What Is a LEDES File, and Does LeanLaw Support LEDES Billing?

A LEDES file is a standardized electronic billing format that insurance companies and corporate legal departments require so they can process legal invoices from many different firms the same way. LeanLaw supports LEDES billing, available on the Pro and Elite plans.

What a LEDES file actually is

LEDES stands for Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard. It’s a structured file format for a legal invoice, built so the insurance companies and corporate legal departments who pay outside counsel can import, audit, and process bills from many firms and billing systems the same way. Instead of every firm sending a PDF formatted its own way, a LEDES file breaks the invoice into structured data, time entries, task and activity codes, rates, in a layout the receiving system already expects.

Why insurers and corporate legal departments require it

The requirement doesn’t come from any billing software; it comes from the client. Insurance defense work and corporate legal departments managing large outside counsel spend rely on e-billing systems built to expect LEDES-formatted invoices, so they can apply their own billing guidelines and process payment without a human re-keying every line. If a client’s e-billing system requires LEDES, sending anything else usually means the invoice bounces back before it’s even reviewed. That’s why the requirement shows up firm-wide the moment a firm signs one client who mandates it, rather than staying a one-off request.

Where LEDES billing fits in LeanLaw’s plans

LEDES billing is part of LeanLaw’s Pro plan, at $75 per user / month, and it carries through to Elite. Firms on Core, at $55 per user / month, don’t have LEDES billing available; if a client requires it, that’s a Pro-level need regardless of firm size. Current pricing is on the pricing page. The codes a LEDES file actually carries are UTBMS task and activity codes — the same phase structure a lot of firms reuse for budget-to-actual tracking on a matter; see how UTBMS task and activity codes work for that piece.

What this depends on

• Whether any of your clients’ e-billing systems actually require LEDES, versus clients who accept a standard invoice.
• Which LEDES format a given client’s e-billing system expects, since not every client’s system reads the same one.
• Whether your timekeepers already enter UTBMS task and activity codes consistently enough for a clean export.
• Which plan your firm is on, since LEDES billing is a Pro-and-above capability.

Whether LEDES billing exists matters less than whether any of your current or prospective clients actually require it, since that’s what turns LEDES from a plan feature you don’t need into one you can’t bill without.

Related questions

What’s a LEDES file, in plain terms? It’s a standardized electronic invoice format that lets insurance companies and corporate legal departments process bills from many firms the same way, instead of reading a differently formatted PDF from each one.

What does the LEDES code actually mean? The codes inside a LEDES file are UTBMS task and activity codes, an industry standard that categorizes what kind of legal work each time entry represents.