Author: Onit

An Update on Our Ukrainian Team and Operations

Posted on February 24, 2022 by - Company News and Events

A message from Eric M. Elfman, Onit’s co-founder and CEO

Today we received the sobering news about Ukraine, which is home to AXDRAFT, a member of our Onit family of companies. It is with a heavy heart that I write this blog post, but I wanted to communicate that our top priority is to protect the welfare of our employees, contractors and their families during this time of need. Their safety and well-being are our focus today and, in the days and weeks to come. All team members in Kyiv have been accounted for and are safe. As conditions unfold, we will continue to assess their ongoing needs.

For our AXDRAFT customers, we have planned diligently to ensure there will be no disruption to your services and support. Going forward, we do not anticipate any operational interruptions for AXDRAFT’s and Onit’s customers, but we will continue to monitor the situation and proactively provide updates to our customers.

Sincerely,
Eric M. Elfman

In House Legal Software: Aligning Growing Legal Tech Budgets with Roadmaps

Posted on February 24, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management

There’s no question that in house legal software has significantly changed the way law departments conduct the business of law. From the predecessors of enterprise legal management more than 40 years ago to today’s AI-driven contract lifecycle management systems, technology has done its part to drive efficiency, promote transparency and capture valuable analytics.

Yet, legal operations professionals have confessed that their law departments have sometimes struggled in this area. In Gartner’s 2021 Legal Planning & Budgeting report, legal operations participants cited “technology solutions and level of adoption” as one of the top-four weaknesses revealed during COVID-19. The report notes the following two challenges as “knowledge management and coordination” and “effectively balancing routine and unplanned workloads.”

A lot has changed in the short time between then and now. More and more corporate legal departments have evolved their legal operations and pivoted to embrace or update in house legal software.

The proof is in legal technology budgets, which are growing. Gartner predicts that legal technology budgets will increase threefold by 2025.

In House Legal Software Adoption – Technology Roadmaps On the Rise

How will corporate legal departments allocate these bigger legal technology budgets?

Almost 90% of surveyed general counsel and CLOs in organizations earning $1B or more cited efficiency as the number one factor in deciding when to purchase technology (far outweighing cost reduction, which was cited by only 8%). This is great news for busy legal professionals, who, according to this survey, often find themselves handling more than five distinct business areas.

But, most legal operations teams are focused on a bigger picture. They’re proactive about their in house legal software implementations and planning out thoughtful, long-term technology roadmaps.

The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) was created to help legal operations professionals and other core corporate legal industry players optimize the legal service delivery models required to support the needs of legal departments of all sizes. One of CLOC’s 12 core competencies addresses technology and specifically addresses technology roadmaps:

“Create a clear technology vision that spans all the needs of your organization. Automate manual processes, digitize physical tasks and improve speed and quality through the strategic deployment of technology solutions.”

CLOC further describes this process by suggesting legal operations create and implement long-term technology roadmaps, evaluate new vendors, assess emerging technology capabilities, determine where to buy and when to buy and structure partnerships with corporate IT teams.

Aligning Budgets with Legal Technology Roadmaps

Rolling out a technology roadmap for in house legal software is the best way to figure out where your organization wants to go in terms of technology and how your budget can align with those goals. Technology roadmaps can account for budgets of all sizes, making it easier for legal operations professionals to stay on top of technology implementation even as budgets for technology continue to grow.

Fifty-four percent of respondents in Deloitte’s 2021 State of Legal Operations Survey said they now have “a defined and actionable legal systems roadmap.” That number is up from just 39% in 2020. This shows that companies understand that knowing where you want to go and how you’re going to get there is the only way to improve and grow systematically and intentionally.

Among the most popular technologies making up those roadmaps, according to CLOC, are solutions that automate and streamline critical workflows, reduce risk, and enhance data collection and transparency, including tools for e-signature, e-billing/matter management, contract management and document management.

With the sheer number of in house legal software options available on the market today, choosing the right one can feel overwhelming. The upside of all this innovation, though, is that you can find the right technology solution for nearly any budget. One helpful approach is to find an experienced partner who can help you identify recurring pain points and wish lists and turn those into a technology roadmap that can realistically be implemented to help your organization.

