CounselGO was the vendor portal from SimpleLegal, an Onit company, through which outside law firms and legal vendors submitted invoices, proposed matter budgets, managed timekeeper rates, and tracked approval and payment status for their corporate clients. Onit replaced it, along with the OnitX portal BillingPoint, with Counsel Exchange, Onit’s single vendor portal, and access to CounselGO ended on September 17, 2025. The portal changed, and the structure it served did not: the corporate legal department works inside the platform, its law firms work inside the portal, and an eBilling implementation runs well only when both sides are planned.
What replaced CounselGO?
Counsel Exchange replaced CounselGO as the vendor portal for SimpleLegal customers, and it now serves OnitX and Unity customers as well. For context, a 2025 survey of in-house legal teams found only 10 percent have significant automation in place. Onit activated Counsel Exchange on July 13, 2025, kept both portals available during a dual-access period, and ended CounselGO access on September 17, 2025.
For law firms, the switch was designed to be light. Firms log in to Counsel Exchange with their existing CounselGO username, and the client’s configuration behind the portal, from billing rules to rate approvals, stays in place. What legal departments need to update is everything around the portal: billing guidelines, engagement letters, onboarding packs, and reviewer guides that still name CounselGO or link to its address.
What was CounselGO used for?
CounselGO gave law firms a single, structured route for everything connected to billing a corporate client. Four capabilities carried most of the day-to-day use, and Counsel Exchange carries the same core workflows.
- Invoice submission. Firms created, uploaded, and tracked electronic invoices in the formats their client required.
- Budget proposals. Firms proposed matter-level budgets and reviewed spend against them.
- Timekeeper management. Firms submitted timekeepers and rates for client approval before billing against them.
- Status visibility. Firms followed an invoice through review, approval, and payment without emailing the legal operations team to ask.
That last point is the one legal departments feel most. When firms can see where an invoice stands, the volume of status inquiries reaching the legal operations inbox falls substantially, and the team gets its time back for spend analysis.
The portal’s quality was externally recognized. LegalTech Breakthrough named CounselGO “Vendor Management Solution of the Year”, citing the improved coordination and communication it gave legal teams with their vendors.
What invoice formats did CounselGO support?
CounselGO supported the LEDES family of electronic billing formats alongside PDF submission. Supported formats included LEDES, LEDES1998B, LEDES98BI, and LEDES XML, together with accruals and budgets. Counsel Exchange continues to accept LEDES uploads, and it checks each file as it is uploaded, flagging any critical error before the invoice is submitted.
Format breadth matters more than it first appears. Large firms usually generate LEDES files directly from their practice management system, while smaller firms and non-legal vendors often have no LEDES capability at all. Supporting both ends of that range is what allows a legal department to bring its entire vendor population onto one billing route during a rollout.
How did law firms get access to CounselGO?
Access to CounselGO began with the corporate client. A firm could not register independently; the client added the firm to its SimpleLegal environment, and the firm’s users were then invited in.
The onboarding sequence was simple. The client designated initial firm administrators, who then invited and managed their own colleagues, and login used two-factor authentication through a six-digit email verification code. Firms that had access to CounselGO carried their usernames into Counsel Exchange.
This client-initiated model is deliberate and it is good design. It keeps control of the approved vendor list with the legal department, which is exactly where spend governance belongs. It also means vendor setup is a real workstream in any implementation plan, with an owner and a schedule.
What does CounselGO teach about Onit eBilling implementations?
The vendor portal, CounselGO then and Counsel Exchange now, is where an eBilling rollout meets people outside the organization, which makes it the part of the deployment that depends most on coordination. Internal configuration determines what the platform will accept. Firm onboarding determines whether anyone submits correctly.
A workable eBilling implementation therefore runs on two tracks at once:
- Inside the platform. Billing guidelines, rejection rules, approval routing, budget thresholds, and the timekeeper rate approval process all need configuring and testing against real scenarios.
- Outside the platform. Every firm needs adding, its administrators identifying, its users inviting, and its billing staff briefing on what the client’s guidelines actually require.
Jurisdiction count drives the effort on both tracks. Basla has supported matter management and eBilling programs spanning more than ten global jurisdictions, and each additional jurisdiction tends to bring its own tax treatment, currency handling, and billing guideline variations. For a fuller picture of how these programs are structured, see what an Onit ELM implementation actually involves.
What makes vendor portal onboarding succeed?
Successful onboarding treats the law firm billing coordinator as a user who needs training, because that person decides whether invoices arrive clean. Legal departments that invest in this stage see rejection rates fall quickly after go-live.
Four practices carry most of the value:
- Brief firms on the guidelines before go-live. A firm that understands the rejection rules in advance submits a compliant first invoice.
