A group of leading US law firms, legal IT suppliers and large US corporates has been formed to create a single standard format to facilitate the use of electronic billing and payment systems between law firms and clients.
The Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (Ledes) was developed by Pricewaterhouse
Coopers (PwC), which unveiled its plans for an industry-wide standard in January.
But PwC has handed over the control and development of the single standard to an 18-member consortium of key legal industry players – known as the Ledes Oversight Committee (LOC).
PwC will take one of the places in the group, where it will be joined by, among others, leading US firm Morgan Lewis & Bockius, west coast law firm Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, top-selling US practice management supplier Elite Information Systems, PeerPoint Technologies, Zurich Insurance, United Parcel Service, Viacom, Canadian Pacific Railway and Prudential.
Members have said the LOC is a voluntary group, looking to create an "open standard that caters to no one organisation or group of organisations", with Ledes established as "the single standard used for all billing in the industry".
LOC members said a standard approach was "essential for the legal industry to realise the benefits of e-commerce".
They added that the current array of formats for electronic invoicing was "increasing complexity and cost" for law firms, clients and vendors. They also said this situation "delays and discourages firms and clients from making their first step towards e-commerce".
The Ledes standard currently uses an Ascii format and is restricted to invoices, but an XML version is being developed for web-compatibility.
The LOC group is seeking other key members of the legal industry to get involved in the development of the standard and to pilot the use of the Ledes format.