Legal Costs Auditing Services

FAQ's

Legal Costs Auditing

(for corporate entities)

We review bills issued by your Legal Service Providers (LSPs) and identify charges which exceed the permitted amount under any specific terms contained within the original agreement with the LSPs and any billing guideline provided to the LSPs, and under the laws and guidelines of the jurisdiction in which the work was undertaken.

This information is then used to achieve a reduction in those legal fees, whether by liaising directly with the LSPs or by advising you.

One example of our auditing method is as follows:-

We receives bills directly from your LSPs, reviews these bills, negotiates reductions directly with your LSPs and obtains amended bills where warranted. You simply pay bills as we recommend – either in full or as amended.

We keep you informed throughout the process so you can keep up to date in regard to the reductions sought and why the reductions have been requested.

Frequently asked Questions

Who is our Legal Costs Auditing service suitable to?

Businesses with panels of legal service providers
Any business spending over $1m on legal services
Businesses with multiple lines of legal work

What other services are provided by Law in Check?

Educating your Legal Service Providers
We can attend the offices of your legal service providers or panel firms to provide CLE seminars addressing the types of costs that are and are not considered fair and reasonable by us when reviewing their bills.
Our costs lawyers will go through the relevant sections of your costs agreements and billing guides, along with any applicable laws to demonstrate the types of costs that are and are not permitted to be charged.
Legal service providers are also reminded about the level of detail required in their bills to enable assessment of the reasonableness of the fees charged. This sort of interaction with legal service providers significantly contributes to the cultural shift in the way fees are charged.
Consultation Services:
We provide expert advice on any legal costing issue.
Critical to the success of our service is reliance not only on the various relevant legislative and regulatory provisions in each state and territory which govern legal costs, but also development of and/or improvement to legal costs agreements and billing guidelines between your organisation and your legal service providers. If an account does not comply with the requirements of your costs agreement or billing guideline you have every right to request adjustment to the account.
We review your current billing guides and costs agreements and advice on improvements to same. If required or if unavailable, we establish billing guidelines for future accounts submitted for payment.

What are the benefits of engaging us?

Reductions to legal spend by ensuring legal service providers are paid only those legal costs and disbursements considered “fair and reasonable” and allowed pursuant to your contractual terms with your vendors
Indirect savings on legal spend
Arising from change in culture in the legal services providers’ billing practices, enabling them to bill more transparently
This generates net savings to your company arising from reductions obtained from accounts not previously scrutinised
Additional indirect savings as a consequence of your employees’ time being freed up from the task of bill review, enabling them to focus on their core duties
Our client spends less time being the ‘middle-man’ and simply checks over the total figures
Additional benefits include gathering of data on your legal service providers’ practices, helping you to focus your legal (and other) spend on the most cost-effective vendors
Our program operates efficiently, to be implemented smoothly and to provide virtually instantaneous benefits at a nil start-up cost.

Why should you audit your legal costs?

Greater accountability and scrutiny.
Measurable savings.
Multiple indirect savings.
Arm’s length and independent review
Cultural shift from panel firms
Minimal set up cost
Proven results

How Legal Costs Auditing works?

We work with small business entities to determine the best process of legal costs auditing. We are flexible with the level of involvement required from us. Some options as to procedure are noted below.

Option 1

Receive accounts for review (either from client or directly from panel firm)

Assess each account and either:

Confirm account is reasonable, or
Request supporting documents or further information to enable better assessment, and/or
Request amended account with further details such as purpose of attendance and length of documents perused or prepared to justify time spent, or
Request amended account with reduced fee, setting out reasons

Receive supporting documents and/or amended account with further details

Confirm account is reasonable, or
Request amended account with reduced fee, setting out reasons

Receive amended account with reduced fee

Confirm account is reasonable and send to client for payment

Receive reasons from panel firm disagreeing to reduce fees

Confirm account is reasonable based on reasons and send to client for payment, or
Reject justification and escalate to client with advice on unreasonableness of fee charged

Option 2

Panel firm submits their invoices to us
We conducts initial audit and returns invoice to panel firm within 14 days
Panel firm is given opportunity to respond to proposed reductions
Final agreement is made by us, subject to final approval from client.

Option 3

We remain anonymous to the panel firms but provide analytics and reports as well as an item by item breakdown of the time claimed and reductions that should be made in each account which our clients can use to seek reductions in the fees charged.

Our Services