- Sequence the onboarding. Bring the highest-volume firms on first so the largest share of spend is flowing correctly early.
- Test with real invoice data. A LEDES file from an actual firm exposes formatting issues that a synthetic test file will not.
- Give firms a named contact for the first billing cycle. Questions arrive in the first month regardless of preparation, and a clear route for them protects the legal operations team.
Testing deserves particular attention here, since rejection logic only proves itself against non-compliant submissions. The same principle applies across an Onit deployment, which is why role-based security testing before go-live belongs in the plan alongside the billing scenarios.
How did CounselGO relate to BillingPoint?
CounselGO and BillingPoint served the same function of outside counsel invoice intake, and which one applied depended on the Onit product a client ran. CounselGO was the SimpleLegal portal. BillingPoint was the equivalent used with OnitX deployments.
Counsel Exchange replaced both, so departments that ran separate onboarding instructions, training material, and support documentation for each portal can now consolidate them into one set.
Onit continues to invest across this area, with an AI-native Unity eBilling foundation for automating billing compliance and consolidating vendor data.
What happens to invoice data during an eBilling migration?
Historical invoice data moves with the implementation, and its condition determines how much of the platform’s reporting value is available on day one. Clean spend history produces immediately useful analytics, so data preparation earns its place in the plan.
This is consistently the most underestimated element of an eBilling rollout. Invoice history carries years of accumulated inconsistency in vendor names, matter references, timekeeper records, and currency treatment. Resolving it before migration is far cheaper than correcting reports afterwards, a pattern covered further in why messy legacy data can ruin a perfect platform build.
What portal support do firms and legal teams need after go-live?
Law firms and internal legal teams both generate portal questions in the first weeks, and the volume is predictable enough to staff for. Planning that support explicitly keeps the configuration team free to resolve genuine defects.
On one Onit rollout, Basla’s team handled roughly two hundred tickets in the first week after go-live. Around sixty percent were users asking how to complete a task, and the balance were genuine defects requiring a developer. The hypercare window ran for eight weeks with every report triaged and replication steps validated before anything reached the configuration team. The reasoning behind that model is set out in why launches fail without a dedicated hypercare triage desk.
Conclusion
CounselGO was the point where an eBilling deployment stopped being an internal configuration exercise and started depending on people outside the organization. The portal is now Counsel Exchange, and the lesson holds: the platform side can be configured perfectly and the rollout still struggles if law firms have not been added, briefed, and given a route for their questions in the first billing cycle.
Budget for vendor onboarding as a workstream with an owner and a schedule, sequence the highest-volume firms first, test rejection logic with real LEDES files before go-live, and plan the support model for the first month. If your guidelines and onboarding packs still name CounselGO, update them to Counsel Exchange so firms receive one consistent instruction.
How Basla can help
Basla provides delivery teams for Onit implementation, covering business analysis, configuration support, billing guideline setup, testing coordination, vendor onboarding support, documentation, and post-go-live support. Basla has delivered legal technology services across more than a hundred jurisdictions, with hands-on experience supporting Onit matter management, eBilling, legal service request, and contract workflows.
Frequently asked questions
What was CounselGO?
CounselGO was the vendor portal from SimpleLegal, an Onit company, through which outside law firms and legal vendors submitted invoices, proposed matter budgets, managed timekeeper rates, and tracked approval and payment status. Onit replaced it with Counsel Exchange, and access ended on September 17, 2025.
Is CounselGO still available?
CounselGO is no longer available. Onit ended access on September 17, 2025, and firms now submit invoices through Counsel Exchange, logging in with their existing CounselGO username.
How did law firms get access to CounselGO?
Access started with the corporate client. A firm could not register on its own. The client added the firm to its SimpleLegal environment and designated initial firm administrators, who then invited and managed their own colleagues. Login used two-factor authentication through a six-digit email verification code.
What invoice formats did CounselGO accept?
CounselGO supported the LEDES family of electronic billing formats alongside PDF submission, including LEDES, LEDES1998B, LEDES98BI, and LEDES XML, together with accruals and budgets. Counsel Exchange continues to accept LEDES uploads.
What was the difference between CounselGO and BillingPoint?
Both handled outside counsel invoice intake, and which one applied depended on the Onit product a client ran. CounselGO was the SimpleLegal portal and BillingPoint was the equivalent used with OnitX deployments. Counsel Exchange replaced both.
How long does vendor portal onboarding take?
It depends on the size of the vendor population and how many jurisdictions are in scope. The work runs in parallel with platform configuration, and sequencing the highest-volume firms first means the largest share of spend is flowing correctly before the long tail is complete.
*This article is provided for general information only and does not constitute legal advice. Basla Solutions provides legal technology implementation and support services and does not practice law.*