Archive for Productivity

The No Surprise Rule – A Key to Effective Management

By on November 5, 2011

I don’t know about you, but I only like surprises on my birthday and Christmas. Typically surprises at other times tend to be bad news. A rule I’ve always used with people that work for me or even with me is the “no surprise rule”. It’s quite simple, if there is bad news, the potential for bad news, an unhappy client, an accounting error, a software bug or the like, I want to first hear about it from the people closest to me. How embarrassing is it to get a call from a key client with a critical issue that you knew nothing about, but should have?

 In most cases, if you are getting surprised it’s because the organization around you hasn’t done their job. It could be your fault; maybe they are not encouraged to deliver bad news, or potential issues. Maybe a key manager tried to inform you of a potential risk, only to be crushed by your response. The manager won’t make that mistake again.

 The No Surprise Rule should encourage your team to effectively communicate, without the fear of having the messenger shot, or getting unduly chastised for making a mistake. Employees, or managers who don’t make mistakes are not learning very much and probably only doing low value tasks. As  Oscar Wilde once said; “Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes”.

Here is what you can do to implement the No Surprise Rule:

  1. Encourage your employees to tackle initiatives on their own, to “run with it” themselves. Let them know that you are supportive and available at any time to provide advice.
  2. Establish a routine communication forum, for example weekly meetings, where it becomes easy for an employee or manager to explain things that aren’t going well.
  3. When your people come to you with bad news indicate to them that you appreciate hearing about it sooner, than later and they did the right thing.
  4. Practice this same rule yourself, never surprise your employees. This is especially true for employee evaluations. Management has failed when an employee says, “why didn’t you tell me earlier”.
  5. Provide continual feedback, the biggest short-coming of a missed expectation is the lack of communication.

 Implementing the No Surprise Rule will improve effectiveness, client relationships, trust among teammates and by the way, those birthday and Christmas surprises will be that much more special.

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Categories: Best Practices, Management, Productivity, Uncategorized

You are not a Bank – Managing the Cash Cycle

By on October 23, 2011

Law firms are not banks. Banks are able to borrow money at almost no cost, and of course make money by charging interest and fees. Firms today are facing increased constraints in their management of cash. Unlike banks, they make no money on their “loaning” of money to clients in the form of client chargeable expenses. Firms need improved processes and tools to better manage cash flow.

The 2008-2011 economic downturn has resulted in a drop in billings, stretched out client payments and tougher access to lines of credit. One often overlooked source of cash is accounts payable, and the management of the overall spending process.

 Let’s take a look at the three-part Cash Management Cycle of a law firm. This cycle includes two assets and a liability; work in process (inventory), accounts receivable/collections and accounts payable. Accounts payables and the entire spend management process is often under managed.

 There are three ways firms can manage the overall cash spending process:

  1. Get more cash in advance, or keep from using firm cash for client expenses.
  2. Better manage the spending approval process with accountability and approvals.
  3. Better understand and manage actual cash payments.

 Here are some tips for getting more cash in advance or using less firm cash:

a)     For large client chargeable expenses such as outside experts or expert witness fees, financial audits, and so forth, arrange with the client for a direct payment “pass through”. In this case the vendor bills the firm for the expense, the firm approves the invoice and passes it directly to the client for payment. This way the firm never records the expense on its balance sheet and is not liable for payment. The firm should have the AP system track this pass through so as to respond to any vendor inquiries. Make sure the vendor understands the “pass through” process.

b)    Many clients are resistant to providing firms with big retainers, especially when they see the retainers being used for fees. Negotiate with clients to provide retainers designated for hard-cost expenses only. Your bill should always reflect expense retainer activity along with an image copy of each vendor invoice appearing on the bill. Your accounting system should handle this.

c)     Negotiate where possible with vendors providing client chargeable services that the firm will pay vendor invoices when the firm’s clients pay. Assure the vendor that all funds paid by the client will first be applied to “hard-costs” before firm fees are paid. Your system can automate this entire process without special handling.

