Sautter Award for eCounsel 2015
PROJECT SUBMISSION INFORMATION .......................................................................................................................... 1
PROJECT NAME .................................................................................................................................................................... 1
SUBMITTER ......................................................................................................................................................................... 1
PROJECT REQUIREMENTS ....................................................................................................................................................... 1
PROJECT CRITERIA ................................................................................................................................................................ 1
PROJECT TEAM .................................................................................................................................................................... 2
UCOP OGC ................................................................................................................................................................... 2
UCSF OGC .................................................................................................................................................................... 2
UCLA OGC .................................................................................................................................................................... 3
UCOP ITS ...................................................................................................................................................................... 3
UCLA Finance AP, and ITS ............................................................................................................................................ 3
TECHNOLOGY....................................................................................................................................................................... 3
INSTALLATION TIMEFRAME ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
RELEVANT URLS .................................................................................................................................................................. 4
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION DATA.............................................................................................................................................. 4
PROJECT DESCRIPTION ................................................................................................................................................. 5
Project Submission Information
Project Name
eCounsel
Submitter
Dede Bruno
Project Manager UCOP ITS PMO
1111 Franklin St., Oakland CA
510-987-9279
Project Requirements
eCounsel represents the operational deployment of information technology at UC within the last three years by being
launched at UC systemwide November, 2014. The eCounsel project is submitted for the area of
business/finance/administration and meets that criteria by providing an integrated, and automated solution that
assists OGC Counsel by managing, tracking, forecasting spend on outside counsel providing a real time view into spend
by firm/matter and attorney.
Project Criteria

Be innovative—present a unique, new, or different solution to a problem
o eCounsel provides a cloud solution with the inherent benefits of scalability, decreased internal operating
costs, business continuity, and collaboration efficiency across locations within and outside of UC
systemwide.
o Provides an automated workflow ingesting LEDES (Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard) compliant
invoice data via Bridgeway Corridor using legal business standardized data.
o Integrates with Bridgeway Corridor, a unique transient e-Billing system that assures the confidentiality of
invoices. Corridor enables Law Firms and legal suppliers to easily submit fees and expenses for legal
matters globally.
o Corridor and eCounsel help avoid overpayment and control costs with sophisticated rules that enforce
client specific billing guidelines that can be easily changed to accommodate business needs.
6/15/2016
Page 1
Sautter Award for eCounsel 2015





Improve operational efficiency and usability/accessibility
o eCounsel is accessible/updateable anytime/anywhere via the cloud for UC legal counsel and staff
enhancing productivity
o Outside counsel firms can upload their invoices via corridor (their software port for eCounsel)
anytime/anywhere using industry standard LEDES format
o eCounsel is intuitive and easy to navigate and provides positive user experience and thus enhancing
productivity
Be sharable and readily implementable elsewhere within the University
o eCounsel has been implemented successfully at 17 UC locations - all campuses and medical centers, plus
UCOP and LBN - across the University and serves to track and manage legal matters and expense
Be interoperable and integrated within UC, as well as nationally and internationally
o eCounsel’s Corridor is nationally and internationally available and used by outside counsel within the
United States and globally
o eCounsel is fully interoperable and integrated within UC with NetDocuments Document Management
System used by OGC systemwide
o eCounsel is fully interoperable and integrate with UCLA AP and BruinBuy and is used to pay and track
outside counsel invoices
Demonstrate collaboration
o eCounsel was successfully implemented by a collaborative team consisting of UCOP OGC, UCSF OGC,
UCLA OGC, UCOP ITS, UCLA ITS, and UCLA Finance along with the vendor, Bridgeway
Demonstrate assessable success criteria
o As of March 1st, during the 1st 5 months post launch, OGC has successfully reviewed, approved, paid 1177
Outside Counsel invoices, totaling over $15M
o eCounsel effectively associates matter information with documents in NetDocuments through system
integration expediting workflow
o eCounsel provides monthly, quarterly, annual and ad-hoc reports to OGC leadership, and staff used to
forecast spend and quantify actual spent on outside counsel, track matter, and manage workload and
resources
Project Team
UCOP OGC













Charlie Robinson
Rachel Nosowsky
Cate Hutton
Peter Church
Chris Orr
Paul Atwood
Brigid Saulny
Venice Tamplin
Daniel Gerber
Norman Hamill
Charlie Goodrich
Annette Hayes
Alleen Zulkowski
UCSF OGC


Greta Schnetzler
Tom Dellner
6/15/2016
Page 2
Sautter Award for eCounsel 2015
UCLA OGC

Susan Mangel
UCOP ITS




Dede Bruno
Candace Jones
Shirley Bittlingmeier
Ramon Lim
UCLA Finance AP, and ITS








