We have been talking about the fourth area that makes up the five areas of every business in the world, this fourth area is “billing.” As you know, the other four areas are: “Clients” or “customers”; “Administration”; “Getting the work done”; and “Collecting.

Last week we talked about a “work in process recap.” I told you we would talk this week about how this report is utilized by everyone on a monthly basis in our office and how this facilitates us not only billing our clients, but also knowing where we are on every case as far as fees and expenses are concerned at least once every month.

As I stated last week, each responsible lawyer gets a “work in process recap” on every case, every month in our office. We have set up a system for reviewing these “work in process recaps,” to ensure that those clients who have agreed to pay us on a monthly basis get a bill every month. Additionally, we have set up a system where every month you can review every case whether it is billable on a monthly basis or not, so you can see exactly how much time and expenses you have in a case at a given time.

The bookkeeper prepares all of the “work in process recaps” off our computer. The bookkeeper then takes all of the “work in process recaps” and gives them to the billing clerk whose job is to review all of the “work in process recaps” and be sure that all of the time of all of the lawyers and paralegal is on the bill. We call this “doing the work with audit.” I learned many years ago that clients seem to hate it when they get billed for lawyers having conferences with each other or with their paralegal. Of course, this isn’t logical, because what better way can a client get better service from a person with a lower hourly rate than by the work being assigned by people at higher hourly rates to the people with lower hourly rates to get the work done. Nonetheless, clients hate it when they get billed for conferences between lawyers or lawyers and paralegal.

Many years ago I developed a concept of totally deleting the words “conference with,” from any and all of my bills unless it happened to be a “conference with client.” I substituted the words “work with” for the words “conference with.” I realize this sounds almost silly, but the truth of the matter is, it has almost totally resolved any and all complaints from clients with regard to getting billed for “conference with,” when it dealt with conferences between attorneys or between attorneys and paralegal. I don’t have any idea why the words “work with” seem to be so much more palatable to the clients, but believe me, they sure are!

I previously wrote an article about this “work with” concept, and the fact that we have a billing clerk that reviews all of our bills every month to be sure that time is written up wherever anyone in our office works with another person and for some reason that time does not yet appear on the bill.

After the billing clerk reviews the bills for “work withs,” all of the “work in process recaps” are then circulated to each and every person in our office who has any time at all on the “work in process recap.” It is everyone’s job to review the totality of the “work in process recap” and to check off by their initials on the “work in process recap” that they have approved all of the time for billing. It is important to understand that these individuals do not just read their own time, but they read everybody’s time. One of the reasons for this is to be sure everyone is being accurate, that everyone’s time is being billed when they “work with” someone else in the law firm, and that the billing clerk has picked up all of the “work withs.” Also, this is a perfect time for lawyers and paralegals to make a recommendation with regard to either write downs or write ups with regard to the amount of time spent. It is also a good time to decide whether or not to no-charge any part of the time on the bill.

The last person to look at the “work in process recap” after everyone who has any time on it has reviewed it, is the responsible attorney. This responsible attorney is the person who is responsible for bringing the business in the law firm in the firm instance, and should be the person with the ultimate billing and collecting responsibility on the file.

Next week we are going to finish talking about the “work in process recap” and how this helps us to prepare our final bill.

Talk to you next week!

Jim Wirken is a civil trial attorney and the Chairman of the Board of The Wirken Law Group in Kansas City.