The Editor of Metropolitan Corporate Counsel interviews Jennifer Mailander , Associate General Counsel and Product Manager, Corporation Service Company.

Editor: What are the key technologies that general counsel should be considering today to improve the performance of their law departments?

Mailander: Law Departments have too many disparate technology systems that cannot be integrated costing them money, time and resources and causing them much frustration. Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) is a technology that enables different technology systems to communicate, transfer data and documents and eliminate data entry. XML allows customers to define their own elements and allows information systems to share data, including documents, via the internet, usually via Hypertext Transfer Protocol over Secure Socket Layer (HTTPS).

By combining CSC services and XML technology for automated electronic delivery into internal systems, law departments can achieve true budget savings by eliminating data input, manual document management and associated storage costs. CSC leads the industry with many successful XML integrations that seamlessly integrate your SOP and matter management data and documents directly into your third-party or custom software application with a standard XML schema. CSC XML Streamsm is very flexible, making available real-time updates for client scheduled XML transfers of SOP and litigation data, as well as any other data and documents directed to CSC for intake and indexing. CSC ensures delivery of your data by automatically identifying, and time and date stamping the transmissions facilitating the auditing and recovery of each transmission file.

Editor: Are there legal support technologies that are best utilized on an in-house basis, while others are best accessed through legal service providers?

Mailander: There is a misconception that an e-billing system is cost effective only for those law departments who have law firm invoices over $1 million. Even small law departments can benefit from a cost-effective e-billing system. If a law department is processing its invoices manually, this can be a tedious and time-consuming paper-intensive process that can entail receiving the paper invoice, scanning and uploading it, entering the invoice details in a spreadsheet, passing the invoice around from attorney to attorney for their review and approval, and then forwarding it to accounts payable for payment.

CSC E-Billings can automate this manual process saving even a small department time, effort, and money. This significant savings is generated by improving the client workflow, replacing a manual and paper process with an electronic process and identifying errors in billing. Perhaps the greatest savings is in ensuring compliance with billing guidelines and special fee arrangements by flagging inconsistencies in invoices that could easily be missed in a manual process.

This article is being reprinted from Metropolitan Corporate Counsel with their permission.

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