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The John G. Kelly Editorial Comment:
You can manage what you don’t know! Litigation managers don’t know enough about law firm bill management. Think of this issue as an introductory learning experience to begin to change this dynamic. The Litigation Management Strategy article on Law Firm Bill Management is a primer on the topic. These are the sorts of questions litigation managers should be putting to law firms. The smart ones are either in the process or ready to start implementing the sort of bill management program profiled in the article. On the one hand, the leaders who have taken the leap and gravitated to best practices level bill management feel frustrated in not being given credit for having taken the initiative. On the other hand, the laggards feel little compulsion to implement a program their client never specifies as being a prerequisite to doing business. Find out who is on base and who is not on base.
The John G. Kelly Report provides Litigation Management Report readers with an exclusive insider’s look at the law firm side of the UTBMS Update Initiative. It is certainly a cause for concern, but a concern for which litigation managers need to take some of the blame. What I want to draw your attention to is the symposium planned for Orlando on January 19, 2006 that is intended to look at solutions. In short, the insurance defense initiative is moving full steam ahead. It is an invitation only event that is limited to approximately 35 participants – an equal mix of insurers and insurance defense lawyers. If you have any issues you want raised at the session or believe that you have a special contribution to make that warrants your attendance, let me know by sending me a short e-mail at johngkelly@rogers.com
The Ideas book focuses on James D. Womack and Daniel T. Jones recent best selling business book, Lean Solutions. I included this book in the law firm billing mix because of the insight it provides litigation managers on how service providers in general are looking to shorten the service process loop. Ask yourself, if everyone else is doing this why aren’t my service providers. This is a book I recommend you send to the practice management partner at your major outsourced law firms and suggest they respond in kind with just one idea that conforms to the lean solutions mantra. If you get even one constructive responsive what a difference it will make.
As you can read from the closing sentence in the last paragraph, I am ending 2005 on a very optimistic note. So should you. I have some exciting and informative information in store for you in 2006!
Enjoy
John
| Litigation
Management Strategy |
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Law Firm Bill Management
Any defense firm that assures you they are in tune with your billing guidelines and is working to streamline the invoice submission and bill review process should have an internal bill management solution in place. It is time you rewarded firms that do with more business and bluntly told firms that do not that they must either get with the program or face the loss of referrals. This article will provide litigation managers with a template on what to expect as a best practices level of bill management from outside law firms.... click here
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| John
G. Kelly Report |
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What Law Firms Think About UTBMS An Exclusive UTBMS Insurance Sub-Committee Update
Insurance defense law firms are on to the task coding of their legal bills. But are they with the UTBMS program or merely “following orders?” I have been conducting a teleconference survey of insurance defense firms in conjunction with the UTBMS Update Initiative I referred to in the previous edition of the LMR. Here is a sample of what law firms have to say about complying with UTBMS electronic billing guidelines for their insurer clients. It is a wake up call for litigation managers... click here
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| Ideas |
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Lean Solutions
How Customers and Companies
Can Create Value and Wealth Together
James D. Womack
Daniel T. Jones
Free Press a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. (2005)
Who do service providers think they are fooling by providing poor follow up service to customers? Do they really think we believe that “your call is important to us” when we are made to wait on the line to speak to a service representative who, when we finally do speak to them, is a minimally trained outsourced call center agent who can’t answer the questions we put to them? If you are already nodding your head and prepared to vent your latest frustration with the inadequacy of service solutions, then Womack and Jones have a proposition that will be of interest to you.... click
here to learn more
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