Accountability Services, a legal auditing and legal cost control specialist, can help you dramatically reduce your legal fees without sacrificing quality. We are distinguished in the market place by an approach to litigation management and legal cost control that acknowledges the importance of the attorney-client relationship. In fact, one of our clients told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that our legal cost control techniques strengthened its ties to its law firms.

There is no question that legal fees are higher than they should be. Legal costs are no different from any other cost. If unmanaged, they will skyrocket. Legal cost control and litigation management does not have to be an adversarial process. However, clients need the tools to actively manage their attorneys. Experience has shown that clients who use traditional managerial techniques with their attorneys can manage litigation costs and dramatically reduce their legal fees without adversely affecting the attorney/client relationship.

While legal auditing is certainly appropriate in a number of situations, our experience has shown that prospective legal management programs that create and maintain a relationship of trust and mutual respect with outside counsel are the most effective.

In essence, our legal cost control techniques can help you identify the problems, define the objectives and implement your quality control and cost control solutions.

Identifying the Problems that Increase Your Legal Bills

Before you take bold or even modest initiatives to reduce legal fees, you need to know how wisely you have spent and are spending your legal dollars.  To get this information, you might consider: 

Legal Auditing:  

Legal audits are designed to quantify the financial impact of any legal fee billing abuse, inefficiency or fraud that may have taken place. Our attorneys scrutinize all time charges and expenses with the assistance of our proprietary software.  Underlying documentation is reviewed to assist our attorneys in determining, among other things, whether the time taken to complete particular tasks was reasonable.  Our audits culminate in a written report that provides a solid foundation for negotiating a settlement with your law firm. In the event that your case goes to trial, Accountability Services stands ready to give Expert Testimony regarding attorney's fees at depositions, hearings or trials. 

Legal auditing is an effective response to a number of situations, including:
          ●  Legal Fee disputes that cannot be resolved
          ●  Statutory legal fee applications
          ●  Suspected fraud or billing abuses
          ●  Third party payment of legal bills

Historic Review of Legal Bills:

These reviews focus on law firms’ compliance with your legal management and billing policies, the efficiency of the law firm, the productivity of each timekeeper, the patterns or practices that artificially increased your legal bills, and the potential for cost-saving measures. The historic review will provide you with the insights necessary for sound legal cost management and cost reductions and will immediately change the way your firms bill and staff your matters.

Benchmarking Law Firms' Costs and Efficiencies:

Benchmarking is a popular management tool, either standing alone or as part of a total quality management program.  Accountability Services uses this technique to reduce outside attorney fees by identifying the most efficient law firms and then improving on their efficiencies. By developing a data base containing staffing information, the number of hours to complete similar tasks and the effective blended rate for the tasks, Accountability Services can help you understand and control legal costs. The analysis provides guidelines for future review of legal bills to determine if expenses are "out of kilter" and aids in creating realistic legal budgets based on historical data. You find out not only what legal fees you have paid in the past but what legal fees you should have paid. If you are considering alternative legal fee arrangements, this will give you the information you need to intelligently explore fixed fees or other billing arrangements.

Defining the Objectives

After the problems have been identified, your objectives must be communicated to your law firms. Specifically, you should consider drafting and implementing these  

Billing Guidelines that establish an explicit, up-front understanding with your law firms, holding them accountable for cost-effective legal representation. The billing policy should address billing formats, record keeping, billing rates, staffing issues, appropriate use of attorneys and paralegals,  reimbursable expenses and other issues that affect legal costs, such as when travel time, research and clerical tasks can be billed.