Ebilling Status Quo campaign, please go to www.LEDES.org.
It’s LegalTech Time Again
It’s time again for Legal Tech, this year January 31st through February 2nd at the New York Hilton. GLE will again be at the show, with Jane A. Bennitt scheduled to host the LEDES Oversight Committee annual member’s meeting that Tuesday morning at 9:00.
The show either is being rebranded or is affiliating with the name LegalWeek, which will be difficult for most of us veterans who have attended since the beginning of the conference to commit to memory.
See you at the conference!
Data Analytics Disconnect
A really great LinkedIn article by David Stephenson, Ph.D., on why business leaders are underwhelmed about the quality of tangible output from data analytics can be found here (a LinkedIn subscription is required).
Holiday Greetings 2016
Privacy Laws Around the World
Bloomberg Law has offered an excellent White Paper called “Privacy Laws Around the World” that is available for download with registration here.
Hard to believe but true…
Having been involved with legal ebilling for so long, I have always been interested in articles on fraud associated with legal billing. Hand-in-hand with this are articles that track embezzlement within law firms or law departments. With the technology available in this day and age I am amazed it still occurs and am perplexed by the arrogance of anyone who thinks they can get away with it. The Global Legal Post reported today on an instance where a former law office manager in Australia pled guilty to siphoning A$2.1M (!!!) from two trust accounts managed by her former firm between 2007 and 2015. Simply unbelievable…
New Law Firm Ebilling Compliance Tool
A new tool has been released by Smart Time Apps called EBillReady that is designed to perform pre-invoice submission validation. By increasing the accuracy of first time invoice submissions the tool helps to create a more efficient and less costly workflow.
The cloud-based system allows for creating validation tests based on client outside counsel guidelines and, by importing a LEDES file, will identify issues and provide a means to easily edit the ebill. To learn more go to their web site.
Changes to European Data Protection and Data Privacy
Linklaters has published an excellent White Paper on The General Data Protection Regulation. Changes associated with this regulation go into effect in Europe in May 2018 and represent “the biggest shake-up to Europe’s privacy laws for 20 years.” The paper is available here.
New Risk Management System at ILTA
At the ILTA Conference I saw a product worthy of mention. Called Prevalent, it is a risk management solution which provides information on the security of systems that may be used by any organization. They offer a couple of different models: one, where an organization can be a regular subscriber and receive information on the security or breeches of systems used or under consideration or, two, where an organization undergoing a system selection can obtain information on the few systems under consideration.
As a legal technology consultant, I see value in an offering like this. Particularly when undertaking a systems selection, an organization is able to receive unbiased information on the security of systems under consideration. Sure, you can ask questions on the security of a platform in an RFP, but all too often RFP respondents answer the question they want to answer, not necessarily the question asked. As we move into an age were security is a greater concern than ever before, an offering like Prevalent is well timed for success.