You can also lean on resources the explore the capabilities of technology and how they support law departments:

To read more about building legal technology roadmaps and other trends defining legal operations today, download our latest white paper: Six Leading Corporate Legal Operations Trends for 2022.

2021: A Year in Review

Posted on February 22, 2022 by - Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

2021 was a notable year for Onit. We not only celebrated our 10th anniversary, but we also saw accelerated growth and significant accomplishments. These included:

In this blog post, we will run through the highlights of 2021 for Onit and its family of companies.

First, though, we want to thank our customers, employees and partners. We couldn’t have reach these milestones without you. Thank you.

We also invite you to connect with Onit during Legalweek. From demos to cocktails to dinner, we’re offering many ways to celebrate Legalweek and learn more about us. Find out more here.

New Products for Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)

Onit has continued its tradition of disrupting the CLM market, expanding our reach on a global scale in 2021. Last year we launched new AI technologies for contract management, including Automate NDA, which uses AI to streamline and automate the entire non-disclosure agreement (NDA) process, reducing the time spent on NDAs by 70%. We also introduced Smart Checklists, offered as part of the ReviewAI Microsoft Word Add-In, which turns playbook checks into intelligent, actionable and collaborative tasks.

Last year also saw Onit extending its contract management market reach to midsize and smaller companies. An essential move in this area was Onit’s acquisition of SecureDocs, which closed in 2021 and was announced last month. SecureDocs is a global software company for contract management, virtual deal rooms and electronic signatures. By acquiring SecureDocs, Onit expanded its product portfolio from enterprise-level CLM to include quickly deployable contract management software for new and growing legal operations teams. SecureDocs will integrate with SimpleLegal, Onit’s legal operations technology subsidiary, to empower greater efficiencies, transparency and intelligence for legal operations teams.

With the addition of SecureDocs, Onit now offers its customers technologies for all stages of legal operations – from newly established companies to global enterprises.

Continued Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) Leadership

In 2021, Onit became one of the world’s largest enterprise legal management conglomerates with the acquisition of BusyLamp, a premier provider of legal spend and matter management software for European corporate legal departments. The acquisition creates one of the largest global enterprise legal management conglomerates, with more than 600 implementations completed worldwide and $8.3 billion in legal invoices processed by Onit and its subsidiaries SimpleLegal and BusyLamp in 2021. It also augments Onit’s formidable global reach into 140+ countries with European domain expertise and a solution well-equipped for unique considerations such as VAT, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and regional tax policies.

BusyLamp wasn’t Onit’s only acquisition in the ELM space in 2021. We also acquired Bodhala, a legal spend analytics, benchmarking and market intelligence leader. Bodhala applies machine learning and AI to help companies source outside counsel at competitive and market-driven rates, with proven results for optimizing spend and the procurement of legal services. Onit’s acquisition of Bodhala creates the most complete enterprise legal management solution on the market, allowing corporate legal departments to evolve analytics into actionable intelligence to optimize outside counsel spend.

Our subsidiaries also reached several milestones and earned awards in their own right. You can read about them in our press release.

Looking Ahead

This past year’s accomplishments marked even more significant growth and expansion than Onit saw in 2020, which is no small feat. In 2020, we launched an artificial intelligence-powered business intelligence platform and AI contract review, closed two acquisitions in 30 days (McCarthyFinch and AXDRAFT), established our AI Center of Excellence and achieved a market-leading NPS score – all despite COVID-related complications.

In addition to our successful acquisitions and product launches, Onit grew its global workforce by 30% in 2021. We expect to hire at an even faster pace in the coming year to continue focusing on growth and innovation. If you’re interested in learning more about the positions we’re hiring for, please visit our careers page.

We’ve also already started to bring in the awards this year, being named to the 2022 Vet 100 list and Houston Inno’s first-ever Fire Awards.

You can expect even more great things to come as the year goes on. Whether you’re looking to revolutionize ELM and CLM for your organization or are interested in joining our team, contact Onit today.

The Top Six Leading Corporate Legal Operations Trends for 2022

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

The pandemic changed everything about our world seemingly in the blink of an eye—corporate legal operations included. However, with change comes opportunity: to unlock novel technology solutions and discover cutting-edge ways of catapulting efficiency and catalyzing transformation for enterprise-wide excellence.

