Timekeeper

Enter, edit, delete timekeepers consistent with the firm's internal billing software

User Administration & Permission Setup

Firms choose from Nine (9) different User levels exactly what its Users may or may not see and or affect

Case Team Timekeeper Admin & Team Revision History

Firms may add or edit timekkeeper assigned to a case. The Client approves or denies the team. Team revision history displays, hitorically, the compositioni of the team on any given date.

Case Lists

Firms and Clients may view the full list of open and closed matters with each firm or client, along with all of the case information including dates of laoos, assigned parties, fees and expenses to date and many other case data elements.

Rates/Special Rates/Clients Specific Max Rates/Hourly, Retainers, Flat Fees

These very important categories relate to the many different fees structures in place between the Client and the firms. On a case-by-case basis or even user specifically, negotiated rates are enforced by ResolveStar.

Examiner Assignment

Matter mangement lists are categorized by the Examainer or Adjuster that is assigned to those cases.

Invoice Routing

Cases are setup on a one-to-one basis whether that be to one examiner or one team of examiners. Routing ensures that only those Client-side parties with the permissions to see case information and data have access to that information.

Bifurcated Review Setup

This unique feature takes routing to another level in that component parts of an invoice are route to different Client personnel for review. Most often clients will categorical bifurcate review based on the nature of and complexity of the work performed by Counsel.

Supervisory Permissions

Over and above routing and bifurcated viewas are supervisory permissions normally created for Upper Level Management supervision of staff activity. This level of oversight authentication exist for both Clients and Law Firms supervisors.

Non-Billable Case Edit Interface

Clients are furnished with the ability change cases between billable and non-billable status in real-time through an authenticated log on.

Split Fee Matter Setup

Split fee matters are common in ResolveStar and may be managed via data transfer or through Client-side originated data management.

Approve Teams

Original case teams may be setup by the firm or by ResolveStar as the situation warrants. Review and approval or denial of the team is made through the Client side interface.

Waive Team Requirements

Examiners and supervisors have the ability to waive team requirement in ResolveStar if the circumstances warrant greater numbers attorneys to participate in case management than the Client's Litigation Management Guidelines permit.

Prior Approvals

Each ResolveStar client has its own unique areas of focus and concern. Item such as motion practice, hiring experts and investigation request, amongst others, are categories of wrok that clients wish to categorize as prior approval required. Prior approval often attaches permissibility to perform certain task activities to the amounts of time or resources that client is willing to spend to have that work performed. Often times, prior approval required items will be tasks that do not lend themselves to having a finite limit of time associated with them. For example, the time to research and draft motin for summary judgement could take as little as an hour or as much as 100 hours. The approvals are requested byt he firm and reviewed/approved by the client or the examiners that work for the client who actually handle the case.

Budgeting

ResolveStar first introduced case specific budget creation and approval in 2005. Over time and through a great deal of client collaboration, budget have taken on many forms. The use of budgets by clients and firms provides a snashot of the stage of litigation and the expected tasks and activities that are on the horizon. ResolveStar can deploy enforceable budgets that will measure the levels of completion of work performed on the case and inform the parties when the budgeted amounts have been exceed. But in other instances, the budget may be used as a yardstick or a measure of work performed without limiting the amounts that the firm may be paid for. Examples of budgets currently utilized by ResolveStar clients include:

• Life of Case
• Periodic Target Projections
• One Off
• Trial Budgets
• Arbitration & Mediation Budgets

Temporary/Non-Team Timekeeper Request & Approval Interface

In all forms of defense, Clients have wanted a limited but specialized team of attorneys handling each case. This team of attorneys is paid to become knowledgable of the facts, issues, potential liability and, hopefully, the value of the case they are defending. Ideally, those informed parties would handle the case including review of documents, reporting, appearance in court to defend the insured, etc. However, there are many reasons that it is in both the firms and the clients best interest to staff the case with an attorney that is not on the team. ResolveStar enables firms to request and clients to review requests for use of other attorney. Ultimately, the client can measure non-team timekeeper use by firm and also sort this date categorically.

Expert Review Requests

Experts testimony is often a critical component in the defense of a case. ResolveStar has several different methods of collecting expert review information. It may be a simple as identifying an expert and request the number of hours and rates that will be charge for review and a report, or trial testimony etc. other times and depending on the client it may be much more specific including the use of ResolveStar, CV/Resume database along qwith the client's agreed to rates for the approved expert for the many different types of tasks s/he will perform as an expert on the case. These agreed to rates and hours/days or half days billed by the expert to the firm will then match up in ResolveStar to the amounts payable in the firm's invoice.

