You can always tell when it is getting close to the 20th of the month by the increase in billing enquiries. Not that as I need telling as I have to undertake this most dreadful task of the month myself – a tiny amount of Legal Help billing.
Nowadays this involves little more than half a dozen or so level 2, public law matters. The level of information required to complete the task, online, remains from a different era when the statistical monitoring of provision for complicated supply/demand considerations was paramount. Most of the data required now is of no value whatsoever and I cannot remember the last time any element of it was practically used – save to be criticised on audit.
Why cant we simply use the code that defines the standard fee, some basic client information and the disbursements to be paid on top?
