Achieving End-to-End Guideline Compliance: 10 Questions to Consider
Law firms are facing more and more pressure with the rise of evolving Outside Counsel Guidelines (OCGs)—complying the first time, every time, can feel like an impossible task. OCGs, also known as Service Level Agreements (SLAs), are increasing in complexity while broadening in scope; from security and timekeeping/billing, to rates, budgets, staffing, work product, and much more. The rise of OCGs and the difficulties in managing and complying with them create many challenges. For firms ready to overcome their compliance challenges, we’ve compiled ten questions to consider:
1. What’s your client guideline intake process?
When onboarding new clients, your firm should rely on a standard, consistent process to ensure accuracy in client guideline intake. Knowing who is responsible for each step and where the guidelines should be stored ensures visibility for all those who may need to access them.
2. How does your firm organize client-provided guidelines?
By surfacing important information from guidelines and categorizing them logically by department or area, your firm can transform the often-tedious process of manually searching through guidelines into an efficient one. Using a pre-trained solution that identifies and categorizes guidelines for you, firms can almost instantly reduce the time spent on the intake process, rather than having to start from scratch and delay the process further.
3. Do you have a cohesive internal guideline distribution process?
It’s important for firms to make sure that the relevant portion of each guideline is not only distributed to the appropriate teams but also that receipt is acknowledged. Automated processes that alert timekeepers of new guidelines for their matters are valuable tools for ensuring guidelines are received.
4. What’s your billing team’s intake process?
Optimizing the process after initial matter set-up is a proactive way for firms to remove bottlenecks that would otherwise occur at the point of billing. The ideal intake process includes automating necessary workflows and notifications on client-required tasks, such as:
- Matter setup on the eBill vendor website
- Reconciling the firm’s matter data to/from the vendor site
- Submitting budgets
- Ensuring client acceptance
Firms should be sure they’ve completed all prerequisites on day one, rather than on day ninety-one when the first invoice is set to be delivered.
5. How does your firm manage approved timekeepers for each matter?
To avoid billing rejections and wasted resources, it’s important to verify that each staff member working on a matter has been approved to do so at their proper rate. With roles often shifting within a firm, managing approved timekeepers on a matter is not a one-off task, rather, firms must be consistent in reverifying approvals for each matter.
6. Are your timekeepers in the loop?
The key to compliance is ensuring that timekeepers know exactly what is expected of them. Periodic in-house guideline training sessions can equip them with the information they need to record their time the right way, the very first time.
7. Is rule enforcement consistent?
Rule and guideline enforcement relies on consistency to be successful. When your firm has the proper systems in place to identify non-compliance and enact penalties upon the offending parties, staff are more likely to learn from their mistakes and avoid repeating them in the future.
8. Does your firm use automatic validation of billing rules at the point of eBilling?
Automatic validation ensures that instead of wasting time and money on a drawn-out appeals process, your firm can promptly receive payment in full by submitting an accurate invoice on the first attempt. By being proactive, rather than reactive, you can minimize financial loss, improve payment cycle performance, and foster confidence in client relationships.
9. Are you using analytics to improve the billing process?
With analytics insights, you’ll be able to catch errors earlier in the process and make better data-driven business decisions. Learning from past mistakes means that your firm can improve processes to eliminate compliance headaches.
10. Is your firm consistently monitoring guidelines?
Much like the need to reverify timekeeper approvals on a regular basis, your firm should consistently monitor client guidelines for additional requirements or addendums to avoid lost revenue and ensure client satisfaction throughout the entire process.
By reflecting on internal timekeeping and billing processes, you can identify and address areas ripe for improvement and make full compliance with client-provided guidelines a reality for your firm. If you struggled to answer any of the questions above or would like more information on how your firm can improve in certain areas, get in touch with our team of compliance experts and put their years of experience managing OCGs to work for you!