Expense Requests

These requests relate to items incurred aas expenses by the firm. Client specifically, these are established along with thresholds of permissible amounts beyond which approval is necessary or items that are atypically large dollar amounts that the firm wishes to have approved prior to invoice submission. of course, ResolveStar enables the firm to upload .pdf versions of vendor invoceis to keep the Client file complete with the necessary expense backup.

Update Claim Information Status

Changes to numbers of parties, split fee matter and a host of other changes to claim information detail are notified to the firms as they occur. Changes such as these may affect the anticipated work that the firms will perform oin defense of the case. Impleaders and thrid-party complaints with dictate greater numbers of document exchanges, depositions and many other elements of the work done by defense counsel.

New Assignment Notification

Firms are informed on their ToDo list of all new assignments that they have received in the past week. They wll also be directed to set up a Case Team in order to commence invoiceing on that matter.

Case Information Requests &
Case Investigation Requests

These are two of ResolveStar's additional specialized interfaces tailored to the Client for communication between the firm and the Examiner. Both will create a workflow and will monitor the level of completion of the request. To the extent required, ResolveStar will feed the updated datainto the Ciient's Claim System to become part of the Client own claim file.

Instant Notification of Authentication Receipt

At upload, you are informed if your invoice has passed all of the authentication tests. If so, it is processed immediately and viewable to work with a moment later.

Option to Correct Invoice Online

For any number of reasons, invoice submissions may contain incorrect data or lack data entirely. ResolveStar enables firms to edit and enter the information that is incorrect or missing from its upload file. This feature aids the firms in the submission process and keeps the bill moving along toward payment.

Specific Information Dashboard regarding Client Guideline Compliance

Many Clients of ResolveStar wish to focus on and harness data regarding workflow and case management. For each client ResolveStar creates, maintains, populates and updates information regarding specific Litigation Management Guideline Compliance Criteria. When, by whom and in what amounts are displayed for each measured task.

Create Invoices Online

Although 99% of law firms already license or own billing creation software, ResolveStar provides firms with the ability to create invoices line-by-line within the framework of the site. This interface is also utilized by many firms that wish to create one-off or single line item invoices (for large expenses, as an example). This quick and easy-to-use feature speeds up the submission process and fosters the quick creation of specialized interim invoices.

Instant Notification of LEDES/data Errors

Some invoice submissions are considered to include data errors that must be fixed on the firm side prior to receipt by the system. ResolveStar informs the firm immediately upon upload, exactly which lines of the invoice lack required data and direct them on how to repair the submission.

Detail regarding Conditions Precedent or Subsequent Missing from Invoice

These are normally client-defined parameters that require that in order for one task to be completed, another must be done as well. In this situation, the firm is notified within a second that critical data is missing. Then, the firm can fix the file in its billing system and resubmit the complete invoice. This is another tool used by ResolveStar clients to ensure Litigation Management Guidleine compliance.

Instant Adjustment & Notification of Rate Overages

Agreed to rates between the client and the firms are enforced by ResolveStar. There are many conditions that may affect a particular timekeepers rate based on work performed, stage of litigation, etc. These criteria are coded into ResolveStar and applied to invoice submissions. If adjustments are made to an invoice, based on client rules, the firm is notified at the time of submission.

Real Time Transactions

This is simple but it cannot be stressed enough. Every entry into ResolveStar by a User is a real-time transaction. It is instantaneously viewable by any other User associated to the case or invoice (subject to User Level rights and permissions).

Appeals/Justifications

When items fall outside of the parameters prescribed in a Clients Litigation management Guidleines, the firms appeal and justify these items, in essence, creating an internal invoice audit trail of the reason(s) that the tasks and activities were performed under these particular circumstance. This is a powerful real-time tool.

Items Returned for Additional Explanations

Items that were not flagged as requiring a justification may still not satisfy the claims professional handling the case. ResolveStar's client-side interface enables the claims professional to send the firm and inquiry regarding the tasks and activities performed.

Items Returned for Coding Errors

The correct coding of and characterization of work performed is of the utmost importance to ResolveStar clients for many reasons. ResolveStar furnishes it Clients with the ability to return individual and/or groups of line item entries to the firms for re-coding. This is critical for Guideline Compliance, accurate analysis and, ultimately, for Reporting Services.

Invoice Adjustments

Unit Reduction, Percentage Reduction, Rejection - there are many different options that a Client may elect to deploy regarding the ways in which its Claims Professinal will be able to affect line item submission. If the situation warrants, Claims Professionals will make reductions to invloice entries or reject them entirely. ResolveStar's real-time interface provides the client chosen options.

