LEDES Proposed Error Code Standard

From Subcommittee Chair and LEDES Vice President Cathi Collins:

The Error Codes Subcommittee of the LEDES Oversight Committee is pleased to put before the membership Phase 1 of the proposed Standard Error Codes for public comment.  The need for these codes has been apparent to our law firm members for many years as they struggle to work within the parameters of numerous marketplace systems to accommodate their clients.  Each legal ebilling system and client implementation has their own unique error messages or codes, some more explanatory than others.  These variations require hours to track down the source of the errors (i.e., what and where to correct) in the submitted invoice.

With a LEDES Error Code standard, the source of errors can be quickly identified as the message and codes will be uniform across all systems.  Further, the LEDES API proposed standard will utilize these Standard Error Codes as part of the API information exchange.

This project will take the form of 3 phases and this is Phase 1 (basic errors).  Phase 2 will endeavor to expand to cover the more intricate tax structures we encounter in today’s billing landscape.  Phase 3 will facilitate more advanced errors and client requirements and will endeavor to advise, in addition to inform.

The proposed codes presented here attempt to address the majority of basic errors and issues encountered during invoice submittal.

With the submission of this Phase 1 of the Error Codes, our Subcommittee has a unique opportunity to author an article relative to the implementation and use of the codes in ILTA’s Peer to Peer publication and we would like that article to feature the first vendor legal billing system to incorporate these Error Codes in their system.

The standard can be viewed with this link: LEDES Error Codes – Phase 1 – 09-19-2019.  The survey is accessible here.

This survey will close on 18 October 2019.

Public Comment Requested – LEDES API

The LEDES Software API Subcommittee was established to develop and publish a new software API that will enable direct application-to-application exchange of legal invoices and other legal information. The goal of this project is to define an industry standard API specification that will allow the law firm time and billing applications to communicate directly to the corporate legal department matter management and e-billing applications.  This in turn will allow the billing clerks at law firms to simply work within their time and billing applications to view the status of an invoice and to submit invoices, accruals and other legal data– all from one application, requiring no manual processing.

You may review this specification here, and you can submit comments on the proposed standard here.

The comment period for this draft standard ends on 18 October 2019.

2019 LEDES Board of Directors

The 2019 LEDES Oversight Committee Board of Directors has been seated.  Our leadership includes:

President – Jane A. Bennitt, Global Legal Ebilling, LLC
Vice President – Cathrine J. Collins, Legal Systems Automation, LLC
Treasurer/Membership – Jim Hannigan, Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis
Secretary – Nadia Strobbia, Thomson Reuters
Standards – Nicholas Puschak, Mitratech
Regional Groups – Andrew Dey, Andrew Dey Limited
Marketing – Rich Young, LegalKaizen

LEDES Education

We have updated our web site to include a menu item called LEDES Education, which provides links to videos posted on our YouTube channel.  If there is a legal data exchange topic you would like to learn more about, you can suggest additional videos here.

Need Help Getting Started With Legal Ebilling?

The LEDES Oversight Committee is pleased to announce that we have added instructional videos to our YouTube Channel on how to create and edit LEDES 98B and 98BI files.  Featuring our Standards Director, Nicholas Puschak, these videos provide instruction for people new to legal ebilling on how to get started.  These videos join our earlier presentation introducing the IPMM Invention Disclosure Schema created by Robin Hunziker, who leads that subcommittee.  You can find our videos on YouTube by searching for LEDES Oversight Committee, or on the pages for each of these data exchange formats on this web site.

Members Forum Added to LEDES.org

The Board of Directors is pleased to announce that forum functionality, intended to facilitate ebilling problem solving and information sharing, has been added for member use only.   With membership in the LEDES Oversight Committee costing only $95 USD/year, this new benefit makes membership a bargain!

New API Subcommittee Forming

The LEDES Board of Directors has authorized the creation of an API Development Subcommittee, with Nicholas Puschak and Daniel Bodner serving as co-chairs. The subcommittee will develop and publish a software API that will enable direct application-to-application exchange of legal invoices and other information. The goal of this subcommittee is to define an industry standard REST Software API specification that will allow law firm time and billing applications to communicate directly to the corporate legal department matter management and e-billing applications, allowing law firm users to simply work within their time and billing applications to view the status of an invoice and to submit invoices, accruals and other legal data, eliminating the need to manually create and upload LEDES files to various systems. Participation in this effort is limited to LOC members. For more information, email us using the Contact LOC feature here.

IP Invention Disclosure Schema To Be Updated

The LEDES Oversight Committee Board of Directors has authorized the creation of a subcommittee to consider updates to the IP Invention Disclosure Schema.  Robin Hunziker, who spearheaded creation of the original standard, is leading this effort.

A draft version of the proposed revisions can be found here, as well as a link to a survey to collect public comment on the changes.