Consider these six corporate legal operations trends, compiled from the latest metrics and data, to tackle your ever-evolving law department challenges.

1. Turning Budgets into Roadmaps

Corporate legal departments are projected to triple their legal technology budgets by 2025, according to Gartner’s 2021 Legal Planning & Budgeting report. Additionally, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium’s (CLOC) 2021 State of the Industry Report revealed that technology implementation is increasing, a triumph in efficiency for legal operations professionals who often tend to handle as many as five different business areas.

Not surprisingly, efficiency is the principal motivator encouraging general counsel (GC) and chief legal officers (CLOs) in $1B+ organizations to purchase new tech. With legal operations teams seeking to streamline and automate workflows, these purchases prove more than the sum of their parts. They are an integral part of “a defined and actionable legal systems roadmap,” the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel says. In fact, 32 percent of respondents in Deloitte’s 2021 State of Legal Operations Survey believe that procuring state-of-the-art e-signature, e-billing and contact management tools have supplied them with the ability to “provide actionable KPIs and reporting without significant manual effort,” maximizing time, energy and expenses saved.

2. Championing Diversity and Inclusion

Not only do diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives contribute to more robust work quality and skyrocket a competitive edge, they simply encapsulate the right thing to do. Still, despite an American Bar Association (ABA) ‘s Model Diversity Survey determining a marked leap in diversity among in-house counsel senior leadership, only 11.5% of GCs at Fortune 1000 companies were ethnic or racial minorities.

There is good news, though: post-pandemic, the number-one priority that legal operations professionals cite is implementing a D&I program.

Bloomberg’s 2021 Legal Operations Survey concluded that diversity is bolstered by both tracking metrics and introducing new processes, such as internal diversity training, more remote work opportunities and forward-thinking recruiting patterns. Also imperative? Holding vendors, namely law firms, responsible for the same standards of diversity and inclusion.

Three trailblazing companies that have elevated D&I are Intel, Uber and Novartis AG. Corporate legal departments can start by asking their current law firms to complete the ABA Model Diversity Survey and combining that data with D&I information from RFPs in a centralized legal solution.

3. Bridging Cybersecurity and Compliance Gaps

With data breaches on the inevitable rise and the average cost of a breach $4.24 million, it’s no wonder that 57% of the respondents in an ACC survey noted the urgency of having a “comprehensive data management strategy to ensure compliance, defensibility and security.”

Legal operations are an essential puzzle piece in comprehensive cybersecurity. Law.com stresses that organizations collaborate with IT to conduct data security and privacy measure audits focusing on consumer protection. The American Bar Association revealed that only 43% of those surveyed use encryption, and only 39% execute multi-factor authentication. Because remote work protocols dramatically augment technical vulnerabilities and cost over $1M more per breach, investing in a secure multi-factor authentication tool is fundamental for risk management.

4. Capturing the Power of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer merely a visionary trick in sci-fi flicks: its tech has helped lawyers and legal operations professionals analyze data patterns and generate business insights.

AI has proven especially vital in legal contract review software by reviewing thousands of contracts simultaneously, migrating legacy contracts and exporting data in under five seconds. Studies show that its functional aptitude for performing first-pass reviews makes even the newest users more than 51% productive and 34% efficient.

Those percentages provide a compelling argument for AI when extrapolated across a legal department. Whereas an average company has 55 lawyers who review a total of 9,526 contracts annually, AI can propel the same legal team to process 4,906 more each year. That’s analogous to hiring 28 additional lawyers!

Another bonus? Saving in-house counsel countless hours while circumventing the 9.2% average value “leakage.”

5. Realizing the Win-Win of AFAs

Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have often been branded with a bad reputation. That’s likely due to many legal departments fearing they may pay more with an AFA than an hourly fee. However, the tide is slowly changing as the average amount of AFA revenue across AmLaw 200 firms has consistently increased since 2018.

However, AFAs –which offer benefits for spend management over traditional billable hours—can be incredibly advantageous for clients, legal operations teams and law firms. They provide more control over spend, more reliable billing and a greater capacity for companies to remain on budget.