Ian DaCosta
Rajesh Varadhachary
Geetha Sendhil
Shirley Sams
Upma Budhraja
Renee Roth
Scott Monatlik
Helen Sutton
Technology
Bridgeway uses a server solution based on the J2SE platform on which to build Bridgeway Suite. Java1 affords platformindependence and proven reliability, scalability, and performance. Bridgeway Suite is a pure Web application that is
Java servlet-based with either Oracle or Microsoft SQL Server as its backend database. The end-user accesses
Bridgeway Suite through a browser using an HTML-based user interface. For optimal user experience, the applications
should be run using screen resolution of 1024x768 or higher.
Web Server – The Web server component (although technically optional) is generally required in an IT infrastructure to
proxy requests from the end-users’ browsers to the Java Application Server.
Java Application Server – The Java Application Server is the servlet engine that runs the application and provides the
HTML content to the end-user in the browser and the XML data content to the Microsoft Windows-based system
administrator tools.
Reporting Server – Bridgeway Suite’s robust and powerful reporting component is SAP Business Objects Business
Intelligence Platform (formerly known as BusinessObjects Enterprise Premium). Bridgeway Suite features a tight and
secure integration with this solution.
Database Server – Bridgeway Suite supports Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server as its backend
6/15/2016
Page 3
Sautter Award for eCounsel 2015
Installation Timeframe
The Core Project Team made a decision to have phased installations. Below are the phases:




Pilot Installation Launch and training – 7/7/14 for UCOP OGC Health Law and UCSF OGC Health Law
OGC Oakland Installation and training – 10/17/14
Northern California Campuses Launch and Training – 11/5/14
Southern California Campuses Launch and Training – 11/12/14
Relevant URLs
The eCounsel system is not accessible unless access has been granted, hence the URL provided is for Bridgeway vendor
eCounsel site: http://www.bridge-way.com/products-and-services/ecounsel
Customer Satisfaction Data



Attorneys and leadership both like that the eCounsel system centralizes and integrates our matters (cases)
with invoices from outside counsel. Not only that, the law firms submit their invoices electronically now rather
than in paper or email, making for a much more timely accounting process.
General Counsel Robinson likes the detailed reporting that has come from eCounsel. He can drill down into
reports to understand legal spend in ways that were not possible before adoption. While he was able to get
total spend by practice areas in the previous system, he can now also run reports that allow him to analyze
law firm rates and expenses.
Staff paralegals like the advanced search features which allow them to run ad hoc reports on classes of
matters such as estates and trusts. With eCounsel’s user-friendly, built-in tools, they are able to prepare
reports for managing attorneys during early phases of activity, allowing teams to “take the pulse” of charitable
giving (for example).
6/15/2016
Page 4
Sautter Award for eCounsel 2015
Project Description
The project objective was to implement Bridgeway eCounsel eBilling, Corridor and Matter Management software.
eCounsel replaces both the iVos billing system and the LegalFiles Matter Management system. eCounsel also provides
integration with NetDocuments Document Management System, as well as UCLA AP system to pay outside counsel
invoices.
The eCounsel system selection and implementation was a model collaboration among Information Technology Services
(ITS) at UCOP and UCLA, and the Office of General Counsel (OGC) at UCOP, UCLA and UCSF. The system, which was
fully launched fall 2014, serves 17 locations - all campuses and medical centers, plus UCOP and LBN - across the
University and serves to track and manage legal matters and expense.
The system also imports and pays outside counsel invoices electronically for expenses totaling around $28 million,
which allows for more in-depth data collection and analysis than was possible under the previous paper-based system.
The system combined legacy data from 2 separate systems, LegalFiles and iVos, to deliver enhanced functionality and
provide an integrated method of tracking UC legal activity.
ITS assisted with system selection and provided IT project management services. OGC staff served as subject matter
experts, pilot users and ensured integration with existing legal information systems and business processes UCLA
AP/Finance and UCLA ITS participants provided quality timely assistance which facilitated and expedited outside
counsel vendor payments via the AP interface.
Bridgeway’s eCounsel is a cloud solution that integrates seamlessly with Bridgeway Corridor, a unique transient eBilling system that assures the confidentiality of invoices. Corridor enables Law Firms and legal suppliers to easily
submit fees and expenses for legal matters globally. Combined, Corridor and eCounsel help avoid overpayment and
control costs with sophisticated rules that enforce client specific billing guidelines that can be easily changed to
accommodate business needs.
eCounsel also integrates with UCLA AP and BruinBuy which pays the outside counsel vendors. eCounsel fully integrates
with NetDocuments, which is used by OGC systemwide for Matter Management and links invoices/payments to matter
and attorneys.
The eCounsel Analysis Center provides a powerful ad-hoc reporting tool that enables UC OGC to build standard,
analytical, and graphical reports from any eCounsel data. eCounsel Analysis Center uses a drag-and-drop user interface
that facilitates and expedites report creation for OGC operational staff.
The eCounsel project was a model inter-departmental and inter-campus collaboration, demonstrating the benefit of
long-term collaboration between ITS, client departments and campuses to meet information system and technology
needs. Each department lent its particular strengths, skills and knowledge. OGC contributed significant effort towards
gathering business requirements and planning the system to enable improved data analysis for management reporting,
mapping existing data to the new system, and ensuring end user friendliness. ITS analyzed potential systems to ensure
they worked within UCOP’s information environment and provided expert IT project management.
The success of the project means that OGC systemwide now has a robust, user friendly electronic billing and legal
matter management to support and manage the University’s legal function. In addition, UC now has better, more
comprehensive and timely visibility into legal expense and activities across the University.
6/15/2016
Page 5