Group Rulings

In the interest of time savings and quicker processing, both firm and client and client users have the ability to arrange line items into groups od line items. In that manner, one appeal or one ruling may be used to explain line items that are similar in date and in scope of work with one entry.

Resource Allocation Display

Percentage & total hours per timekeeper - an important and often referred to display in ResolveStar is both a life of the case and individual invoice display of the number of hours and percentage of total hours allocated to a case by a particualr timekeeper.

Prior Approved Items matched to the Billed Items

Items that have been requested as Prior Approvals items in ResolveStar are matched up with the corresponding entries in the actual invoice. This is important for enforcement by the clients and for time saving workflow for the firms. This is a very powerful real-time application of previously requested and permitted tasks, activities and expenses.

Note System

ResolveStar has devised both a personal and case specific notes system for Client use in maintaining information and for diarying items ahead within the framework of the site. This is an important organizational tools for client reminders, ticklers and running notes.

Escalation Email interface

This feature is a powerful, widely-used tool for Client users to advise and potentially request the aid of supervisors and department leaders regarding particular invoices on a case. In addtion to the email generation within ResolveStar to the superiors, a .pdf of the invoice in question is delivered immediately for departmental review.

Task Checklist Summary

Hours billed by whom and when - this is a level of completion based on the stage of litigation display utilized by both Firm Administrators and Client personnel to observe the complete or incomplete nature of items required in the Litigation Management Guidelines.

Invoice Aging

The length of time that an invoice has been in ResolveStar is important on many levels. For the firms, it informs them of the items that are outstanding and will help them determine when they will be paid. Client will use this information for analysis of Claim Profession turnaround time and it also may impact the timeliness of invoice payment relative to insurance policy period payment requirements.

Real-time Approved Invoice Notification

As soon as an invoice is approved for payment all parties are informed. This will let a firm know that a Final invoice has been submitted to the A/P Department of the Clients.

Instant Paid Invoice Notification

Once a check or an EFT of funds has been made, a Client may systematically enter that data into ResolveStar in a number of ways to inform the firm that payment has been made.

Expense Receipt Backup Upload & Attached to Invoice

Client determined criteria will require firms to upload expense or payment backup in the form of a .pdf upload. Those receipts are then attached to the file for the Claim Professional to use and potentially download or print for the claim file or to import into the Claim Management Information System.

Customized Report Generation

Each Client has its own unique style of utilizing aggregated data. ResolveStar does not force its clients into a general box. It is important for Clients to be able to create criteria and focus on relevant data in order to make educated decisions aout future assignments, allocation of resources and to, ultimately, redefine work protocols based on its findings. ResolveStar promotes these business processes through customizing reports to the Client's needs and delivering them with the regularity that the Client requires.

Industry Specific Report Delivery

The elements that are evaluated in different industries will vary based on any number of variables. However, within industries, such as medical professional liabilty, there many exist commonality. Over and above, tailored, cumstomized reports, ResolveStar delivers industry specific reports that are used by similarly situated Clients in your industry. This is an apples-to-apples comparison approach and it furnishes clients with similars analyses to their peers in the industry. Possessing this type of data is a tool for clients to use in collaborating with others in their industry and, in turn, it provides data to stimulate ideas and a thought process that may empower clients in future business decisions.

Data Exports

To Claims System/Image Right/On Base/Trideo, etc.- across its many clients, ResolveStar, at no additional cost to the client, has created electronic data transfer interfaces into and out of the clients' claims information systems and/or data and image repositories such as ImageRight or On-Base. In this manner, the clients can be confident that their management systems take full advantage of the real time data that ResolveStar is constantly handling. Transfers such as these may be set up in accordance with Client side protocols; meaning that for some Clients, ResolveStar is actually delivering and receiving data to the client in real time or, in other situations, data transfers occur at regularly scheduled intervals (such as overnight or weekly).

Self-Insured Retention (SIR) Monitoring

Most non-Insurance Company clients of ResolveStar have some form of self-insurance. Inasmuch as the costs of defense erode the SIR, ResolveStar keeps a running total of those costs. Once the client provides the limits, ResolveStar displays the amounts of the SIR exhausted and remaining and sets up client chosen alerts to keep all parties apprised of the status of the retention in real time. Clients is these alerts to put excess insurers on notice and to inform firms, examiners and supervisors that future documentation and correspondence should be copied to the excess carier.

Case Reserve Monitoring

Along with reserved data that is capturedand updated in the cliams systems, ResolveStar can display reserves set by examiners for client-side use. As fees and expenses accumulate on a case, triggers are set up to match client side protocols alerting them of near exhaustion of the expense reserves previously established for each case in the system.