$60M
Outside counsel savings
Client case study · American-Asian global technology company
For an American-Asian global technology company working with hundreds of outside counsel firms in multiple currencies and tax regimes, Swiftwater’s seven-person matter administration and invoice review team ran the full cycle, from matter setup to invoice payment and reconciliation: compliance validation on every invoice, substantive review of complex invoices, and rejection and resubmission management that reshaped how the firms billed. The program delivered $60M in outside counsel savings.
Related case studies
Proof
Run today, at scale, for a global legal department.
Swiftwater delivers full-portfolio first-level invoice review, end-to-end eBilling administration, matter setup with budget approvals, vendor onboarding, and dedicated reporting for a global legal department.
The program contributes materially to the client's 20% legal spend savings target. Monthly invoice rejections are down by hundreds since the engagement began, as vendor coaching reduces first-submission non-compliance.
Results vary by guideline maturity, prior review depth, and panel composition.
20%
Client legal spend savings target the program supports
3-7%
Typical net realized savings from managed review, from 5 to 10% surfaced
Hundreds
Fewer monthly invoice rejections since engagement start, a vendor coaching effect
Platforms we work inside: Onit · Onit Unity · Brightflag · Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker · Bottomline · Mitratech · LawVu · Wolters Kluwer TyMetrix 360 · Wolters Kluwer Passport · homegrown eBilling · no eBilling system
The Service
A complete bill review service does five things. Every week.
Where outside counsel guidelines exist, 87% of legal departments report that enforcement is light (2025 In-House Connect survey). A service that delivers only the first two is invoice processing, not managed bill review.
- 01
Guideline enforcement: every invoice checked against your guidelines, approved rates and matter context before approval.
- 02
Line-item analysis: staffing, block billing, duplication, and whether the work billed matches what the matter required.
- 03
Exception handling: documented reductions that survive the firm’s pushback.
- 04
Vendor coaching: findings fed back to the firms so the same violations stop arriving.
- 05
Savings reporting: what was found, what was recovered, and which firms are improving.
Non-US invoices, with local currency, VAT, GST and withholding lines, are routed to the approvers and the tax and finance owners your policy names.
Claims & Staff Counsel
Built for claims litigation and staff counsel programs too.
Insurance claims and staff counsel bill review carries its own requirements: high volume, defense-counsel guidelines, claims-system coordination, and reviewers who understand the sequence of litigation activity. Our practitioners deliver structured claims bill review within the same five-activity model.
High invoice volume
Review depth that holds at claims-program volumes rather than thinning out under load.
Defense-counsel guidelines
Enforcement against the defense billing guidelines your program already publishes.
Claims-system coordination
Invoice data reconciled with the claim record so spend ties back to the file it belongs to.
Litigation sequence literacy
Reviewers who know what a case should cost at each stage, and what does not belong there yet.
Engagement & Pricing
Start with a pilot. Scale on evidence.
Run the pilot on a subset of firms or a single practice area, and evaluate documented savings before broadening scope. Nothing about the program requires you to commit to the full portfolio on day one.
Step 01
Bounded pilot
A subset of firms or one practice area, reviewed under the full five-activity model, with documented findings you can audit.
Step 02
Pricing that fits procurement
Fixed fee, fixed FTE, or outcome-tied, scoped to invoice volume and program maturity, and matched to the model your procurement team prefers.
Step 03
Full-managed or co-managed
We run the review function end to end, or we run it alongside your team with your reviewers keeping the work they want to keep.
Who Runs It
Named practitioners, accountable for the work.
You meet the people who will run your review program on the discovery call, and they stay on the engagement.
Jeannine Puello
Managed Services and Legal Ops Leader
Ran legal operations inside AT&T and Verizon. She has built and run the function, and that operating credibility is what carries a review program from guideline design through enforcement.
Danish Butt
Managing Director · Outside Counsel Optimization
20+ years advising Chief Legal Officers on engagement letters, billing guidelines, panel structure, and rate programs, the upstream terms that decide what review can enforce.
Hafid Karama
Business Intelligence, PM, and Legal Ops
Builds the reporting layer that turns review findings into evidence: what was caught, what was recovered, and which firms are actually improving.
46 seconds · Watch on this page
From the practitioners
Rates keep rising. Predictability is the harder problem.
Joseph Tiano of Legal Decoder, Danish Butt of Swiftwater and Company, and Jeff Solomon on why the rate cycle is only half the story, and why a department that cannot predict its spend cannot govern it.
Featuring Joseph Tiano (Legal Decoder), Danish Butt (Swiftwater and Company), and Jeff Solomon.
Frequently asked questions
How much can we save with managed legal bill review?
A structured program typically surfaces 5 to 10% of billed amount as guideline-non-compliant in its first year, with net realized savings after firm disputes typically in the 3 to 7% range. Every model also returns the attorney time previously spent on first-level review.
How does managed bill review differ from the AI review inside our eBilling platform?
Platform AI extends rule enforcement, flagging violations faster and at greater scale. It does not judge whether work was worth what was billed, or coach firms so violations stop recurring. Those layers need practitioners operating inside the spend program.
What expertise should we expect from a managed bill review provider?
Reviewers who know your guidelines and the platform they are enforced in, who understand what a matter should cost at each stage, and who can document a reduction well enough that it survives the firm’s pushback. Our team also administers eBilling platforms, builds the reporting, and has run legal operations inside AT&T and Verizon.
How do you ensure consistent bill review standards across all matters?
Every invoice is reviewed against the same written guidelines, rate cards and matter budgets, loaded into the platform so the rules apply the same way to every firm. Exceptions are documented the same way every time, and the findings go back to the firms so first-submission compliance improves.
How does managed bill review enforce billing guideline compliance?
Guidelines are applied at invoice, line by line, before approval: rates against approved rate cards, staffing and block billing against the guideline, and work billed against the matter. Reductions are documented, and vendor coaching stops the same violations recurring.
Which eBilling platforms do you work inside?
We work inside the platform you already own, with no system change: Onit, Onit Unity, Brightflag, Thomson Reuters Legal Tracker, Bottomline, Mitratech, LawVu, Wolters Kluwer TyMetrix 360 and Wolters Kluwer Passport, as well as homegrown eBilling systems. If your department has no eBilling system, we can run the review without one. Our practitioners also keep billing rules, rate cards and configurations current as part of the engagement.
Can you handle high invoice volumes for claims and staff counsel programs?
Yes. Claims litigation and staff counsel programs run within the same five-activity model, with review depth that holds at claims-program volumes, enforcement against your defense-counsel guidelines, and invoice data reconciled with the claim record.
How do we start?
With a bounded pilot, typically 3 months, on a subset of firms or a single practice area, reviewed under the full five-activity model, with documented findings you can audit before broadening scope. Pricing is fixed fee, fixed FTE, or outcome-tied, scoped to invoice volume and program maturity.
Stop paying for invoices nobody challenged.
Book a Discovery CallAlso relevant
Managed Legal Operations Services
We run the function on an ongoing basis, under your governance.
Legal Spend Management
Outside counsel optimization, eBilling, guidelines, panels, and rate programs.
Enterprise Legal Management
The platform layer your review program runs inside, selected and implemented.