Consultant - LBA - US Legal Bill Review

The Consultant LBA for Wolters Kluwer will be responsible for performing Legal Bill Analysis (LBA) in the Legal Bill Analysis Center of Excellence (“LBACOE”).

The Consultant LBA will be responsible for the prompt, accurate and efficient auditing of electronically submitted legal fee and expense invoices submitted by law firms and vendors of our clients. The candidate will be responsible for adjusting invoice line-item entries, where those line-item entries violate provisions of the relevant billing guidelines and documenting the justification for such adjustments.

The Consultant LBA will provide guidance to business unit partners regarding issues or opportunities within the LBA process.

Essential Responsibilities

• Efficiently and accurately review legal invoice entries.
• Receive legal bill assignments from the Operations Support Specialist and/or work the intake queue for self-assignments.
• Verify compliance with legal billing guidelines by law firms and vendors submitting invoices.
• Verify the accuracy of the UTBMS task codes (Fee, Activity and Expense codes) applied to invoice line items.
• Document reasons for any adjustments made to invoice line items, identifying the billing guideline violated and the rationale for the amount adjusted.
• Forward the audited legal bill through the review chain as required.
• Communicate and calibrate with Legal Invoice Analyst and Quality Assurance Analyst team members. Provide feedback to management on additional calibration opportunities.
• Demonstrated superior ability to review, analyze and evaluate legal fee and cost/expense invoice entries and to exercise discretion and sound judgment when making audit and adjustment decisions.
• Advanced understanding of legal terminology and claims legal situations required.
• When directed by management, support QA Analysts in addressing requests for reconsideration of adjusted amounts submitted by law firms.
• When directed by management, support QA Analysts in conducting the quality assurance review of invoices audited by Legal Invoice Analyst I & II peers, while utilizing SME knowledge in specialized legal practice areas.
• Conduct periodic audit and data analysis to support management in collecting performance metrics for internal use and use with clients and law firms.
• Analyze and condense clients’ legal service agreements to produce effective operational tools, meeting and in some cases exceeding customer expectations.
• When directed by management, assist with the creation and updating of various team and department wide standard operating procedures.
• Participate in the training and mentoring of new Legal Invoice Analysts via informal and formal mentorship and training initiatives, both for new client roll outs and for back-filling vacancies on existing client teams.
• Liaise with and provide periodic feedback to CIOX Artificial Intelligence Decision Science team on functionality and improvement of machine learning end-user experience and accuracy.
• Self-motivated with an ability to work independently and with very limited supervision after training.
• Excellent computer skills with the ability to learn the electronic legal bill submission and auditing software.
• Sound command of the English language-- grammar, syntax and style -- including an understanding of the conventions of punctuation and capitalization.
• Excellent spelling and proofreading skills.
• Effective communication skills - ability to obtain information from others and deliver information to others orally and in written form.
• Organizational skills, including the ability to organize work in an orderly fashion conducive to the prompt, efficient review of an appropriate number of legal invoices in each day or time.
• Familiarity with common business math and possess appropriate business telephone skills.
• Ability to carry out detailed written or verbal instructions; ability to respond to requests effectively and efficiently.
   

Job qualifications

Education

Minimum: Paralegal Certification or equivalent work experience. Bachelor’s degree in legal related discipline and/or equivalent work experience either in-house or with a third-party legal invoice auditing company strongly preferred. Advanced degree a plus.

Experience, Knowledge and Tools

Minimum Experience: 3 - 5 years of experience in a legal services or legal bill auditing environment, including:

• Extensive experience with legal billing processes.
• Firm understanding of the federal and/or state rules of civil procedure.
• Prior legal bill review experience required.
• Experience with one or more practice areas in a legal billing or legal services setting, including but not limited to, insurance, civil litigation, intellectual property, corporate, and banking.

Required Competencies:

• Communications: Strong arbitration and organizational skills are critical to being successful in this role. Strong communications skills and the ability to organize and motivate team members in a matrix environment are essential.
• Teamwork: Must work collaboratively with people within FCOE and throughout the entire WK organization, while providing constructive feedback to LBACOE leadership.
• Problem Solving: Capable of independent thinking and rendering sound decisions. Astute at identifying and engaging the necessary resources to help in decision making. Takes quick actions to identify and resolve the cause of any problem. Proactive in nature.
• Leadership: Exhibits individual control over day-to-day responsibilities as well as the ability to work collaboratively with other BUs to produce results.
• Planning and Organizing: Must be able to implement plans with the purpose of achieving short- and long-term goals. Must be able to prioritize to accomplish these goals in a given time period.
• Technology: Has the ability to partner with experts in the technology field to identify technology gaps and requirements necessary to develop position and impactful solutions.
• Learning: Ability to acquire new or modify existing knowledge to support a changing marketplace and workforce. Can demonstrate a capability to learn by study, experience, or instruction.
• Initiative and Enterprise: Is self-directed and can translate ideas into action and get things done.
• Critical Thinking: Able to firmly understand the nuances of language and think critically about the meaning behind cryptic language and legal jargon.

Tools:

• Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook)