CFOs: Unlock Unexpected Savings with Thorough Legal Bill Review
As a CFO, you’re constantly on the lookout for ways to trim costs and optimize your company’s budget. While tax credits, deductions, and operational efficiencies are often the first places you look, there's another significant yet often overlooked area where substantial savings can be found: legal expenses. Legal bill review can uncover hidden savings, potentially amounting to thousands or even millions of dollars, that can be redirected back into your budget.
According to Legal Evolution, mid-sized companies spend around $863,000 annually on outside counsel while large companies have an average budget of approximately $38.9 million per year reserved for these costs. While these numbers vary greatly depending on size of company and industry, they indicate that, no matter the size of your organization, outside counsel spending is something to keep a close eye on.
In fact, 78% of legal departments report that controlling outside counsel spend is a high priority. But are they looking in the right places to bring this spending down? There is a significant, yet straightforward opportunity to save on legal bills – through careful legal bill review.
Legal Bill Review: A Hidden Goldmine
Legal services are essential, but they can also be expensive. The complexity of legal billing means that overbilling is a common issue, often buried deep within detailed invoices. Practices such as bill padding, double billing, and charging for unnecessary tasks can significantly inflate your legal expenses – and catching these discrepancies is where the real savings lies. Our clients see an average of 10-15% in savings with our legal bill review process, which means if no one is taking a careful look at your legal bills, the odds are, you’re overpaying.
Legal bill review involves a meticulous examination of legal invoices not only to identify but also to challenge excess charges. The task of meticulously reviewing these bills is often overlooked or rushed due to a lack of time and personnel to perform the tedious work. Further, negotiating based on the findings is a delicate dance when dealing with the important, and potentially long-term, relationship many organizations have with outside counsel.
By investing time and resources into thorough legal bill reviewing, companies can ensure they are only paying for necessary and valuable services, leading to substantial cost savings.
How LegalBillReview.com Can Help
At LegalBillReview.com, we combine our tech-enabled platform with the expertise of experienced attorneys to scrutinize every aspect of your legal bills. Our service is designed to be budget-friendly, and we guarantee that you will never pay more than your original bill. Our goal is to help you uncover hidden savings and manage your legal expenses effectively, all while maintaining crucial relationships with your outside counsel.
Common billing discrepancies we look out for include (but are not limited to):
Excessive time
Inadequate activity descriptions
Factual inconsistencies
Duplicative work
Junior-lawyer training
Block billing
Administrative tasks
Inappropriate use of higher-rates staff
Our human review process is done by US-based attorneys who know where to look for these discrepancies. They provide professional, streamlined, white-glove service to support your team in managing costs and give you a clearer understanding of where your money is going, enabling better financial planning and control.
For CFOs, the value of legal bill review is clear – you can reduce legal expenses and free up a significant amount of your funds that can be reinvested into other critical areas of your business.
