The Complete Guide to Legal Vendor Management

The Brooklyn Bar Association Fee Dispute Resolution Program is set up to assist in the resolution of fee disputes between lawyers and clients through arbitration. Sinead is the Director of Customer Insights at Brightflag, and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Law and Accounting from the University of Limerick. She previously worked as a Solicitor with Matheson LLP, Ireland’s largest law firm, and is widely regarded as a thought leader in the legal technology space. Be sure to also update vendors as your team’s goals and legal priorities change and to clearly outline new processes to be followed and any new expectations on both sides. Finally, keep in mind that changes aren’t necessarily “one-time fixes.” Reviewing, monitoring, and improving vendor relationships over time is often the key to long-term success.

Invoice management

Tracking and understanding spend by creating spreadsheets from scratch is time-consuming and error-prone. A legal e-Billing system provides a much more efficient and accurate solution. Most e-Billing solutions also simplify the process of invoice approval, reducing email back-and-forth. You can send invoices to the appropriate party within the software and easily include a summary and relevant budget and accrual information. The software will also alert you once the reviewer has approved or rejected an invoice.

Advanced Financial Solutions

• Imagine asking your e-billing platform which law firms are resourcing your matters most efficiently and getting an immediate answer, not a report.
• Most general use accounting and billing software, such as Quickbooks and BQE, can be used with no issue, but legal billing software is designed with law firms in mind.
• If the answer to the second question is yes, it’s worth digging into why that’s the case.
• Legal e-billing software can help a law firm process, deliver, and collect payment for invoices faster than ever before.

Billing guidelines and policies should also https://www.bookstime.com/articles/legal-e-billing be reviewed and adjusted periodically to ensure they align with the objectives of your legal team. For in-house legal teams, sifting through stacks of paper invoices, reviewing thousands of invoice line items, and ensuring timely payments takes too much time and effort. Sign up for a free trial or free demo with PracticePanther today and experience firsthand how our platform can transform your billing processes, operations, and client relationships.

Should Your Firm Use E-Billing Software?

However, it’s often a better idea to start by prioritizing specific, immediate “fixes” that would go a long way towards solving your team’s most pressing pain points. If the answer to the second question is yes, it’s worth digging into why that’s the case. It may be that one of the similar firms you work with offers expertise in a highly niche area (e.g., regulatory compliance within one aspect of your industry) in addition to the general practice areas they cover. Choose the Essentials plan if you don’t mind handling billing yourself and have simple reporting needs. With limited reporting and accounting features, TimeSolv is a good fit for smaller firms with less complex needs.

It’s also a strong fit for nonprofit organizations, which can use the software for free. Interested in learning more, check out our e-Billing and spend management solution. As discussed, the benefits of e-billing greatly outnumber any risks or effort needed to get it up and running.

• Law firms are making a greater effort to become digitized and transparent to address the needs of current clients.
• These solutions are easy to implement, proven to increase revenue, intuitive to use, and securely synced with the cloud, so there’s no good reason not to use them.
• Legal e-billing management programs hold transformative possibilities for lawyers.
• In a well-designed e-billing solution, law firms can submit their invoices electronically through a secure portal.
• Our scalable solution is built to meet the unique challenges of any legal practice, no matter the size.

Helps quantify the value of legal ops teams

• As trust builds and disputes lessen, invoices are paid more quickly and law firms have a steady cash flow.
• Client portals represent another significant technological advancement in legal billing.
• Founded in 2008, Rocket Matter is an all-in-one legal practice management platform designed for small and mid-sized law firms.
• Collaborati is a global legal e-billing software solution used by over 14,000 law firms and vendors in 160 countries around the world.
• Access expert advice and proven strategies for effective financial management.

Rocket Matter lets you set up automated billing, so invoices will be sent out on a chosen schedule based on your billable hours and expenses. The platform includes conflicts management and adjusting entries trust accounting for your law firm’s unique needs. Brightflag’s e-billing software solution has unique AI capabilities that allow corporate legal teams to make faster and more informed legal spend management decisions. Our system makes it easier to follow outside counsel guidelines for external legal counsel, potentially cutting your legal expenditures by as much as 20%. In a well-designed e-billing solution, law firms can submit their invoices electronically through a secure portal. This stage can include automatic validation checks, powered by AI, that screen for common errors or non-compliance with billing guidelines and significantly reduce the time spent on manual checks.

Faster Payment of Invoices

With e-Billing, legal teams no Legal E-Billing longer have to review stacks of paper bills and manually enter line items into spreadsheets to generate reports. Legal e-billing, short for legal electronic billing, is basically a system that simplifies the entire billing process. By harnessing the power of technology, it allows lawyers to effortlessly track their time and expenses—as well as create, review, and deliver invoices to clients electronically.

Where it makes sense, use specific metrics to measure success — like percentage reduced legal spend, time to resolve legal requests or time spent processing invoices. A robust program should also cover how your team will address problems or inefficiencies as they arise. Finally, measuring and sharing success is central to building trust and driving ongoing support for your strategy. It is important to establish metrics such as cost savings, reduced resolution times, or improved service delivery. These results can then be used to demonstrate the program’s impact and strengthen buy-in across your organization. Invoice and payment records can be quickly accessed and searched, making it easy to identify discrepancies in billing, ensure accuracy, and flag any potential issues.