I would not want to move forward with either unless you are a "sponsor" and 
believe such tools would clearly add value immediately.   Mark



	Mark Greenberg@ENRON
	12/13/2000 11:10 PM
		 
		 To: Rob Walls/NA/Enron@Enron, Mark E Haedicke/HOU/ECT@ECT
		 cc: 
		 Subject: eLaw and eVelocity

Rob/Mark -

I wanted to give you both a brief overview of the reviews this past week of 
eLaw and eVelocity.

eLaw - I met with principals of eLaw and Steve Horn earlier this week.  The 
reason for the meeting was really a pitch of second round funding from Enron 
to the tune of $10MM to $15MM.  The secondary focus was on the product and 
its usefulness to Enron. Steve made it clear that any funding decision would 
be driven 100% by a decision by the Legal Department to use the tool and, 
thus, it was up to Legal to review it and see where to go.

The demonstration of the tool was impressive.  Though it does act as a 
traditional shopping type site in many respects, it also has functionality to 
create a "myelaw" page customized to the information you, the user are the 
most interested in seeing.  It also allows for a query into further 
information, which query is then forwarded to the law firms (or firm) 
supporting the practice area (e.g. Labor/Employment) for comment.  There is 
also the ability to set up an Enron library so that information on topics 
developed by Enron retained firms can be loaded, organized and maintained, 
including legal opinions, memoranda on various topics and form 
pleadings/documents.  This area is secure from the balance of the site so 
that other users cannot access the information.  The loading process is 
fairly easy and could easily be implemented within a firm environment.  Some 
of the functionality that would be the most useful is due to be released in a 
new version coming out early Q1 and by the end of 2001 there is the plan to 
have at least 10 or so practice areas available.  Right now the focus is on 
Environmental, Intellectual Property, Health Care, and Tax.

I think the tool could be useful, especially in relation to the organization 
of information we obtain from our outside sources.  It may also complement 
the website/portal concept we are currently looking to make a part of the 
website/portal development process.  I would be curious to see, however, what 
other tools are out there doing the same or similar function.


eVelocity - I met this afternoon with Mike Griffs (sp?) to discuss the 
eVelocity tool.  It was presented as a portal concept to link the law firm 
and our legal department solely for the movement, review and payment of law 
firm invoices.  While it is billed as a system capable of interfacing with a 
matter management system, it can, itself, be used as a matter management tool.

The capabilities of the system revolve around the determination of a set of 
rules that are applicable to law firm invoices.  For example, say Enron does 
not pay more than $0.10 per page of copying.  This can be set as a rule so 
that any invoice loaded into eVelocity by a law firm containing more than 
this amount per page would be automatically rejected.  The rejection would 
then require the law firm to adjust the bill accordingly and resubmit it to 
the system.  This same functionality can be put in place on the Enron side so 
that the rule requires the bill to come into Enron for review, but notes that 
it is not compliant with the established rules so that the reviewing attorney 
is alerted to the issue.  The system does identify the problem so you do not 
have to search the entire invoice to see what differs from the rules.  It is 
possible to  establish rules that would allow an invoice, presuming it 
complied with all rules, to be automatically approved and moved to AP for 
payment.   This would require interfacing with AP and the SAP system, but it 
could be done.

In addition to the above functionality, the system can also track matters, 
budgets for matters, costs incurred for a matter and the name of the law firm 
people who are authorized to bill against a specific matter.  Reports can be 
generated in an number of formats to assess financial performance against a 
budget or overall costs for various matters.  Finally, since it is a 
web/browser based system, implementation is not difficult and there is not a 
lot of IT involvement needed.

I specifically asked why any other matter management system would be needed 
and received the response that there really is no such need.  Mike indicated 
a pilot program would take no more than two to three weeks to set up.

In keeping with the ideas surrounding the technology plan developed for EWS, 
as well as similar ideas presented for the Corp. portal/website, it makes 
sense to look at implementing a matter management system of some sort that 
goes beyond litigation tracking.  Whether or not it is eVelocity or another 
comparable tool would require further research into the available products, 
but I believe it would be worth while to pursue maybe in a pilot program 
atmosphere.

What I have provided above is a general overview of the products and meetings 
surrounding the demonstrations.  If either of you would like further 
information or have any questions, please let me know.


Mark
Senior Counsel, ENA
Phone:     713-345-8897
Facsimile: 713-646-3940
E-Mail:      Mark.Greenberg@enron.com