Workplace & CollaborationWorkplace & Collaboration GlossaryPart 10 of 11
Law and Professional Services Glossary
31 terms from the Workplace & Collaboration book's Law and Professional Services part, each defined in a line and linked to the chapter that explains it.
- Block billing: combining several tasks in one time entry with a single total, which e-billing audits flag or reject (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Client trust account: a bank account holding client and third-party money separate from the firm's own, as Model Rule 1.15 requires (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- Collection rate: cash collected divided by the value billed (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Commingling: mixing the firm's own money with client money in trust, including leaving earned fees there (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- Conflict check: a recorded search of the firm's parties and matters for current, former and prospective client conflicts before a matter opens or a party is added (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- Contingent fee: a fee that is a percentage of the recovery, which Model Rule 1.5(c) requires in a writing signed by the client (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- CTAPP: California's Client Trust Account Protection Program, requiring yearly trust account registration, certification and self-assessment (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- Document management system (DMS): a matter-organized repository for a firm's documents and filed email, with profiles, versions and wall-aware security (Legal Documents, DMS & AI).
- E-billing: submitting invoices to a client's platform as LEDES files, where they are audited against the client's billing guidelines (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Email filing: moving relevant email from personal mailboxes into the matter workspace, deduplicated and confirmed (Legal Documents, DMS & AI).
- Engagement letter: the document setting the scope of a representation and the basis or rate of the fee (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- Ethical wall: a screen that keeps named people out of a matter (or limits it to a named team) across every system, including search and AI (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- Formal Opinion 512: the ABA's July 2024 opinion applying competence, confidentiality, communication, supervision and fee rules to generative AI (Legal Documents, DMS & AI).
- Imputation: the rule that one lawyer's conflict is attributed to every lawyer in the firm, under Model Rule 1.10 (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- IOLTA: Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts, pooled trust accounts for nominal or short-term client funds whose interest funds civil legal aid (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- LEDES: the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard formats for invoices, budgets and timekeeper data, maintained by the LEDES Oversight Committee (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- LEDES 1998B: the 24-field pipe-delimited invoice format most US e-billing runs on (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Matter: one engagement for one client, the unit of conflicts, time, documents, trust money and retention (Law Firms & Professional Services).
- Nominal or short-term funds: client money that cannot earn the client net interest, which goes into IOLTA rather than a separate interest-bearing account (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- Outside counsel guidelines: a corporate client's rules for its law firms on billing, staffing, expenses and security (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Pre-bill: the draft invoice a responsible lawyer reviews, edits and approves before it goes to the client (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Privilege designation: document metadata recording attorney-client privilege or work product status, used in review and production (Legal Documents, DMS & AI).
- Professional services automation (PSA): software for agencies and consultancies that plans resources and tracks time and project margin (Law Firms & Professional Services).
- Prospective client: a person who consults a lawyer about a possible representation and is protected by Model Rule 1.18 even if no engagement follows (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- Realization rate: billed value divided by the standard value of recorded time (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Screened: isolated from any participation in a matter through timely procedures, as defined in Model Rule 1.0(k) (Matters, Intake & Conflicts).
- Self-learning tool: in Opinion 512's sense, a GAI tool that uses inputs to improve outputs for others, which requires client informed consent before client information goes in (Legal Documents, DMS & AI).
- Three-way reconciliation: proving that the adjusted bank balance, the trust book balance and the total of client ledgers agree, with no negative ledger (Trust Accounting & IOLTA).
- Timekeeper: a person whose time is billed, with a LEDES classification and dated rates, separate from a platform account (Law Firms & Professional Services).
- UTBMS: the Uniform Task-Based Management System of task, activity and expense codes used on legal invoices (Time, Billing & E-Billing).
- Utilization: billable hours recorded divided by available working hours (Time, Billing & E-Billing).