Why Cost Management Services are Necessary
Listed below is a self-directed questionnaire designed to determine whether cost management consulting services may be appropriate for your organization.
In order to protect against abusive billing practices a client must be prepared to audit invoices.
The following questions should be asked to determine whether auditing your firm's invoices is appropriate and cost effective:
- Are my overall costs for professional services high?
- Are my professional firms adhering to fee and expense guidelines?
- Have my professional costs been rising out of proportion with my other business costs?
- Does it appear my professional firms are over-staffing my cases?
- Are my professional firms' overhead costs extensive and expensive (i.e. opulent offices, generous level of staff support, lavish work styles, etc.)?
- Do I feel I am receiving cost effective representation?
- Do I feel I am able to work effectively as a team with my attorney or accountant?
- Do I feel my attorneys or accountants may be "padding" billings?
- Are my attorneys or accountants routinely billing at unauthorized hourly rates?
- Do my professional firms charge for the preparation of my invoices?
- Are multiple attorneys or accountants routinely attending and billing for meetings, conferences, depositions, etc.?
- Do my attorneys or accountants routinely conference and consult with each other at my expense?
- Are the entries on my invoices grouped, so that it is impossible to tell how much time was spent performing any single activity?
- Are the billing descriptions so vague as to obscure what activity was performed?
- Am I considering reducing the number of firms representing me?
- Am I charged for typical office expenses, such as photocopying, fax, postage, courier/messenger services, word processing, secretarial overtime, local travel, etc.?
- Am I charged for firm administrative activities such as scheduling, pulling files, copying, organizing files, filing correspondence, forwarding documents, following-up on document requests, staff overtime, etc.?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if you have never considered the proposed billing issues raised by our questions, Legal Cost Control's services can significantly reduce your costs while improving communication with your professional firms.
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