Generally, the more flexible an AFA, the more appealing it is. Utilizing spend management software to analyze current AFAs and compare vendor rates can help make enterprise-changing decisions.

6. Navigating Data-Driven Vendor Processes

According to a survey of GCs, vendor management is their top priority. This is even though CLOC’s State of the Industry Report revealed only 27% of legal department respondents formally reviewed law firm performance. In such an absence of vendor evaluation guidelines, how can return on investment (ROI) be determined?

This is where legal technology software shines. By assisting legal operations teams in orchestrating a formal vendor performance review process, it can also track vendor metrics, billing compliance, accruals and spend totals, shifting to a data-driven strategy and the most cost-effective business resolutions.

Whether it’s accelerating staff, budget or technology, each of these legal operations trends shares one element: in today’s rapidly metamorphosing world, they are becoming more critical by the day. Embracing change and advancing unrivaled growth with enterprise legal management software, contract management and transformational vendor and diversity programs will revolutionize legal operations in 2022—and long into the future.

Read more about these top legal operations trends by downloading our latest white paper.

Legalweek 2022: Connect with Onit and Its Family of Companies in New York City

Posted on February 15, 2022 by - Company News and Events

After a virtual detour last year, Legalweek is back in business. Legalweek 2022, scheduled for March 9-11 at the Hilton Midtown, welcomes thousands of attorneys, legal operations professionals and tech enthusiasts to New York to explore this year’s theme: “Addressing The Changing Legal Landscape.”

Onit has been a part of Legalweek since our founding 10 years ago, and each year we find a new, fun way to celebrate the show. If you attended in 2020, you might remember our Mardi Gras band that led a parade of attendees to happy hour. We’ll continue the tradition in 2022, and here’s how.

First, visit our Legalweek 2022 booth on the third floor of the Hilton by the conference’s registration. This year, we have an even larger presence to accommodate the entire Onit family of companies that includes SimpleLegal, ContractWorks, Bodhala, AXDRAFT and Busylamp.

Drop by to see demos of Onit products that include enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management and our workflow and artificial intelligence platforms. You can also pick up fun giveaways (no spoilers!) and learn more about all the Onit companies.

Second, join us on Wednesday, March 9, at the Renaissance Hotel for a joint happy hour with PwC. Sip delicious libations, nibble on small bites and catch up with all the movers and shakers in legal technology. Sign up here.

Third, let’s break bread together. Onit and Consilio are hosting an exclusive dinner for in-house counsel and legal operations professionals on Thursday, March 10. Expect great food, even better conversations and a floor-to-ceiling view of lively Times Square as a backdrop. Let us know to reserve your seat by visiting here.

Finally, after you take in Legalweek 2022 keynotes from celebrity anchors Don Lemon of CNN and Dan Abrams of ABC News, make time to go to another must-attend session. On Thursday, March 10 (1:30-2:30 pm ET), Hearst, Corteva and MassMutual panelists will share their vision for why legal must connect to the broader enterprise and how they are implementing processes and technology to make these connections. Titled “Building Stronger Connections to the Enterprise,” the session is open to everyone with an all-access badge to the show.

See a complete list of all of our Legalweek 2022 activities here.

Onit’s AI for eBilling Review Takes Home an Innovation Award

Posted on February 8, 2022 by - Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

We’re excited to announce that Onit has won a prestigious Business Intelligence Group (BIG) 2022 Innovation Award for our AI-enabled eBilling validation and processing technology, InvoiceAI. The awards program recognizes organizations, products and people bringing new ideas to life in innovative ways.

InvoiceAI debuted to customers in May of 2021 and then launched publicly four months later in September. It works with Onit’s enterprise legal management solution and traditional billing rules to conduct a first-pass review of outside counsel and vendor ebills submitted to corporate legal departments. Since AI and machine learning power it, it understands context, learns and can identify additional potentially noncompliant charges on top of what billing rules have already found.

This is the next evolution of eBilling review. Traditional billing rules rely on set parameters to identify invoices containing noncompliant line items, such as a specific word or series of words. Suppose a law firm or legal vendor uses billing descriptions that are similar but differ from what is outlined in the billing rules. In that case, an invoice may be automatically approved for payment.

