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I’ve recently been following several online forum discussions about eBilling and the increased focus on electronic invoicing as a method of cost effectiveness and process efficiency, both direct and indirect.  I find these discussions interesting because of the passion expressed by most posters about a topic I frankly considered passé.  Essentially, the majority of posters on these threads either lament the failure of eBilling (a 12-year experiment with little relative adoption) or herald the intrinsic business value of standardized electronic invoice transmission formats (and in particular the wealth of data they provide).

It seems to me, however, that there’s one point people seem to consistently overlook. eBilling is, at its heart, a mechanism for transmitting bills – a new way of performing an age old function. Sure, the by-product of the process is a wealth of additional data, and you can employ automated auditing to review some components of bills before they reach human eyes, but raw information does not a benchmark make.

The fact is, the failure of eBilling, as many attest, is not in eBilling at all. It’s not the fault of LEDES or UTBMS, or any other coding or transmittal standards. The failure lies in the matter management and other information systems that have not delivered on the supposed promise of “targeted information mining” and “pragmatic benchmarking” that the proliferation of eBilling data was supposed to open the gates to. What’s more, law departments that have spent some time mining their eBilling data have spent a lot of time discovering what they already knew: it’s hard to compare services between and among firms, and the efficiency and effectiveness of those services, because most legal projects are not “apples to apples.” For those that are similar enough to compare, they’re generally commodity services, and the market has figured out ways to address cost parity there.

To be a “next generation” technology, what we should focus on is the potential for eBilling to serve as a powerful conduit between client and provider. In an ever-evolving world of Web2.0 technologies and emerging communities of practice, could eBilling not be a “gateway technology” to more meaningful collaborative relationships between law departments and law firms? I tend to believe that stronger relationships produce greater results.

ILTA ‘09 Recap

September 4th, 2009 by IP Warrior

Thanks to all for a warm welcome at ILTA 2009 at the Gaylord National Resort just south of Washington, DC! Attendance was down this year, to be sure, but perhaps because of the more intimate atmosphere, I think there was generally congenial attitude focused on learning and peer collaboration. I met with many great law firm technology leaders and vendors, and was generally impressed with the level of discourse. Though my experience at the conference may not echo everyone’s, I offer my thoughts on the prevailing themes of the week:

1.       Social Networking. Blogs and Wikis and Forums, oh my! I saw lots of attention paid to “new media” technologies, but perhaps not enough emphasis on evolving paradigms. There were many questions raised and discussed regarding the use and application of collaborative technologies, and the transition to social networking technologies as facilitators of said collaboration. But I found little information as to what business value Twittering actually had. For the record, I’m of the school of thought that Twitter disconnects us more than it connects as a society and particularly as colleagues and business partners (but that’s another topic altogether!) I think there’s so much more to this, and will write about this topic more in the coming weeks.
 
2.       Workflow.  I was pleasantly surprised to witness a heightened discourse on the value of automating routine tasks and leveraging technology to facilitate more productive and effective work product. I’ve been heralding this manifesto for many years! I was also pleasantly surprised to meet with many vendors who are working on addressing specific business challenges with directed technology solutions. Most impressive were the ideas presented by IntApp, Metastorm, and American Legal Net. But it’s time to put finger to keyboard, as it were, and start “shrink-wrapping” real solutions.
 
3.       Alternative Fee Arrangements. Though this exact phrase was rarely used, the theme was pervasive – how do we get beyond the billable hour. This was an interesting topic for me. Perhaps because it was conducted among technologists, but it really seems to me that this discussion is all wrong. At the conference, the issue of AFA’s focused primarily on leveraging technologies to automate and essentially commoditize existing work and business models – more efficient practices mean higher margins on fixed-bid projects. But I think we can collectively think more creatively about this issue. In my opinion, AFA’s are simply business constructs. They irritate lawyers because a.) lawyers are not business-people, and b.) they don’t think outside the billable hour (see a.). But technology, used effectively, can be positioned as a competitive advantage, especially when it leverages the two themes above: what about cross-platform workflows (integrating law firm and client internal processes) that are pushed by, or at least informed by, social networks?
 
4.       Business Continuity Planning. H1N1 is on everyone’s mind. On the Tuesday of the conference, the front page of the USA Today delivered to my room ran a front page story on the impending doom: 90,000 deaths expected this fall, 2 million hospitalized and HALF the US population exposed. Pandemic planning was a strong theme, whether it focused on HR issues, productivity concerns, or availability of technology to facilitate a potentially vast remote workforce.  My colleague Pam Hill participated on two panels specific to pandemic and disaster planning, and blogs regularly on the topic here.
 
5.       E-Discovery. What’s there to say here that one of the 800 E-Discovery vendors didn’t already cover??

Welcome to the IP Warrior!

March 1st, 2009 by IP Warrior

I’m very pleased to introduce the launch of the IP Warrior Blog.  In coordination with the folks at LegalQB, we’ve launched this blog as a forum for discussion of things related to the business of intellectual property practices. 

I’ve been consulting to law firms and corporations on the challenges of the business of IP for over a dozen years.  And if there’s one thing that’s remained constant over all that time it’s that this industry is constantly changing and evolving.  Not only is the law of IP prosecution changing rapidly to address business operational concerns worldwide, but the ways we use and value IP have transformed our prevailing business models.  

I speak and consult with law firms and corporations daily on issues that affect IP and the ancillary processes that manage it, so I hope to use this blog to share my thoughts and occasional wisdom. I also hope that you, as the reader, will engage with me and provide your feedback and experiences.  

Our goal is to raise the level of dialogue in our community.