OBP-L™ · the open billing protocol for legal
Outside counsel signs envelopes at submission. In-house counsel verifies at receipt. Disputes settle deterministically. The future state of legal billing when buyer and firm both adopt.
Why billing today fails both sides
Outside counsel tells a narrative. In-house accepts or disputes. There is no shared substrate, no neutral arbiter, no cryptographic record of what was actually delivered.
The write-down is a relationship cost, not an enforcement remedy. The firm absorbs to keep the client. The buyer absorbs what they couldn't catch. Both lose.
Every legal-tech tool is a closed system. Brightflag handles spend management. Aderant handles billing. iManage handles documents. None of them define the protocol underneath. None of them work across vendor boundaries.
The protocol · in motion
When both sides adopt OBP-L, billing becomes attestable infrastructure. Every billed line gets a signed envelope at submission. The buyer verifies the signature cryptographically at receipt. Disputes route deterministically. No write-down dance. No one-sided narrative. Just settlement.
Step 1 · F → P
At cycle close, the firm's billing system captures every billed line at source — auto-pulled from work artifacts. Each line is cryptographically signed and submitted as a BILL envelope to the OBP-L protocol.
— One billing cycle. Four cryptographic stages.
What the protocol unlocks
When the envelope is signed cryptographically at submission, the bill is unilaterally enforceable. Disputes route to a neutral arbiter that reads the protocol — not to a relationship negotiation.
Any firm can ship a conformant version. Any buyer can verify any envelope. Apache 2.0. Open spec. No vendor lock-in. Pyx authors the protocol and ships the canonical implementation, but the standard belongs to the industry.
The first OBP-L conformant firms and buyers in the country lock the press story, the procurement positioning, and the industry signaling. Whoever adopts first — claims first.
The OBP-L protocol activates when both sides have it. But you don't have to wait — Pyx ships products for each side now, and OBP-L conformance comes as you adopt.
Forensic invoice verification. Block-billing decomposition. Pushback letters that auto-draft from the evidence chain.
See Audit → PE fund counselDocument workflow and custody tracking for fund-formation legal. Every matter, every clause, one ledger.
See Flow → Law firms · billable-hourAuto-capture time at source. Signed envelopes at submission. Public conformance certification.
See firm-side → Law firms · fixed-feeInternal cost ledger. External value attestation envelopes. The procurement edge over billable-hour competitors.
See fixed-fee →First buyer. First firm. First in the country. The OBP-L conformance registry is open — sign envelopes today, get listed publicly, claim the positioning permanently.
Inquire about conformance →