Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions, the global market leader in transformational, technology-based solutions for the legal industry, has launched two new solutions that provide data and insights for corporate legal departments (CLDs), including those in the financial sector, and law firms. Both solutions help CLDs and law firms better manage and benchmark their fees and billing practices. This includes the 2015 Real Rate Report^® Snapshot edition, the industry standard for benchmarking law firm rates as well as the TyMetrix 360°and Passport^®Actionable Insight Reports solution. 

The two new offerings from ELM Solutions bring actionable insights to CLDs and law firms that foster collaboration and transparent conversations around resource allocation. 

“Increasingly, corporate legal professionals crave data-driven insights to understand the complexities of their operations,” notes David Moran, senior director, Product Management, Legal Analytics, Wolters Kluwer ELM Solutions. “CLDs that can effectively utilize powerful technology solutions, third party expertise and services, with robust internal and external data across their operations are uniquely positioned to make themselves a valued strategic partners in any corporation.”

The 2015 Real Rate Report Snapshot:
The Real Rate Report^® is the legal industry's leading benchmark for law firm rates based on actual invoices, not surveys. The annual report is powered by LegalVIEW^®, the world's largest source of international legal performance data with more than $70 billion. Utilizing a portion of this data over a three-year period, the 2015 Real Rate Report Snapshot is a widely acknowledged source of information and insights that empowers corporate legal, claims departments, and law firms to better negotiate rates, develop credible matter budgets and efficient staffing plans, and manage legal services effectively.

The 2015 Real Rate Report Snapshot edition provides a unique look into lawyer billing rates and, ultimately, matter costs by benchmarking partner and associate rates at granular practice area levels. It provides comparisons by lawyer experience levels, and industry, as well as rate breakdowns by city and country.

Some of the insights that may be found by reviewing the data tables include:

• Non-litigation M&A work done by partners with less than 21 years of experience have an average billed rate of $696; over $75 an hour less than a partner with 21+ years of experience doing the same kind of work.
• The average partner rate for Labor and Employment in San Francisco is $501 an hour. In contrast, just 80 miles inland in Sacramento, a partner will do the same Labor and Employment work for $306 an hour; a difference of $195 an hour.
• Larger firms don’t always mean cheaper rates. In France, associate rates vary by less than $15 per hour when comparing smaller firms with larger ones. In contrast, associate rates at smaller U.K. firms are $143 per hour higher than at larger U.K. firms.
• The average partner rate at the top tier rates for finance sector non-litigation varies massively across Europe, from $484 in France to $816 in the U.K. For comparison, the average rate in North America is $566, and $874 in Hong Kong.

Actionable Insights Reports:
Actionable Insights Reports put powerful business intelligence at the fingertips of corporate legal professionals, who can immediately use it to improve data driven decision-making. Many high performing legal departments use similar reports as the basis for improved, data-driven decision-making.

The first Actionable Insights Reports, known as Billing Practices Insights, allow legal professionals to easily see the top ten questionable billing practices and identify the top law firm timekeepers who most frequently engage in these costly practices. In doing so, corporate legal departments can have fact-based discussions with law firms and timekeepers whose billing habits cost legal departments money. This powerful business intelligence replaces expensive, time-intensive analysis with immediate insights allowing users to pinpoint hard-to-spot billing patterns. Actionable Insights Reports are available for customers of both TyMetrix 360˚and Passport. 

More information on the 2015 Real Rate Report Snapshot and Actionable Insight Reports is available at wkelmsolutions.com.