How InvoiceAI Addresses eBilling Review Challenges

The review of a high number of invoices and their collective dollar total have challenged large corporate legal departments for decades. They’re often pressed to accomplish more in less time with fewer resources and lack the bandwidth to chase corrections or parse a large number of warnings. And they’re faced with invoice issues that include vague or insufficient details, block billing, improper coding of invoices and work being done by the wrong staff class. All of these issues are difficult for traditional billing rules to uncover and sort.

InvoiceAI finds issues such as administrative tasks and improper billing for time during travel and then integrates these findings with ELM and existing rules engines for a more intelligent eBilling review that continuously learns. As a result:

  • Attorneys can quickly review invoices
  • Legal operations can identify noncompliant billing guidelines and harvest early savings
  • General counsel can gain greater visibility into law firm performance and legal spend metrics.

As one customer commented:

“Now, our invoice review team doesn’t have to feel like the bad guy. The machine catches these issues (and does it better) so that we can focus on the relationships and let the system drive the needed action.”

Historical and Real-Time eBilling Review – Results

Before its public launch, InvoiceAI combed through the eBilling from 2020 for a set of Fortune 500 customers. It identified an average of six figures of savings in travel-related billed time and expenses submitted to the customers during the onset of COVID-19 when travel was severely restricted. These were invoices previously sent through traditional billing rules, meaning these savings surpassed what had already been found.

InvoiceAI yields positive results for real-time invoice review as well. When it is used with ELM and billing rules, some Onit customers have found up to 20% in savings.

Continuing AI Excellence

InvoiceAI is one of the latest AI innovations Onit has introduced since the founding of its AI Center of Excellence in 2020. Since then, we have released four other AI offerings in addition to InvoiceAI:

  • Precedent, an AI platform that automates and improves both legal and business processes for corporate legal departments, law firms, contract professionals and procurement teams.
  • ReviewAI, which quickly drafts, reviews, redlines and edits all types of contracts.
  • ExtractAI, AI which extracts and obtains usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.
  • Automate NDA, an easy-to-implement, best practice AI solution that helps you manage and automate the end-to-end non-disclosure agreement process.

How to Learn More About InvoiceAI

Interested in learning more about InvoiceAI and how it helps eBilling? Start here or request a demonstration.  You can also learn more about AI and corporate legal with these blog posts:

Data Security: How Not to Put Your Legal Data at Risk

Posted on February 7, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

With the global expansion of remote working and increased reliance on digital technologies to support every type of business, it’s no surprise that data security has risen to the top of the boardroom agenda. The issues associated with data security are particularly prominent in the minds of legal counsel since in-house legal teams frequently must help organizations manage and recover from crises, including data breaches.

WHY DOES DATA SECURITY MATTER?

Most organizations today rely on data. That means any data loss, whether caused by cyber-attack or human error, poses a considerable risk to the business. The impacts include significant time, cost, and resources spent responding to and recovering from an incident and the potential loss of revenue and long-term reputational and financial damage.

REAL DATA SECURITY RISKS FOR EUROPEAN LEGAL DEPARTMENTS

Recent studies show that a significant number of European businesses suffered a data breach involving the loss or theft of more than 1,000 records in the past two years; many of them came from a remote workforce. The shift towards remote working in the wake of the pandemic has increased the risks to data – and no legal team or business can afford to ignore them.

Data Breach Preparedness Study sponsored by Experian and conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that 49% of European businesses had suffered a data breach involving the loss or theft of more than 1,000 records in the past two years. Almost half of the data breaches came from a remote workforce (43% of European respondents). The shift towards remote working in the wake of the pandemic has increased the risks to data – and no legal team or business can afford to ignore them.

In the legal profession, the highly confidential and sensitive nature of internal data (and with law firm suppliers) makes it especially important to protect. And in an industry where your reputation is one of your most valuable assets, any data security incident that undermines that reputation is potentially devastating.

The CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) 2022 Survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel highlighted concerns about the risks to data among Chief Legal Officers. It reported that “57% of the respondents in an ACC survey noted the urgency of having a ‘comprehensive data management strategy to ensure compliance, defensibility and security.’”