 Here are some tips for managing the Spending Process:

a)     Implement a process requiring vendor invoices be approved by the person requesting the products or services along with at least one level of management. For example, a secretary and her billing attorney would approve an invoice for special outside copy expenses. It’s amazing how many invoices do not accurately represent the services either ordered or provided. An AP clerk would have no way of knowing this level of detail.

b)    Make people with spending budgets responsible for approving invoices. If a marketing manager has a budget and incentive for operating within budget allow the manager to have approval for all invoices being charged against this budget. Many firm managers with spending budgets never see or approve invoices prior to payment. They only see reports showing actual to budget performance periodically throughout the year. They never are engaged in approvals.

c)     Today’s accounts payable systems can easily align spending with management goals. Workflow technology allows staff and attorneys to approve all expenses before they are entered into accounts payable. Imaging of vendor invoices reduces costs and makes this process much easier.

 Here are some tips to better understand and manage actual cash payments:

a)     Understand your Average Payables Period (APP). APP is calculated by dividing the firm’s annual payables by 365 days, this provides the Average Daily Payables (ADP). Then divide the current accounts payable balance by this average to get the Average Payables Period. Can the firm increase the APP from say 30 to 40 days, generating an extra 10 days’ worth of ADP? You’re system should classify vendors who will allow their payables to be stretched, take advantage of their generosity.

b)    Negotiate for vendor discounts for faster payment cycles. For example ask the vendor for a 2% discount for payment in 10 days. This works well if the firm has reasonably good cash flow. Firms use to make money on bank “float”, interest made on short-term cash reserves. This is no longer the case and cash discounts for early payment might look attractive. Ask your vendor if there is an additional discount for ACH payment since it is quick and eliminates paper check processing.

  Law firms are not banks, Cash is King and firms can better manage their cash flow by better managing  the accounts payable process.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Management, Productivity

Security: how to ensure your software vendor is securing your information “in the cloud”. What to look for

By on October 9, 2011

I recently read an article on cloud computing security and implementation. Always considering moving legal “enterprise software” to the cloud, it reminded me how important it is to insure the utmost security for clients. The subject of security in a cloud environment is expansive, but here are a few things to look for in a cloud provider:

  1. Access Control
    It makes a user feel secure when asked for passwords, etc., but how secure is your provider’s routine maintenance and other back-end and front-end performance controls? This leads me to the next point…
  2. Internal Management Control
    In other words, who in the “cloud” organization is authorized to view your information?  Most cloud vendors have secure procedures in place.  One of the benefits of cloud computing is it circumvents storage of information on the in-house server; less risk of information leaking.  Very few cloud companies have had problems with internal “leakage,” and those that have are probably, newer. When dealing with a cloud vendor, just make sure the internal process is secure and proven.
  3. Internal Security
    A quality cloud software provider will have a secure authentication and authorization process in place, but not to the point of being annoying (of course). IP addresses should be checked and security breaches should be easily flagged. 
  4. Encryption
    This is kind of a no-brainer. Again, most cloud vendors honor this obvious requirement, yet some vendors either do not or cannot have encrypted information within the cloud. Internal encryption is the best case scenario and it’s something you ask for from the cloud software vendor. Additionally, the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS)-140 security standard specifies the requirements for cryptology modules.
  5. Internal/External Audits
    Even with all of the security red tape, intrusions still occur. How does your vendor detect a breach? The vendor should be capable of monitoring and measuring any breach of information and how will they communicate that to you? These are very important things to keep in mind when signing a service agreement.
  6. Disaster Recovery
    This is a must; every cloud vendor needs to have a back-up plan. They should be able to communicate this plan to you. This plan should be as solid as the back-up plan they have for the software itself. Also, any impending disasters should be communicated to you, in addition to how the disaster will be handled. All data should be protected at every level – no ifs ands or buts.

Cloud computing is a brave new frontier and there are many things to learn. What do you look for in a SaaS vendor?

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Going Green, Management, Productivity, Technology, Uncategorized

Collections – 6 Steps of Best Practices

By on October 2, 2011

I have written several blogs about the topic of Collections in a law firm. I even had a guest blogger from Lomurro, Davison, Eastman & Muñoz, P.A. talk about collecting payments. I have spoken about how software collections “wizards” can help organize and automate the process within the firm. But, how about the actual approach of collecting cash? There are many reasons why clients don’t pay bills; reasons ranging from cash flow worries to perceived bill discrepancies.  Here are a few tips and tricks to be the most effective and gracious “collector” as possible:

1. Wizards. Not to geek out on you here, but using a Collections “wizard” will ensure that you have crossed off all the “warning” options off the list.  Being informed – knowing what has already been done – is the first step to making sure you don’t embarrass yourself, catch someone off guard or risk losing a good client (if, in fact, they are).

