Legal billing enhancement method and apparatus

Abstract

A method of creating a finalized invoice, having steps of creating a preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished, submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine, searching the preliminary invoice for keywords that define possible violations of a company's litigation billing guidelines, highlighting any invoice task that contains identified keywords that would define a possible violation of a company's litigation billing guidelines, querying a user to accept changes to an invoice task based upon the identified keywords, and modifying the preliminary invoice into the finalized invoice after the accepted changes have been conducted after the querying of the user. Using the searchable database to create reports that provide average rates charged by law firms on specific types of legal matters in all geographic areas, reports to evaluate which tasks are not being fully compensated by a specific company or legal auditing system, reports to evaluate the average cost to defend specific types of cases in specific jurisdictions.

1 . A method of creating an invoice, comprising:
 creating a preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished;   submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine;   searching the preliminary invoice for at least one of keywords, phrases, and task billing codes that define possible violations of a company's litigation billing guidelines;   highlighting any invoice task that contains identified keywords that would define possible violations of the company's litigation billing guidelines;   querying a user to accept changes to an invoice task based upon the identified at least one of the keywords, the phrases and the task billing codes; and   modifying the preliminary invoice into the finalized invoice after the accepted changes have been conducted after the querying of the user.   
   
   
       2 . The method according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 printing the finalized invoice.   
   
   
       3 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the automated rules engine is on a mainframe computer. 
   
   
       4 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the automated rules engine is on a personal computer. 
   
   
       5 . A method of creating an invoice, comprising:
 at least one of uploading and creating a preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished;   submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine;   searching the preliminary invoice for missing tasks as defined by the individual tasks for activities accomplished;   querying a user to add a task based upon the search of the preliminary invoice for the missing tasks; and   modifying the preliminary invoice into the finalized invoice after the adding the task based upon the search of the preliminary invoice for the missing tasks.   
   
   
       6 . The method according to  claim 5 , further comprising:
 printing the finalized invoice.   
   
   
       7 . The method according to  claim 5 , wherein the automated rules engine is on a mainframe computer. 
   
   
       8 . The method according to  claim 5 , wherein the automated rules engine is on a personal computer. 
   
   
       9 . The method according to  claim 1 , further comprising:
 querying a user to define rules for the automated rules engine prior to the submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine.   
   
   
       10 . The method according to  claim 5 , further comprising:
 querying a user to define rules for the automated rules engine prior to the submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine.   
   
   
       11 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the querying the user to accept changes to an invoice task based upon the identified keywords. 
   
   
       12 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the creating the preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished is on a computer using the automated rules engine. 
   
   
       13 . The method according to  claim 1 , wherein the creating the preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished is not on a computer using the automated rules engine. 
   
   
       14 . The method according to  claim 5 , wherein the creating the preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished is on a computer using the automated rules engine. 
   
   
       15 . The method according to  claim 5 , wherein the creating the preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished is not on a computer using the automated rules engine. 
   
   
       16 . A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for creating a finalized invoice, comprising:
 creating a preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished;   submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine;   searching the preliminary invoice for keywords that define lower value activities;   highlighting any invoice task that contains identified keywords that would define lower value activities;   querying a user to accept changes to an invoice task based upon the identified keywords; and   modifying the preliminary invoice into the finalized invoice after the accepted changes have been conducted after the querying of the user.   
   
   
       17 . A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform method steps for creating a finalized invoice, comprising:
 creating a preliminary invoice, the invoice including individual tasks for activities accomplished;   submitting the preliminary invoice to an automated rules engine;   searching the preliminary invoice for missing tasks as defined by the individual tasks for activities accomplished;   querying a user to add a task based upon the search of the preliminary invoice for the missing tasks; and   modifying the preliminary invoice into the finalized invoice after the adding the task based upon the search of the preliminary invoice for the missing tasks.