legal fee advisors’ value proposition: reducing outside legal bills and meeting client...
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Legal Fee Advisors © 2015
Legal Fee Advisors’ Value Proposition: Reducing Outside Legal Bills and Meeting Client Expectations
Common Corporate Goals: Basic Questions:
1. How can Companies make the best use of their budgets for legal services while involving its law firms in constructive change?
2. How can Companies not just reduce cost, but be more effective with their legal spend?
3. How can stretched in-house staff be freed from endless bill review?
Legal Fee Advisors’ Answer:Legal Fee Advisors implements: (1)streamlined billing standards and procedures, concentrating only on the most important billing issues; and (2) efficient monitoring techniques, using US-based, experienced legal staff, freeing in-house staff to do what they do best. Result: Fair billing, elimination of wasted corporate time and strengthening of law firm relationships.
Legal Fee Advisors uses a proven formula for achieving fair legal billing:
From 30,000 feet: What is the value
of the legal transaction to
Clients?
Do bill monitoring systems achieve
efficiency and transparency, while
preserving firm relationships?
Value Analysis +
Fair billing rules and fair monitoring systems
= Lean, transparent and efficient legal spend
Legal Fee Advisors combines unique attributes to outperform others. How are we different?►Specialists in legal bill cost control: Legal bill monitoring and cost control is Legal Fee Advisors’ core business, not one of many departments. We do not sell software or other products. We create positive change.►Attorneys who understand legal billing from decades of experience - we are not bill cutters: Many legal billing consultants are not attorneys, and have no direct experience with legal billing. We have been in the trenches for decades. We are insiders. We prefer joint efforts with law firms and create “buy in” with firms to create efficiency. We understand how lawyers work.►Concentration on why bills are inefficient – not just on measuring data points: Many non-attorney legal billing consultants don’t know why legal billing may be uncontrolled from their own experience. We provide answers: billing issues can be stopped at the root cause: attorney behavior and lack of agreement with clients.Legal Fee Advisors’ specialists provide unique insight into the root causes of billing efficiency – and the best way to fix the problems.
Legal Fee Advisor’s basic process for improving value:
1. Analyze
Analyze reasons for legal fee billing issues and obtain a baseline
2. Revise
Reform and revise billing guidelines to ensure fair & reasonable billing practices
3. Change Management
Blend revised standards into corporate culture and assist with law firm buy-in
4. Monitoring
Monitoring billings to ensure ongoing compliance
Legal Fee Advisor’s basic process for improving value:
1. Analyze
Analyze reasons for legal fee billing issues and obtain a baseline
2. Revise
Reform and revise billing guidelines to ensure fair & reasonable billing practices
3. Change Management
Blend revised standards into corporate culture and assist with law firm buy-in
4. Monitoring
Monitoring billings to ensure ongoing compliance
Legal Fee Advisor’s basic process for improving value:
1. Analyze Analyze reasons for legal fee billing issues and obtain a baseline
2. Revise Reform and revise billing guidelines to ensure fair & reasonable billing practices
3. Change ManagementBlend revised standards into corporate culture and assist with law firm buy-in
4. MonitoringMonitoring billings to ensure ongoing compliance
Legal Fee Advisors’ process for legal fee reduction and control:
Rate ofSaving
Savings increase asrules are implemented by contractwith auditing for compliance
Step 1: Creation of agreed, measurablebilling rules + E BillingPlatform coordination
Step 2: Implement Fair, measurablebilling rules by contract with firms
Step 3: Audit of billing rules for compliance + measureresults
Legal Fee Advisors’ proposed auditing work flow:
Law Firm: submits invoice
E Billing platform: reviews for pre-set charging issues and flags for issues
LFA: reviews charges for subjective issues. ID’s red, green, yellow issues
LFA: allows firm to correct red/yellow issues
LFA: recommends payment of adjusted invoice to client
Client: pays invoice
Notes:1. Law firm has contractually agreed to measurable rules2. LFA’s turnaround time approximately 72 hours in most cases3. Firms self-correct billing issues in 90% of cases, eliminating time consuming
“appeals”
Corporate Challenge: How to Create Reasonable, Effective Billing Standards?Solutions:1. Focus on Areas of Reasonable Agreement: Many fair-minded firms agree on common sense standards. Firm buy-in is crucial.
2. Focus on Standards that Create Real Efficiency and Savings: Concentrate on standards that make an economic difference.
3. Focus on Standards that Create Transparency: Require that billing entries are clear, fairly describing the value to the client.
4. Focus on Standards that can be Monitored with Clarity: The best standards are clear, flexible and easily enforced.
5. Benefit from Industry Best Practices and Cooperation: Legal Fee Advisors knows how to get results, maximizing the effectiveness of e-billing.
Conclusion: LFA helps clients efficiently create billing standards that work
Representative Clients•Humana•Telephone & Data Systems, Inc.•Universal Music Group•WL Gore•Intuitive Surgical •JC Penney•KB Home•Washington Mutual
•Credit Suisse •Continuant •The NFL•Fidelity National Financial•Lloyds Underwriters•Johnson Matthey•BAE
More Information?
Contact Information:[email protected]
41 E 11th St., 11th FloorNew York, NY 10003legalfeeadvisors.com