DO I NEED A LEGAL OR ACCOUNTING AUDIT?

Why Legal and Accounting Billing Review is Necessary

Listed below is a self-directed questionnaire designed to determine whether legal and accounting cost management consulting services may be appropriate for your organization, particularly in light of abusive billing practices employed by many professional service firms.

The following questions should be asked to determine whether auditing your firm's outside legal and accounting invoices is appropriate and cost effective:

	Are my overall costs for outside legal and accounting services high?
	Are my legal and accounting firms adhering to fee and expense guidelines?
	Have my legal and accounting costs been rising out of proportion with my other business costs?
	Does it appear that my law and accounting firms are over-staffing my cases?
	Are my legal and accounting firms' overhead costs extensive and expensive (i.e. opulent offices, generous level of staff support, lavish work styles, etc.)?
	Do I feel I am receiving cost effective representation?
	Do I feel I am able to work effectively as a team with my attorney or accountant?
	Do I feel my attorneys or accountants may be "padding" billings?
	Are my attorneys or accountants routinely billing at unauthorized hourly rates?
	Do my professional firms charge for the preparation of my invoices?
	Are multiple attorneys or accountants routinely attending and billing for meetings, conferences, depositions, etc?
	Do my attorneys or accountants routinely conference and consult with each other at my expense?
	Are the entries on my invoices grouped, so that it is impossible to tell how much time was spent performing any single activity?
	Are the billing descriptions so vague as to obscure what type of legal or accounting activity was performed?
	Am I considering reducing the number of legal or accounting firms representing me?
	Am I charged for typical office expenses, such as photocopying, fax, postage, courier/messenger services, word processing, secretarial overtime, local travel, etc?
	Am I charged for firm administrative activities such as scheduling, pulling files, copying, organizing files, filing correspondence, forwarding documents, following-up on document requests, staff overtime, etc?
	You answered Yes to # of the questions If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if you have never considered the proposed billing issues raised by our questions, Legal Cost Control's services can significantly reduce your legal or accounting costs while improving communication with your professional firms.