CHICAGO: EffortlessLegal, a Chicago based tech company bringing advanced automation and machine-learning products to the legal space, announced today the public launch of BillerAssist for Clients, a new application that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning to standardize billing and control costs.

The new application addresses several pain points in the billing process, both from the perspective of law firms and from the perspective of their clients.

The “BillerAssist for Clients” application is intended for use with a company’s existing invoice and matter management system. No change to a new system is required. In fact, the app can be set up in under 5 minutes.

The app offers an easy way for clients to use AI and machine learning to “prescreen” their outside counsel’s billing in order that excessive charges and billing guidelines violations can be identified automatically, and final invoices can be submitted error-free.

“Submitting and reviewing legal bills should not be an arduous task,” said Holly Urban, the CEO and co-founder of EffortlessLegal. “In-house legal teams should be able to easily obtain compliant bills from their outside counsel, with standardized entries that are capable of being readily approved, and with the underlying billing data capable of being easily put to use for internal analysis,” she added.

Urban also noted that “law firms should be able to easily provide bills that their clients will find reasonable and compliant with billing guidelines.”

The EffortlessLegal company heard from many businesses and their law firms saying they wanted greater simplicity in billing, with essential features to address their concerns and without a high monthly cost.

The new app costs only $99 per month, for unlimited internal users and unlimited outside counsel. Businesses interested in learning more can get a free trial before making a purchase decision.

The “BillerAssist for Clients” application includes both a user interface for clients, and a separate user interface for law firms. Client users can manage all of their matters, but law firms can only see the matters that are assigned to them.

Both interfaces provide color codes to clearly identify outside counsel billing guideline violations, unreasonable and excessive charges, as well as overbilled matters.

In the law firm interface, the automated color codes communicate the client’s billing expectations and requirements, on both an entry level and for the entirety of each matter. This allows outside counsel to easily fix billing errors and other issues before invoices are submitted, and even before work is done and before an expense is advanced.

The law firm facing interface also allows firms to easily import their billing entries in various different formats, make entries and changes directly into the interface, and easily view comments and edits made by their clients.

In addition, the “BillerAssist for Clients” application makes reviewing bills by in-house legal departments very easy, because the color codes again automatically identify any remaining problematic entries.

The client-facing interface allows a legal department to assign specific matters to specific outside counsel, quickly review and approve their outside counsel’s bills, generate many different kinds of reports, and easily standardize and control their legal spending.

In addition, the new “BillerAssist for Clients” application automatically applies Uniform Task Based Management System (UTBMS) codes to all entries imported or entered by outside counsel. From the law firm’s perspective, this completely eliminates the hassle of manually coding each entry. From the client’s perspective, the automation of UTBMS codes eliminates idiosyncratic or erroneous codes.

The UTBMS and color codes can be generated from the client’s own history of approved and paid bills, or from a built-in data set that is included with the app, or both. Manual controls can also be set by the client’s in-house legal department. The application’s machine learning technology learns from the client’s prior billing history, and from on-going edits and approvals, to become even more accurate every time it is used.

With these easy-to-use features, the “BillerAssist for Clients” application allows billing to become standardized and useful for internal analysis by the client’s legal department, as well as predictable for outside counsel.


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About EffortlessLegal: EffortlessLegal lets you to keep your billing system, but also obtain the latest in automation technology. “EffortlessLegal” and all product names and logos are trademarks owned by EffortlessLegal LLC. All rights reserved.