Litigation Advisor Electronic Billing
litigation advisor electronic billing
The online business model emerges to provide substantial assistance to the business firms
The emergence of the internet in the past decade has brought about a revolution in the business world. The legal market has seen the emergence of many new technologies that could save solicitors a lot of time and money. Electronic filing is a recent phenomenon that allows firms to store all client files in an electronic database. All documents are scanned and stored in an online system and so can be accessed from any location at any time. This ultimately allows for less office space to be occupied and reduces problems associated with lost or misplaced files. Automatic document assembly is a new technology that produces a rough draft of a required document, and so reduces the amount of time that a lawyer spends drafting and producing documents, thus saving costs. New technology allows these document assembly systems to be delivered across the internet and so can be used by all clients.
Another innovation that has emerged in the UK is online legal matchmaking, whereby clients submit requests online which are sent only to suitable law firms that are in a position to deal with their claim. Takelegaladvice.com was established in 2006, and it provides this service. Clients are put in touch with the appropriate lawyers whilst having access to reviews and feedback from other clients. This makes the whole process of finding a legal advisor more transparent.
Another tool that can be used by clients is client relationship systems, whereby clients can track the progress of their case through an online system. He compares it to the way in which we can track the progress of an order on Amazon, thus enabling the client to anticipate how much the job is going to cost, making the whole process more transparent.
In recent years, both the US and Britain have seen the emergence of a new model law firm that uses technology to cut costs. This new model differs from the traditional law firm in that the Commercial solicitors work from home offices, saving a huge amount of overhead expenses and so offering cheaper legal advice to clients. Software systems that enable freelance lawyers to access web based servers and document management systems have brought about this alternative business model. All administrative and secretarial support is provided for the solicitors in a small central office, into which they all pay a small commission. The firm acts as a central hub so it deals with billing, insurance and marketing and essentially provides lawyers with a brand. It also serves as a base whereby lawyers can be contacted and so gives lawyers who would otherwise be going solo the back up services they require to run more efficiently and to offer legal advice at a more competitive rate. The research has illustrated how viable this alternative business model might be in the Irish legal market, and whether or not we are likely to follow trends seen in the US and Britain.
This business model has been around in the USA since 2000. Axiom Legal, the market leader in the USA has a number of offices across the USA and has clients such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Cisco, Google and Yahoo. Solicitors are not the only professional service providers to have implemented this. Eden McCallum, a management consulting firm in Britain, established in 2000, operates in this way. It has been hugely successful and is now the second biggest strategy consulting firm in London after McKinsey.