2. Personalize. Although there are proven ways to collect from delinquent accounts, often taking into account the type of account and possible cash flow differences can help to get a client to pay. In other words, a small account with a large balance may be handled differently from a large account with a small balance. Sometimes asking a client how they’d like to pay is much better than just the “it’s overdue, pay now” approach.

3. Call. It is often tempting to hide behind letters and emails, but often hearing a human being’s legitimate (or not so legitimate) reason for the delinquency may shed some much-needed light on the subject and the firm may be able to work with the client on some sort of payment plan. This may also help to dispel the collector stereotype and humanize the situation. In addition, a phone call can often gauge whether an account was happy with the firm’s services. Often even corporate accounts can become evasive when it comes to service satisfaction. A phone call may help to get to the bottom of a client’s feelings and why they are avoiding payment.

4. Deal with the fact that you may actually lose the client. Albeit, it is a good thing to get rid of a bad client, but sometimes a good one will jump ship if they feel alienated. This is where good “strategory” comes into place. Try to sympathize with the good accounts and weed out the bad ones as needed. If a client is low on cash, try to empathize with them and work with them as much as you can.

5. Be specific. Make sure you have deadlines set in mind. General promises often fall to the wayside and will eventually frustrate both the collector and the client. When specific deadlines are set, no one can question whether something is late or not. These agreed to deadlines should be confirmed via email and automatically scheduled in the collections software for follow-up.

6. Ask. Be sure to ask clients if they are happy with your services on a regular basis. Giving clients an opportunity to voice their opinions – whether via a client satisfaction survey or even a simple follow-up email – helps to thwart any opportunity to take dissatisfaction out on an invoice. In addition, it makes for happy clients!

Whatever tactic your firm takes, be sure to always keep firm’s reputation in mind – word of mouth travels a long way! Good luck!

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Categories: Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Productivity

War of the Smart Phones: BlackBerry versus iPhone: which is the “smartest” for the business of law

By on September 25, 2011

I am sure this Blog post has been done before, but I really wanted to weigh in. At my company, the smart phone camp is somewhat divided. We have quickly dropping few “retro” smart phone users who prefer the Blackberry’s solid calendaring and Outlook capabilities and then we have the “newbies” who appreciate the flash and function iPhones and Androids have to offer. I made the switch from an ill-conceived Windows Mobile 6 phone to an Android Motorola Droid 2 Global and I’m happy with it. It has so many cool bells and whistles and I like the “pimped out” apps that come along with it. On a business level, the Blackberry has a long history, seems more solid, it’s been around longer and it seems more secure. So, really, based on facts alone, what smart phone is really better for the business of law? Let’s take a look (side: the following comparison is based on the BlackBerry Bold 9930 vs. iPhone4 (the iPhone5 will be released soon but specific specs are not yet 100% available) :

 

 

Features Blackberry Bold 9930 iPhone4
Security BlackBerry has traditionally been more secure than the iPhone. Case in point (and I read this on another Blog), it is used by the President and other government organizations. iPhone4 is more secure than its predecessors. According to the website: “All apps run in a safe environment, so a website or app can’t access data from other apps… iOS 4 works with Microsoft Exchange and standards-based servers to deliver over-the-air push email, calendar, and contacts. iOS 4 protects your data by encrypting information in three separate areas: in transmission, at rest on the device, and when backed up to iTunes. You can securely access private corporate networks through industry-standard VPN protocols.”
Calendaring A virtual full agenda planner. Offers fewer calendar views and fields.
Email Connectivity to the Microsoft Exchange server and the ease of mobile email make BlackBerry a better option for business, although iPhone is catching up. In 2009, the iPhone became compatible with Exchange Server, and it supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync accounts for business use, which makes it more business friendly. 
Battery 1230 mAh removable/
rechargeable lithium-ion batteryCDMA Talk Time: up to 6.6 hours
CDMA Standby Time: up to 12.8 daysSolid battery life. Users can usually make it through the day on one charge.		 Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery Talk time:Standby time: Up to 300 hours Internet use:Up to 6 hours on 3GUp to 10 hours on Wi-Fi

 

With all of the apps and screen size, the iPhone tends to suck up more battery power than the BlackBerry. With all of the “toys” included, it’s probably because the iPhone user can’t put it down.
Storage 768MB RAM, 8 GB eMMC,
Expandable memory: Up to 32 GB uSD card(optional) 		 16GB or 32GB flash driveThe iPhone has more storage, a faster CPU and more RAM making it a great candidate for game playing.
Keyboard Choice of touch screen and tactile buttons. Touch screen.
Video Can play videos, but no built-in video phone capability. iOS 4 integrates video chat into the phone over Wi-Fi
Web Browsing Small screen size. Tedious mobile browser.  Large display; multi-touch system. Touch screen makes the experience easier.
Apps Not super strong app-wise, but it does have the ones that lawyers need, including timekeeping and calendaring. Yes, there is an app for this and that.
Versatility Come in every shape, size and a few colors. You can get the Pearl flip phone or a new Storm touch screen or the standard Curve and it tends to be pretty durable. What you see is what you get. Touch screen it is, in black or white. And, sometimes that touch screen can crack very easily if dropped, etc.

 There you have it. At first glance, it seems the BlackBerry is a better option for legal business users; however my suspicions are that Blackberry users are flocking to the iPhone because it’s really cool. Security was once a major issue for the iPhone but it seems they have beefed up the security, especially while using apps.

 The BlackBerry was the stalwart provider, but, after reporting a very poor 2nd quarter this week with zero cash from operations one can only wonder how much longer they’ll even be a relevant competitor. I’d actually like to trade in my 3G Android for a Verizon LTE 4G phone, I’m just concerned about the cost of the data plan. How about you are you still using a Blackberry, why?

 

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Categories: Productivity, Technology, Uncategorized

Disaster Recovery – How to get an affordable plan in place

By on September 11, 2011

I would venture to say that in this point in time most mid and large sized firms have a dell documented and tested disaster recovery plan in place. If they do not, then – quite bluntly – they haven’t a clue. Most have created sites in remote locations that come Live” when something goes wrong. In addition, they have replicated data so that additional copies are available in almost real-time should hardware fail.

 So how about smaller firms, they too should have not only local data back-ups but also offsite storage. The costs of these items should be considered a “cost of business” expense. In the past, disaster recovery was something that only large enterprise businesses could afford. Now there are many tangible options for the smaller firm that may lack IT expertise and/or the budget to afford it.

 Here are a few options:

  1.  Try to use SaaS (Software as a Service), wherever possible. Whenever the vendor is hosting the application, there is almost always a back-up plan in place. In addition, if your system goes awry in the office, you can access the application, and all the information within, remotely.
  2.  Take it off-site. There are some super cheap back-up options out there. One option for smaller businesses is Carbonite – $49.95/year. Another is Dropbox and other shown on this web site link: http://freenuts.com/top-10-free-cloud-storage-services-for-you-to-back-up-and-sync-files/
  3. Duplicate info in-house. Some firms purchase a network attached storage box to store extra copies of data onsite. Some options are Iomega StorCenter Pro ix2-200 desktop appliance, Seagate BlackArmor NAS 110, LaCie d2 Network 2. These all run around $200, when it’s all said and done. Here is a good site to research network attached storage boxes: http://network-attached-storage-review.toptenreviews.com/. Most offer up to 4TB of storage and are available for less than $1,000.
  4.  Make sure to have a non-techie plan. Be sure to assign back-up plans firm-wide. Have someone in charge of calling departments in case of an emergency. Make sure to back-up copies of important documents, via hard copies. Review protocol and assignments. Don’t be in the dark.

 Disaster recovery, whether on a big or small budget, is a must for every firm. Make sure to know what resources are available, who is in charge of what and do what you can to insure a trouble free, data loss free process.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Productivity, Technology

Leveling the e-Billing Playing Field – Eliminate “Haircuts”

By on September 4, 2011

The e-billing battle plays itself out every day. Corporate clients and insurance carriers look to “enforce” their billing requirements and law firms look to get paid for work done even though it may not fully meet requirements. Lawyers would prefer to just practice law, but it’s just not that simple anymore.

As Mark Herrmann, Vice President and Chief Counsel – Litigation at Aon points out in his article “Inside Straight: The Truth Behind E-Billing”, clients have the benefit of using in-house computers to analyze e-bills more  efficiently, determine items that do not meet the rules and make short pay the firm. He states, “When clients make those adjustments in the world of e-bills, the law firms are typically able to press a button and print a report of the disallowed charges”. The client has the benefit, in many cases, of specially designed e-billing software that spin- through thousands of time and cost entries and kicks out entries that don’t conform to the billing rules.

In my experience, many firms do not have the option of “press a button and print a report of the disallowed charges”. They instead just accept a 2-5% “haircut” on e-bills as the costs of doing business. Till now firms just didn’t have a way of easily scanning hundreds or thousands of bills going out each month for compliance to client rules. It’s not that firms want to send out non-complying bills, it’s just too difficult to manage complex rules on a manual basis.

The solution, automated rules! Law firms can use newly introduced technology to electronically “scrub” bills before submitting them to clients. A flexible rules engine can, just like the clients in-house system, spin- through thousands of time and cost entries and kicks out entries that don’t conform to the billing rules.

Bill Scrubbing technology can level the e-billing playing field and allow firms to submit “clean bills” and eliminate “haircuts”.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Financial Management, Law firm billing, Management, Productivity, Technology

Migrating a Phone System to the Cloud – A Personal Journey

By on August 27, 2011

When Nortel went bankrupt in 2009, we were faced with a phone system that was at its end of life, expensive to maintain, impossible to upgrade and lacking in advanced features like unified messaging, find me-follow me, voicemail to email and built in multi-party conference rooms.

 We contacted our long-time, trusted consultant Rick Pommet of Nelson Communications who introduced us to the Abacus virtual PBX. We went live with the Abacus system on December 7, 2010 and have been overwhelmingly satisfied with the service. As I said to Rick at the time, “if half of what you say is true, I want it”.

 All call control, voice mail, conferencing and call center functionality reside on servers in a secure SunGard data center with full redundancy and geographic backup. We have no phone system equipment onsite except a secure gateway device installed between our site and the data center. All of the intelligence lives in the network and features are always on and accessible from any device – desk phone, smart phone, virtual extension, etc.

 We selected Polycom high definition (wideband audio) phones because of their superior quality and the built-in speakerphone. Listening to a voice on a “high definition” phone is quite an experience. The Abacus service is compatible with all SIP compatible phones including Cisco and smart phones – iPad2, iPhone, Android, Blackberry. We can mix and match devices so we will never be locked in to a single proprietary vendor.

 Our Blue Bell, PA and Richardson, TX offices are treated as one virtual PBX, so calls between offices are free “on net” calls. We share resources: call paths (sometimes called SIP trunks) and local, long distance minutes between the sites. Since our offices operate in two different time zones, we never max out on call paths because our respective busy hours are always 1hour apart. If we did exceed the number of call paths we subscribe to, we have a feature called “cloud bursting”, which automatically provisions more virtual circuits, but only when we need them.

 A business continuity (disaster recovery) plan is “baked in” so if we lose internet connectivity or power, our auto attendant and voice mail is replicated in the proverbial cloud. Callers are automatically re-routed to cell phones, home numbers, remote offices, and the caller will never know that it’s not business as usual. If no one answers, the caller goes to voice mail and the recipient gets an email with a .wav file attachment to play back the message. We got a lot of snow last year in Blue Bell, PA so we purchased an extra Polycom phone with a sidecar so our receptionist can work from home on snow days. That keeps everyone happy.

 Several of our sales representatives and implementation people work from home throughout the United States. This gives us the flexibility to hire local talent and recruit based on knowledge and skills rather than commuting distance from our corporate office. The virtual PBX platform makes the home workers an integrated part of the overall look and feel of our organization.  

 Was the transition problem free? No. We had a major cutover problem that resulted in seriously degraded voice quality calls in our satellite office. In our Blue Bell headquarters, we had diverse internet providers and were able to separate voice traffic from data traffic. Blue Bell went “live” without issue. We installed a 3.0 bonded T1 VPN between Blue Bell and Richardson. The plan was to share the bandwidth in Richardson between voice and data. In theory, there was plenty of bandwidth to go around. Our carrier improperly configured the circuit so 100% of the bandwidth was allocated to VPN traffic between our sites. This killed the VoIP calls. The problem took an inordinate amount of time to resolve because the carrier could not “see” any errors in their router. Abacus worked with our consultant and the carrier and the reports provided by our session border controller gateway, and convinced the carrier to “nail down” the bandwidth, i.e. allocate 1.5 Mbps to voice and 1.5 Mbps to data. This solved the problem temporarily but was not a permanent solution because we would never benefit from the full 3.0 Mbps we were promised on the data side. Long story short, we implemented “Plan B” and added a diverse internet carrier in our Richardson office and split off the voice from the data. Our consultant negotiated three months credit with our carrier for the mishap. And I learned more than I cared to know about bandwidth allocation.

 We do a lot of conference calling, and now, every employee can have their own conference bridge and set up ad hoc conference calls on the fly. This service is integrated into our virtual PBX and we were able to transition from a 3rd party conference service that was more expensive. Everyone is happy with the call quality built into the network and the Polycom phones.

 We’ve been told that IP Fax will be integrated into our virtual PBX this month. We’ll be comparing those costs to our 3rd party fax service down the road. One of the advantages to a hosted PBX is that as new features are added, they become available automatically to everyone on the network. There are no hardware upgrades, software updates, bug fixes, licenses, maintenance contracts, etc. to worry about.

 Our new service meets our needs and our total monthly costs are less -not a bad deal in this economy.

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Categories: Management, Productivity, Technology

5 Important “non-legal” soft skills needed in a law firm

By on August 21, 2011

Life in a law firm can sometimes be very difficult, dealing with stress, multiple bosses (partners) and tons of ego’s can make life unbearable at times. Many times you need more than legal-specific skills to be successful or even keep your job during a down-sizing. These are often called “soft skills”. Wikipedia points out that, “The legal profession is one example where the ability to deal with people effectively and politely, more than their mere occupational skills, can determine the professional success of a lawyer.” Let’s take a look at some of these Interpersonal Skills.

  1. Conflict Resolution. This is the ability to persuade, negotiate resulting in a win-win outcome. Law firms have a very diverse group of people and opinions, the ability to navigate conflict without sacrificing core values is quite important.
  2. Strong Work Ethic. This trait is the first often noticed with a new employee. Motivated and  dedicated employees become the most valuable, even if they aren’t at the top in specific skill sets.
  3. Problem – Solving. Some employees and managers have an innate ability to see through problems and are resourceful enough to solve them.
  4.  Teamwork. Not all employees can work well as part of a team, they are more comfortable being lone-rangers. Being a team-player doesn’t always mean being the leader, sometime it means being a  great follower. Teams meet deadlines, solve problems and accomplish goals that lone-rangers just can’t achieve.
  5. Working Under Pressure. No all employees can deal with stress, other tend to do their best work when pressed into tough situations. Working under pressure is definitely a skill and it take a confident and flexible individual who can remain calm during a workplace storm.

 These soft skills are valuable in any business. They can be self-taught, learned from a mentor or in some cases developed from classes such as “leadership skills”. In any case employees and managers with these skills become valuable to any organization.

 

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Categories: Best Practices, Management, Productivity

Changing the Billing Paradigm – Parts 6, 7 & 8: Dealing with the entire Pre-billing Process

By on July 10, 2011

Law firms can improve cash flow and increase profitability if they improve their billing process and practices.

 The client billing process, in many firms is based on a slow, painful monthly schedule. Why … because it’s always been that way. In part 1 of this series we identified the nine (9) current painful and costly steps to client billing. In this posting we’ll discuss the issue of the entire pre-billing process.

 Here is how to improve cash flow and profitability by dealing with both the pre-bill process and the attorneys who review the pre-bills:

  1. The entire pre-bill review process is, quite frankly a poor process to start with. Why do you need to review a pre-bill, what are you looking for? Time entered against the wrong client/matter, time that can’t be billed, lousy narrative …. this is like taking every car off the production line and having to redo poor workmanship in the QA department.
  2. Should bills be reviewed, maybe the larger, more complex ones. If the billing attorney properly supervises work done on his/her matters, a complete pre-bill review should not be necessary.
  3. Pre-bill reviews should be done to match the continual billing throughout the month as covered in my earlier post.
  4. Print pre-bills on a slightly off color paper so that they are real easy to recognize on a crowded desk. .
  5. Set a pre-bill review deadline, for example 3 business days after delivery. Enforce this review time. Where possible allow secretaries to edit narrative for all pre-bill changes and accounting can do such things as adjustments and transfers. Maintain an ongoing list of all outstanding pre-bills by billing attorney, if they are late contact them or their secretaries and work out a timeframe for submission.

 In summary, getting pre-bills reviewed and ready for billing is the final critical step and sometimes the most costly one.

 In the next post we’ll look at finalizing bills and getting them to the clients, why is it a problem and what can you do to improve the process and become more profitable.

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Categories: AFA - alternative fee arrangement, Best Practices, Law firm billing, Productivity
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