The Litigation Management Scorecard is an execution strategy that enables insurers and insurance defense law firms to add value to electronic bill review by managing data and measuring performance with the goal of developing profitable bill management relationships through knowledge management applications… click here to learn more

The label " Bill Review" is an immediate flash point that will spark a heated debate between lawyers and litigation managers. Much of the impetus for the debate comes from its association with third party legal audits of insurance defense law firm bills. Those Litigation managers with practice management responsibilities in insurance defense are familiar with what has been a ten year legal battle between the insurance defense bar and insurers over the professional ethics associated with the forced disclosure of legal bills containing client information to third party auditors. This feature article will focus on bill review and provide both litigation departments and law firms with guidance on how to set up bill review system that works for both parties… click here to learn more

Third-party legal bill review/audit made good business sense to many litigation managers. The role of the third-party professional auditor is well recognized in the annals of business and finance. Unfortunately, it has come into serious conflict with one of the essential pillars of the legal profession: confidentiality. A number of case decisions by state supreme courts have ruled that to the extent legal bills go beyond the mere listing of invoice data and contain information relating to the defense of a litigation action they become working documents protected by Confidentiality Rule of Professional Conduct. If they are communicated to a non-essential third party outside of the service relationship, such as a bill reviewer, the protection is lost. The potential negative consequences associated with the loss of this protection have stalled, although not killed, third party bill review for the moment. More on the machinations of the ins and outs and dos and don'ts of third party bill review in subsequent articles. However, as a starting point it imperative that litigation managers have an informed understanding of what the basic theory and principles associated with confidentiality are… click here to learn more

Litigation managers involved in insurance defense claims may soon need a course in politics in order to do their job. What they often fail to understand is the degree to which a successful defense of an insurance claim does not just depend on the skill of their insurance defense law firm relative to the plaintiff's lawyer… click here to learn more

Accomplishment: Transformed IBM from a dinosaur to a global e-business services provider

Strategy: Ironically, although IBM was in the computer business, it was in danger of being left behind in the digital economy. Gerstner explains how he went about creating a vision and mission for IBM that would enable it to leverage its strengths. The strategy that grew out of that vision created a mindset that now dominates the current business environment:… click here to learn more