HOW TO CHOOSE LEGAL SOLUTIONS THAT PROTECT YOUR DATA

Legal firms must ensure their IT security protocols are as robust and effective as possible to protect valuable data. The key is providing the software and systems you use to offer the highest levels of data safety. Even the most technology-savvy legal operations managers may need to be more expert in data security. But there are some key features you should look out for in any legal software you choose:

  • Single jurisdiction hosting ensures that once you’ve chosen the geographical location for your datacenter, your data never leaves that country.
  • Banking grade encryption: using the latest algorithms to encrypt data wherever it is stored, accessed, or transmitted – whether on disk, on the network, or in the database.
  • Secure cloud hosting: choose applications hosted securely on your own data center (private cloud), certified data centers (public cloud), or a hybrid.
  • Regular audits, pen tests, and certifications – compliance with recognized global certifications and standards, including ISO27001, ISO 9001, and GDPR, provides peace of mind in the security and reliability of your software.

Find further advice in our in-house legal tech data security checklist and here: Legal spend management software can help mitigate data breaches.

NOW IS THE TIME TO SECURE YOUR DATA

As the new financial year approaches, now is perfect for organizing your data security protocols. New vulnerabilities and data breaches hitting the headlines recently are a timely reminder of the risks posed to data and the need for constant vigilance. Throughout Europe, data protection plays a central role for legal departments and is a top priority for corporate governance. As you set your legal tech budgets for the year ahead, ensure data security is at the top of your shopping list.

DEVELOPED FOR SUPERIOR DATA SECURITY

The legal operations software provided by Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp eBilling.Space has enterprise data security terms front of mind. That means our solutions handle the matter, and billing data are subject to the highest security standards.

Moreover, BusyLamp has been recognized again by Hyperion Research as an Enterprise Legal Management Advanced Solution in its MarketView™ Report. The report recognized our data privacy policies, highlighting our robust data privacy features, including geographic data segregation options and automated data classification and retention tools.

YOUR DATA IN SAFE HANDS

When it comes to e-billing software that helps you reduce costs and operate more efficiently, you can be confident that BusyLamp offers market-leading data protection and security standards to safeguard the confidentiality of your matters and the reputation of your business.

Request a demo to find out how BusyLamp can safely, securely, and compliantly enhance your legal operations.

Legal E-Billing Systems vs. General E-Billing: Why You Need a Specialized Tool

Posted on February 3, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management

There are a lot of options out there when it comes to legal e-billing systems and software. If your IT teams are pushing back on the idea of purchasing a specialized legal e-billing tool, you’re not alone. Many corporate legal departments run into the same problem – being shoehorned into general billing software instead of e-billing and enterprise legal management (ELM) software designed for legal users.

The difference matters.

Because they’re designed specifically with the needs of legal users in mind, legal e-billing systems like ELM and AI-enabled invoice review offer a whole host of benefits for corporate legal departments of all sizes.

In this blog post, Jackson Mayes, vice president of ELM sales for Onit, and Robin Snasdell, managing director of Consilio, discuss the differences. Consilio is a member of Onit’s Strategic Alliances program.

The Downside of General E-Billing

When choosing billing tools, it might be tempting to think that a general e-billing system will be good enough to meet your needs. However, there are a few things to consider with this approach.

Most generalized e-billing systems incorporate some rules and support workflows to guide billing decisions. Still, those rules and workflows are not specific to a corporate legal department’s needs.

General e-billing systems have several shortfalls for corporate legal users. Among other things, these tools:

  • Don’t support electronic timekeeper rates from outside counsel
  • Can’t prevent law firms from billing to matters without approval
  • Can’t receive invoices in the industry-standard Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) format or compare LEDES invoices against company billing guidelines
  • Don’t permit you to write off or reject individual invoice line items
  • Don’t allow you to compare your spend against your budget
  • Don’t support the automatic allocation of invoices to specified cost centers or codes, and
  • Don’t allow you to report on spend by relevant factors such as time, activity, matter, firm and more.

Accurate and efficient legal invoicing requires all of these functionalities, and the inability to perform them can be detrimental to your company’s revenue streams.

The Benefits of Legal E-Billing Systems

Specific legal e-billing systems, which are a part of Onit’s legal management software, address all these shortfalls, and then some.

Legal e-billing systems support the submission, review and approval of timekeeper rates, which accelerates invoice review and reduces the chance of invalid rates being approved, leading to overpayment. Law firms can only submit invoices when they’ve been assigned to a matter by your department, which gives you better financial control and further reduces the chance that invalid invoices will be submitted.

Inbound invoices are automatically allocated to the appropriate matter, reducing the risk of incorrectly allocating spend. As invoices are received, they can be automatically compared against budgets for matters, vendors or matter phases to highlight variances. If you need to adjust or reject an individual line item, you can do so via automated or manual review, saving time and streamlining invoice review across your department.

Legal e-billing systems are also designed to work with invoices prepared in LEDES. They can quickly analyze fee and expense data included in law firm invoices, automatically comparing every invoice line against your outside billing guidelines and capturing the LEDES invoice data into a database for robust reporting on spend. The ability to work with LEDES invoices accelerates invoice review and ensures compliance with billing policies.

Simply put, legal e-billing systems work with the nuances of invoicing in the legal field. Chances are, you wouldn’t consider using non-legal technology for the most critical aspects of your business, like matter management or legal spend management. Billing and invoicing should be no different.

Onit is a leading provider of solutions designed specifically for legal e-billing, including Onit ELM and InvoiceAI. Schedule a demo today to implement the right legal e-billing system for your specific needs or email [email protected].

Consilio is a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Through its Consilio Complete suite of capabilities, the company supports multinational law firms and corporations using innovative software, cost-effective managed services, and deep legal and regulatory industry expertise. For more information, please visit us at consilio.com.

Current Legal News for Corporate Counsel (February 2022 Edition)

Posted on February 1, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Once more, we offer current legal news for corporate legal departments. This month’s edition includes a chipmunk lawyer, what the global legal market has in common with Apple, rethinking the title “in-house counsel,” associate pay raises and how better contract management can increase revenue.

1. The Global Legal Market On Track to Join the Trillionaire’s Club

Is the value of the global legal market joining the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet? These companies have famously broken the billion-dollar mark, cresting into the trillions in market value. A new report places the current global legal market at almost $900 billion and predicts a 4.4% compound annual growth rate through 2028 – meaning it will hit more than a trillion dollars by that time. Artificial Lawyer looks into why legal is snowballing and what it can mean for legal technology.

Source: Artificial Lawyer

2. Introducing the Chipmunk Lawyer

First, we got the lawyer cat, when an attorney had an incredibly adorable (and hard to remove) furry filter during a virtual hearing. We now have another video conferencing mishap in current legal news. This time, a faulty microphone converted a lawyer’s voice into a frequency and speed that Alvin, Simon and Theodore would appreciate. Fortunately, Judge Roy Ferguson – who also presided during the lawyer cat case – quickly identified the glitch and helped fix it.

Source: Above The Law

3. Is It Time to Ditch the Term “In-House Counsel”?

What are you called if you are an attorney working in a corporate legal department? Some may jump to “in-house counsel.” It’s long been an industry term. But corporate counsel may want to reset it. A CLO sparks a spirited debate about the title on LinkedIn. Spoiler alert: He isn’t a fan. Others in the same profession jumped into the conversation, talking about its pros and cons and offering alternative titles like “house counsel,” “internal counsel” and “crisis and strategy counsel.”

Source: Corporate Counsel

4. More Associate Pay Hikes for Law Firms, According to Current Legal News Outlets

International law firm Milbank announced an increase of up to $20,000 in pay for associates, creating a new salary range of $215,000 to $385,000. Many other firms, including Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper and Goodwin are following suit, according to the ABA Journal (who also relied on Above The Law, Law.com and Reuters). This follows a similar pattern from last year as law firms focus on staying competitive and retaining top talent. Corporate legal departments may feel conflicted about the raise since higher salaries can contribute to higher law firm bills. This blog post has a few pointers for those looking for tips to contain legal spend.

Source: ABA Journal

5. How Improved Contract Management Increases Revenue 9%

Improving how your company manages the lifecycle of contracts can bring impressive bottom-line benefits. The World Commerce & Contracting organization estimates that enhanced contract development and management can increase profitability to the tune of 9% of a company’s annual revenue. Here’s how technology like AI and automation replaces manual processes to create stronger contract management.

Source: Onit

We hope you enjoyed this digest of current legal news for corporate counsel. If you’re interested in learning more about how corporate legal departments use technologies like enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, AI and more, schedule an Onit demo today or email [email protected].

Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software

Posted on January 25, 2022 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management

How CLM can Increase Revenue 9%

When it comes to contract lifecycle management software, one thing is sure: It’s on everyone’s radar. Consider these findings from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel:

  • Contract management software was ranked as one of the top three most effective technologies, behind only matter management and e-billing.
  • 77% of participants said they want technology to help them better manage contracts.
  • 56% said they are looking into investing in contract lifecycle management software.
  • 81% in the $500M to $999M range said they are looking into a contract management software upgrade, while 44% of companies under $100M in revenue are doing the same.

It’s no surprise that interest is high. Contracting delays impact the entire enterprise, stalling revenue generation, new services, valuable partnerships and more. Outdated technologies (those that can’t integrate or scale, for example) and manual processes offer further complications, especially when considering the high volume of contracts and the often limited resources available to manage legal obligations.

What are the Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software?

The World Commerce & Contracting organization estimates that improved contract development and management can increase profitability to the tune of 9% of a company’s annual revenue.

How does it accomplish this? It supercharges the speed of contracting with technology. Companies using contract management software soon find numerous advantages such as:

  • Self-service to create new contracts without legal intervention. Departments can select contracts from approved templates and the solution can facilitate a legal review of any deviations from approved language.
  • Easy access to all contracts stored in one repository, making it more effective to maintain compliance with audit and governance requirements.
  • Reduction of duplicative work by integrating contract data into order management, purchasing and invoicing systems.
  • Greater insight into risks, obligations and new laws and regulations through reporting and analytics
  • More transparent processes, with the status of any contract only a click away.
  • Faster contract turnaround with the help of automation, which steers each contract through its appropriate review cycle while providing automated updates to involved parties as necessary.
  • Reduced risk through consistent contract language upheld in the system via templates and contract playbooks.

Contract Management + AI – An Advantage for the Entire Enterprise

When you combine AI and contract management, the benefits multiple rapidly for everyone who depends on contracts.

Consider how AI helps first-pass review. It acts as a junior lawyer, making recommendations and delivering a risk profile. This makes the overall review process much quicker, including reviews by other lawyers. Instead of reviewing the contract, redlining it and adding clauses, an attorney opens up a contract with all of this already performed by AI. In fact, a study found that legal AI contract review software made new users 51.5% more productive and 34% more efficient.

When you apply a 51.5% productivity boost in the context of a typical midsize company, that boost translates into serious results. If you have 55 lawyers reviewing an average of 9,500 contracts, the same team can process an additional 4,900 contracts with contract AI. That’s the equivalent of adding 28 lawyers to the team.

Of course, the legal obligations continue after signature, and AI also supports that process. Contracts offer a wealth of usable data that should be harnessed. Their proper management ensures that the terms of the agreement are fulfilled and helps assess if the company is meeting expected business results. For most teams, this work is currently done manually or not done at all.

AI dramatically increases the efficiency and scope of data extraction, turning data into actionable information in several ways, including:

  • Batch review, by extracting data from multiple legal documents at once
  • Repapering, by amending or redlining contract details and critical terms to comply with regulatory changes or M&A activities
  • Contract abstraction, by identifying critical legal clauses, terms and details in documents for easy analysis and syncing with your CLM.
  • Audit compliance by automating large-scale legal contract review when regulatory changes occur and exporting relevant details in notes and reports
  • Due diligence through the automation of batch review of contracts for routine legal due diligence, freeing up resources
  • Legacy contract migration by rapidly analyzing and extracting legacy contract metadata, including critical dates, terms, and clauses, to assist in importing

AI won’t replace lawyers, but it will provide significant benefits when paired with contracting. This infographic on the benefits of AI and contract management breaks down the quantitative benefits of AI and contract management, including today’s contract burdens, their costs and how AI can accelerate sales cycles by up to 24%.

Additional Contract Management and AI Resources

Ready to start evaluating contract management solutions? Here are a few resources that may help: