Author: Onit

Platforms for Corporate Legal Departments: What They Are and How They Expand Influence

Posted on March 9, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Platforms for corporate legal departments have proven critical to digital transformation in the past year, as companies have worked hard to figure out how to meet the uncertainties and challenges stemming from the pandemic.

The right platforms will empower your corporate legal department to better manage the day-to-day aspects of any legal matter while also gaining better insight into operations and improving collaboration by offering real-time visibility into tasks and processes. Making the switch to a platform approach starts with understanding:

  1. What is a platform?
  2. How can platform technologies benefit a legal department?

What is a Platform?

At its core, a platform is an environment in which other pieces of software function and are executed. The term “platform,” however, is both overused and underrepresented by technology providers. In a market saturated with many different types of technology products, people all too often use terms like platform and solution interchangeably, even though they function very differently and serve different purposes.

Here’s the difference:

With the right platform, a corporate legal department can build any solution it needs for either internal use or cross-collaboration with other departments in the organization. Platforms allow you to take advantage of preexisting solutions that have already been built on the platform or build additional solutions as new needs arise.

For legal departments, platforms serve as the foundation for enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management solutions, intake forms and self-help portals, among other things. Basically, a platform is the best of both worlds in the solutions vs. platforms discussion.

Some platforms incorporate artificial intelligence for corporate legal departments. AI platforms help automate routine tasks and boost efficiency. In other words, they help legal departments meet the constantly mounting pressure to do more and do better with fewer resources and a shrinking budget.

How Platform for Corporate Legal Departments Enhance Efficiency and Collaboration

Adopting a platform approach to technology offers a wide range of benefits for today’s corporate legal departments. Some of the biggest include:

  • Limitless building opportunities – Platforms give you the greatest possible ability to support your department’s vision by building solutions to address nearly any need, from accounting to compliance to HR concerns and more.
  • Unlimited scalability – Platforms allow you to right-size your technology as needed because they can grow along with your company and adapt to meet whatever changes arise.
  • Customization – When you build solutions on a platform, you can customize them to work exactly how your corporate legal department needs them to work and continually adjust those customizations over time.
  • Flexibility – Legal departments learned the value of innovation this past year, and platforms offer the flexibility required to keep innovating in the future as needs continue to change.

Better yet, you get all these platform benefits regardless of your level of technical proficiency. While platforms were once the exclusive province of IT experts who knew how to code, things have evolved significantly with the rise of no-code platforms. Today, even those with little or no technical training can master platforms and use them to create new solutions. These no-code platforms allow corporate legal departments to engage in levels of technological self-service that were previously unheard of.

For further reading on how platforms benefit corporate legal departments, you can download The Power of a Platform: Building Corporate Legal Influence Across the Enterprise.

Onit’s Apptitude and Precedent platforms have helped countless businesses enhance efficiency with automation and AI. Contact us today to learn more about how a platform approach can benefit your corporate legal department.

Will AI Replace Lawyers & Other Myths: Legal AI Mythbusters

Posted on March 5, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

AI is a hot buzzword right now, but with buzz always comes a whole host of misconceptions about a technology’s capabilities. There’s considerable confusion about what artificial intelligence can do and widespread misinformation about how it works, particularly in the area of managing legal contracts and if AI will replace lawyers.

Onit recently hosted a webinar to debunk these common myths. Nick Whitehouse, General Manager of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, and Jean Yang, Vice President of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, dispelled common misconceptions about everything from will AI replace lawyers to who can benefit from AI.

The goal is to help legal professionals decipher marketing-speak to determine what’s genuinely AI and what’s just software.

Here’s an overview of some of the common legal AI myths Nick and Jean debunked.

Myth 1: Will AI replace lawyers? No.

Lawyers being replaced by AI is the classic fear and, fortunately, it’s unfounded. Rather than replacing lawyers, AI will automate certain aspects of lawyers’ jobs, typically the most routine ones. As a result, lawyers will have more time to focus on other tasks and accomplishments. This means that lawyers’ jobs will continue to evolve and change as more AI capabilities are introduced, but those jobs will never be eliminated.

That’s not to say that lawyers should ignore legal AI. Yes, AI won’t replace them. However, lawyers using legal AI will replace those that don’t, thanks to increased productivity and efficiency provided by the transformative technology.

Myth 2: Is AI hard to implement? No.

AI learns, but to accomplish that it needs training. Typically, that is a monumental task that requires large pools of data, time and specialized technical skills.

The industry has matured now. Much of that work is done in advance by the vendor, meaning the technology is largely ready to implement and use right out of the box. For example, this AI for contract review comes loaded with a library of legal knowledge and can be up and running in a matter of days.

Myth 3: AI and machine learning can be used interchangeably. No.

Many people use the terms AI and machine learning interchangeably, but that’s not entirely accurate. AI is a technology that enables computers to learn and mimic human intelligence and it covers a wide range of techniques. Among those techniques are machine learning, natural language processing and more. The terms are used interchangeably, even though that’s incorrect, because machine learning is one of the AI techniques that we encounter most often in our day-to-day lives. Machine learning is integral to AI tools that make automated legal contract review possible.

Myth 4: AI is only for large legal departments. Not True.

While there may have been some barriers to entry in the early days of AI, we’re now at a point where AI solutions can be affordable for everyone – especially if your AI provider offers solutions capable of scaling to meet your needs for the size of your organization. The right AI solution will work just as well for the smallest legal department as it will for the largest global corporation.

Myth 5: AI will require too much training. No, AI will create less work, not more.

Many people worry that implementing AI will create more work for their department because they’ll frequently have to fix the technology or invest too much time learning how to use it.

Thankfully, we haven’t seen those fears play out.

Studies show that, on average, users are 51% more productive when they use AI for contract review. The more experienced they become with AI, the more their productivity improves. Additionally, as AI has become more mainstream, AI solutions require far less training, need far fewer corrections, and are much easier to use without extensive training.

But Wait – There are More Legal AI Myths to Expose

These are just some of the AI misunderstandings we dispel in the webinar. Our panel also talks about crucial issues like data security, retaining control over reviews and negotiations, why pre-built AI solutions are less effective, and why every team can benefit from AI. You can listen to the entire webinar here.

Free Yourself from Legal Invoice Review with InvoiceAI

Posted on March 3, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

What’s the best part of the day for in-house counsel? Probably not legal invoice review.

While it’s often necessary to ensure adherence to outside counsel billing guidelines, it still consumes valuable time on highly manual work.

That’s why we are introducing InvoiceAI to our enterprise legal management – to free in-house lawyers from the manual labor of tedious legal invoice review.

Onit announced this next significant phase of innovation at Legalweek(year) with our first InvoiceAI video. Launching in May for both Onit and SimpleLegal, InvoiceAI harnesses AI’s power to increase the efficiency of the invoice review process. It handles the first-pass review of incoming bills and sets up a framework that will continuously learn as invoice corrections are refined in the system. The result: General counsel and in-house counsel can transfer rediscovered bandwidth and energy to higher-value work for their companies.

This second InvoiceAI video shares more about the InvoiceAI.

To learn more about InvoiceAI from Onit and how AI can streamline your legal invoice review, contact your Onit account manager today or email [email protected].

Legal Invoice AI Joins Our Contract AI

AI-enabled invoice review from InvoiceAI modernizes the legal operations function and automates the review of law firm billing for corporations. It perfectly illustrates our founding principle: To help lawyers more effectively practice law.

When InvoiceAI launches in May, it will join an impressive roster of AI solutions already on offer from Onit, including:

  • Precedent, Onit’s AI-powered business intelligence platform that automates and improves both legal and business processes for corporate legal departments, law firms, contract professionals and procurement teams.
  • ReviewAI, contract AI for pre-signature contract review that reviews, redlines and edits all types of contracts in minutes, increasing contract review speed by 60-70%.
  • ExtractAI, contract AI for post-signature contract management that extracts usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.

You can schedule a demonstration of any of Onit’s AI solutions here.

A Legal AI Refresher

The field of AI is continually evolving, and it’s essential for today’s legal professionals to stay ahead of the curve. If you’re looking to bone up on AI, here are some great places to start:

Remember: AI won’t replace lawyers. But lawyers using AI will replace those that don’t.

Thanks for your time and stay tuned to our blog. We’ll have more InvoiceAI and contract AI announcements coming soon.

Six Features of the Best Matter Management Software

Posted on February 25, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

Matter management software puts critical matter, financial and performance data at the fingertips of corporate counsel and legal operations. But what features should a corporate legal department prioritize to gain the best return on investment? In the first blog post on this series, we explored essential legal spend management technology features for enterprise legal management. Now, we follow up with an exploration of the critical components of matter management.

According to Deloitte’s 2020 Legal Operations Survey, 74% of the corporate legal professionals surveyed felt they did not have clear or accurate metrics on work performed internally or externally. Additionally, 71% said that manual tasks take up a “significant amount” of their teams’ time.

Yet, technology – specifically matter management software – is designed to address challenges such as these.

Catherine Moynihan, associate vice president of legal management services with the Association of Corporate Counsel, told Legaltech News that GCs have seen growing interest from corporate leadership for technology investments. As she explains:

“While budget restraints have constrained the implementation of technology, I think we’re now approaching a tipping point where it’s budget challenges that will help make the case to make that short-term investment because the ROI is there.”

Fortunately, there are advanced enterprise legal management (ELM) solutions available, including matter management tools specifically designed to address issues such as the ones mentioned above.

What to Look For in Matter Management Software

From a high-level perspective, corporate legal departments need data that can show how their internal or external resources are leveraged. This is where matter management technology comes in. With this technology, corporate legal departments gain visibility into an overall matter portfolio and real-time data and dashboards to monitor and track all matters throughout their lifecycle. Legal team members should have immediate access to critical matter metrics, including performance data, through simple information collection, management and workflow.

Here are six features you should look for in a matter management solution:

  1. Custom Intake and Matter Forms

Most businesses require some custom forms for matter management, including custom intake and data forms for multiple matter types such as litigation, employment, intellectual property and claims.

  1. Flexible Workflow

Organization is mandatory, especially when dealing with matters that can substantially impact a business. Corporate legal professionals need configurable workflows relative to the matter type, dollar amount or specific business rules. No-code workflow and business process automation platforms powering ELM, matter management and legal spend management tools enable legal professionals of all technical proficiencies to create, automate and edit necessary workflows easily. To learn more about a platform approach, view this CLOC presentation by Colgate-Palmolive and Baker & McKenzie.

  1. Data Management and Robust Search

One of the necessary conveniences of matter management is that you can easily find the data you need at all times. A solution with full-text search capabilities for all information—including documents, transaction details, emails and notes – makes that happen. This benefit is further enhanced by searching capabilities that put critical matter information, including tasks, documents and notes, in front of you in a click.

  1. Outlook Integration

Those who proclaimed the death of email need to retract their statements. In 2020, more than 306 billion emails were sent and received. Email remains a critical component of communications and information exchange for businesses and many companies use Microsoft Outlook. If Outlook isn’t syncing with a matter management solution, a corporate legal team will ultimately face more manual processes and the potential for inaccurate or missing data.

  1. Email Notifications

To easily share information with corporate legal team members involved with matters, matter management technology should provide automated notifications that replace manual processes. This includes matter-unique emails within the system that keep team members up-to-date on matters.

  1. Reporting and Analytics

As mentioned above, metrics and analytics help legal professionals better understand their matters’ statuses, finances and performance. A matter management solution should have the ability to create dashboards to manage matters by type, location or geography as an essential part of reporting and analytics.

For more enterprise legal management and matter management inspiration, we invite you to check out the following resources:

  • Learn more about InvoiceAI, an AI-enabled legal invoice review offering for enterprise legal management.
  • Access this webinar replay for “Legal Operations Reporting Done Right,” where the global healthcare company Viatris (formerly Mylan) discusses its approach to identifying and collecting the right data and creating reports that are meaningful to different audiences across the organization.
  • Hear how McDonald’s formulated a cohesive, long-term strategy to achieve the right balance of people, process and technology here.

Five Legal Tech Trends That Will Emerge From the Pandemic

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Enterprise Legal Management

The COVID era has been exceedingly difficult and distressing for people worldwide. We needed to quickly adapt to a new way of living and working that has mostly deprived us of the comfort and familiarity we took for granted. Almost overnight, we had a “new normal” thrust upon us, and we had no choice but to embrace it to save lives.

Our way of life has never been such a rapid global shift. One of the most striking changes has been in how we work. Long commutes and distracting office work are now distant memories. We are now a remote-first workforce. Research has shown that we quite like our new working arrangement, with more than half of workers saying they want to continue working from home after the pandemic has eventually eased.

COVID-19 has not only led to people working from home, but it has also led to them working at different times and in different locations. With schools and support provisions shut, many people needed help to juggle work and home-schooling, caring for family members, volunteering, or other commitments. This led to an unavoidable rearranging of the working day, starting earlier or working in the evenings and weekends to keep up. But with this flexibility came an advantage to work to patterns that maximize individuals’ productivity, rather than being forced to work traditional business hours. When not in lockdown, workers are also choosing to work elsewhere. Between lockdowns, we have had colleagues working remotely from Cornwall, Poland, and Dubai. This all means much of the workforce is working on a different time, different place basis.

This new work-from-home revolution will have enormous impacts on many industries, but what does it mean for legal, and more specifically, how will technology play a role? We are not clairvoyant, but here are five legal tech trends we think we will see over the coming months and years because of the pandemic.

1) ASYNCHRONOUS WORKING

Lawyers must embrace asynchronous collaboration and communication tools to facilitate productive working across teams. While many lawyers have quickly adopted synchronous tools to support remote working in lockdown (e.g., video calls and instant messaging), many have not yet adopted asynchronous platforms for genuine project management. We will see more lawyers experimenting with team collaboration tools like Confluence or Notion and project management tools like Jira, Trello, Asana, and Monday. We may even see lawyers adopting Agile ceremonies like sprint planning and daily stand-ups.

This trend will also accelerate the creation of next-generation matter management tools, evolving from systems of record to full systems of engagement and collaboration. It will not just be productivity tools; there will also be a rise in the use of asynchronous learning platforms to ensure remote workers have access to learning and development at a time that best suits their working pattern.

2) KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, SHARING AND ACCESS

Quick and timely access to legal know-how is critical to a remote team’s mutual knowledge and everyone’s performance. Remote workers can no longer walk across the office to ask a colleague for help and guidance. Calls and instant messaging do not necessarily help since people are already fighting digital distractions and may not be online when guidance is required. Asynchronous collaboration tools help by enabling know-how to be captured and shared – but we will see greater adoption of knowledge management solutions that allow team members to easily access knowledge whenever and wherever they are.

This is where we see AI tools developed to simplify knowledge discovery, connect, and structure know-how from different sources, keep knowledge up-to-date, and deliver it in context within workflows. Search functionality (not always seen as that exciting) will also become one of the most important tools in a remote worker’s arsenal. For this reason, we will also see the growth of solutions that help to centralize data to streamline and optimize the search experience. However, while the search returns results, it only sometimes delivers specific answers. We are also likely to see the maturing and broader adoption of chatbots and decision automation tools that help provide direct answers alongside the underlying sources.

3) LEGAL GIG ECONOMY

Flexible resourcing isn’t necessarily new in legal – LOD (Lawyers on Demand), Axiom, Peerpoint, and Vario have been doing it for some time. However, large numbers of employees “going remote” during the pandemic have given organizations a better idea of what a remote workforce can achieve.

Surveys have consistently shown employee productivity is high during the pandemic. Organizations are therefore accelerating their move towards a leaner operating model, bringing in temporary, freelance resources for specific legal tasks or projects as and when needed. This delivers a much more cost-efficient approach and enables businesses to tap into a dispersed talent pool. While demand will grow, so will supply as lawyers and paralegals look to capitalize on the flexibility of remote working to build portfolio careers or find a better work-life balance.

We will see significant growth in online flexible resourcing platforms that help connect organizations to an army of remote lawyers and paralegals looking to take advantage of the new normal. These platforms will either be “catch-all” – covering all legal resources – or niche, focusing on connecting businesses with legal experts in particular fields.

4) EMPLOYEE MONITORING TO SUPPORT LEGAL OPERATIONS

One benefit of office work is that managers can see what their teams are doing, how they are working, and whether team members are struggling. This is more difficult when managing remote teams. Therefore, organizations need to find ways to measure employees’ productivity and working patterns and highlight any potential issues.

However, it is about ensuring performance meets standards and providing employee well-being. “Technostress” has been highlighted as a significant problem for many people working remotely, and managers must look for the warning signs. They will also need to ensure they are still identifying training and support needs and calling out inappropriate behavior (bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.), which can increase in remote environments.

While many lawyers are familiar with recording and accounting for their time, not having to do this is one of the main reasons they enjoy working in-house over private practice! Nevertheless, we expect to see more law firms and corporate legal teams invest in digital, online employee-monitoring systems to help maintain productivity, ensure well-being, and increase transparency, essential metrics for effective legal operations. We may also see existing legal tech platforms add employee-monitoring tools as an option so that employers can track team behavior, e.g., tracking active/inactive status, monitoring page activity within the tool, etc. One way to avoid replicating law firm time recording or overly authoritarian monitoring is to track behavior for limited periods at intervals rather than an “always-on” approach.

We may also see a different kind of monitoring, one focused less on the output and more on outcomes. As teams shift to project management software, they will likely begin to track performance against OKRs and KPIs. This is a good way of ensuring performance without being too overbearing. Ultimately, we’ll see organizations and teams adopt a mixture of tools to help them maintain performance and deliver desired outcomes when working remotely.

5) FROM LEGAL PLATFORM TO ENTERPRISE INTEROPERABILITY

The most striking workplace effect of the pandemic is the accelerated and standardized adoption of digital productivity and collaboration tools. While many in-house legal teams and their firms were using video conferencing and instant messaging tools like Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack, many were still in the stone age regarding remote collaboration and communication tools. But that all changed when COVID-19 struck. Microsoft Teams saw its active users skyrocket 160% from 44 million in March 2020 to 115 million in November of the same year. Slack and Zoom have seen similar explosions in adoption. These tools have become the common language of remote working.

Legal technology vendors of all sizes will need to re-evaluate their strategy and move away from trying to drive users to their unique platforms and ecosystems. Instead, they will need to find ways to offer value in the systems where users prefer to work. This means a greater focus on plug-ins, integrations, and open APIs. It may even mean deconstructing existing products to embed functionality and extend tools such as Microsoft Teams.

HAS LEGAL TRANSFORMATION FINALLY ARRIVED?

The obvious theme that ties all the above is that technology will be essential to facilitate workers and their organizations transitioning to the new remote, distributed model (both inside and outside the legal domain). Technology is pushing at an open door for once – employees and employers cannot adopt digital productivity, collaboration, and communication tools quickly enough.

We are still in the infancy of the remote working tech revolution, so only time will tell whether the above predictions happen. Whatever happens, COVID-19 has changed the game for remote working. Remote-first will be the trend of the 2020s, and legal technology vendors should be making this a core component of their product and customer success strategies if they do not want to be left behind.

Request a demo of eBilling.space today. 

FÜNF LEGAL TECH TRENDS, DIE AUS DER PANDEMIE HERVORGEHEN WERDEN 

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Enterprise Legal Management

DAS NEUE „NORMAL“ DES RECHTSWESENS 

Zweifelsohne waren die letzten 12 Monate hart. Tatsächlich sogar extrem schwierig und stressig. Wir mussten uns schnell anpassen – an eine neue Lebens- und Arbeitsweise, die längst nicht so familiär und angenehm ist wie die, die wir zuvor als selbstverständlich erachtet haben. Das alles geschah mehr oder minder über Nacht und wir mussten es akzeptieren, denn es galt Leben zu retten. 

Noch nie gab es eine so schnelle und globale Änderung der Lebensweise. Insbesondere die Art, wie wir arbeiten, erfuhr drastische Einschnitte. Langes Pendeln und ablenkende Büroarbeitsplätze gehören nun der Vergangenheit an. Untersuchungen haben ergeben, dass wir unsere neue Arbeitsweise sogar eigentlich ziemlich mögen: Mehr als 50% der Arbeitnehmer gaben an, auch nach der Pandemie von daheim arbeiten zu wollen. 

COVID-19 hat nicht nur dazu geführt, dass Menschen von zu Hause aus arbeiten, sondern auch dazu, dass sie zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten und an unterschiedlichen Orten arbeiten. Da Schulen und Betreuungseinrichtungen geschlossen waren, hatten viele Menschen damit zu kämpfen, ihre Arbeit mit dem Homeschooling, der Pflege von Familienmitgliedern, ehrenamtlichen Tätigkeiten oder anderen Verpflichtungen zu vereinbaren. Dies führte zu einer unvermeidlichen Umstrukturierung des Arbeitstages.  Um mithalten zu können, starteten viele ihre Arbeit früher als üblich oder arbeiteten abends und am Wochenende. Durch diese Flexibilität konnten Einige ihre Produktivität maximieren, denn sie waren nicht länger gezwungen, zu traditionellen Geschäftszeiten zu arbeiten. Wenn nicht gerade ein Lockdown stattfindet, entscheiden sich die Mitarbeiter:innen auch dafür, anderorts zu arbeiten. Zwischen den Lockdowns gab es manche Kolleg:innen, die von Cornwall, Polen und Dubai aus gearbeitet haben. Das alles bedeutet, dass ein Großteil der Belegschaft zu anderen Zeiten und an anderen Orten arbeitet. 

Diese neue Work-from-Home-Revolution wird enorme Auswirkungen auf viele Branchen haben, aber was bedeutet das für die Rechtsbranche, und vor allem, welche Rolle wird Technologie dabei spielen? Hier sind fünf Legal Tech-Trends, die in den kommenden Monaten und Jahren als Ergebnis der Pandemie hervorgehen werden. 

1) ASYNCHRONES ARBEITEN 

Anwält:innen müssen asynchrone Kollaborations- und Kommunikationstools einführen, um produktives Arbeiten in Teams zu ermöglichen. Während viele von ihnen schnell synchrone Tools (z.B. Videoanrufe und Instant Messaging) eingeführt haben, wurde der Sprung zu asynchronen Plattformen für echtes Projektmanagement meist nicht gewagt. Immer mehr Anwält:innen werden mit Team-Collaboration-Tools wie Confluence oder Notion sowie mit Projektmanagement-Tools wie Jira, Trello, Asana und Monday experimentieren. Wer weiß – vielleicht sehen wir sogar, dass Teile von agilen Projektvorgehensmodellen, wie tägliche Sprints und Stand-ups, eingeführt werden! 

Es ist auch wahrscheinlich, dass dieser Trend das Entwickeln von modernen Matter Management-Tools beschleunigen wird, die sich von Aufzeichnungssystemen zu vollwertigen Engagement- und Collaboration-Systemen entwickeln. Dies wird nicht nur Tools zur Produktivitätssteigerung betreffen: Es wird auch einen Anstieg bei der Nutzung von asynchronen Lernplattformen geben. So kann sichergestellt werden, dass Remote-Mitarbeiter:innen zu einer für sie passenden Zeit Zugang zu Schulungen und Fortbildungen haben. 

2) KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: DER AUSTAUSCH UND ZUGANG ZU INFORMATIONEN 

Nur wer von überall und zu jederzeit auf (juristisches) Know-how zugreifen kann, wird als Remote-Mitarbeiter:in auf dem aktuellen Stand bleiben. Ein asynchroner Informationsaustausch ist also entscheidend für die Leistung jedes Einzelnen. Anrufe und Instant Messaging helfen nicht immer; häufig haben Mitarbeiter:innen ohnehin schon mit digitalen Ablenkungen zu kämpfen. Auch sind Kolleg:innen vielleicht nicht immer online, wenn Hilfe benötigt wird. Asynchrone Kollaborationstools helfen also bis zu einem gewissen Grad, denn sie ermöglichen das Erfassen und Teilen von Know-how. Es ist daher absehbar, dass in Zukunft die Akzeptanz von Wissensmanagementlösungen steigt, denn Teammitglieder:innen wird so geholfen, einfach auf Informationen zuzugreifen, wann und wo immer sie sind. 

Hier können auch KI-Tools zum Einsatz kommen, die das Auffinden von Informationen vereinfachen, Know-how aus verschiedenen Quellen verbinden, strukturieren und aktualisieren und im passenden Kontext innerhalb von Workflows bereitstellen. Eine Suchfunktion scheint zunächst zwar nicht als das spannendste Feature, wird in Zukunft aber zu einem der wichtigsten Werkzeuge des Remote Workers werden. Zusätzlich werden sich daraus weitere Softwarelösungen entwickeln, die das Zentralisieren von Daten ermöglichen und somit das Sucherlebnis vereinfachen und optimieren. Um nicht nur Suchergebnisse, sondern auch spezifische Antworten zu generieren, werden Chatbots und Tools zur Entscheidungsautomatisierung immer ausgereifter und häufiger eingesetzt werden. Diese bieten nämlich den Vorteil, dass sie neben den zugrundeliegenden Quellen auch direkte Antworten liefern. 

3) GIG ECONOMY IM RECHTSWESEN 

Flexibles Ressourcenmanagement ist in der Rechtsbranche nicht unbedingt neu – Unternehmen wie Lawyers on Demand (LOD), Axiom, Peerpoint und Vario praktizieren es bereits seit einiger Zeit. Aufgrund der großen Anzahl von Mitarbeiter:innen, die während der Pandemie von Zuhause aus arbeiteten, konnten sich die Unternehmen jedoch ein besseres Bild davon machen, was eine Remote-Belegschaft leisten kann. 

Umfragen haben durchweg gezeigt, dass die Produktivität der Mitarbeiter:innen während der Pandemie hoch ist. Die Unternehmen beschleunigen daher ihre Umstellung auf ein flexibleres Betriebsmodell, indem sie bei Bedarf temporäre, freiberufliche Ressourcen für bestimmte juristische Aufgaben oder Projekte hinzuziehen. Dies bietet einen wesentlich kosteneffizienteren Ansatz und ermöglicht es den Unternehmen, auf einen breit gestreuten Talentpool zurückzugreifen. Die Nachfrage wird folglich also steigen. Aber auch das Angebot wird steigen, da Anwält:innen und Paralegal die Flexibilität des remoten Arbeitens nutzen werden, um ihre Karrieren auszubauen oder eine bessere Work-Life-Balance zu schaffen. 

Es ist also wahrscheinlich, dass ein großes Wachstum von flexiblen Online-Resourcing-Plattformen entsteht. Unternehmen werden so mit vielen Remote-Anwält:innen und -Paralegals in Kontakt treten können, die wiederrum die Vorteile des neuen Normalzustands nutzen wollen. Die Plattformen werden entweder alle Arten von juristischen Ressourcen abdecken – oder sich auf Nischen konzentrieren und Unternehmen mit Rechtsexpert:innen in bestimmten Bereichen verbinden. 

Ein Vorteil der Büroarbeit ist, dass Manager sehen können, was ihre Teams tun. Sie wissen, wie das Team arbeitet und ob bestimmte Teammitglieder:innen Schwierigkeiten haben. Das ist natürlich bei Remote arbeitenden Teams schwieriger. Unternehmen müssen daher Wege finden, um die Produktivität und das Arbeitsverhalten der Mitarbeiter:innen zu messen. 

Es geht jedoch nicht nur darum, dass die Leistung den geforderten Standards entspricht, sondern auch darum, das Wohlbefinden der Mitarbeiter:innen zu gewährleisten. Remote zu arbeiten brachte für viele sogenannten „Technostress“ mit sich, auf dessen Warnzeichen Manager achten müssen. Gleichzeitig gilt es sicherzustellen, dass sie weiterhin Schulungs- und Unterstützungsbedarf erkennen und unangemessenes Verhalten (Mobbing, Diskriminierung, sexuelle Belästigung usw.) aufdecken, da dies in Remote-Umgebungen zunehmen kann. 

Einer der Hauptgründe, warum viele Anwält:innen eine Inhouse-Tätigkeit einer Kanzlei vorziehen, besteht darin, dass sie hier ihre Zeit nicht erfassen müssen. Doch auch in Unternehmen ist zu erwarten, dass immer mehr Rechtsabteilungen in digitale Aufzeichnungssysteme für Mitarbeiter:innen investieren werden. So kann die Produktivität aufrecht erhalten werden und das Wohlbefinden der Mitarbeiter:innen sichergestellt werden. Außerdem erhöht sich die Transparenz, sowohl nach innen wie auch nach außen. Diese drei Punkte bilden schließlich die wichtigsten Messgrößen für einen effizienten juristischen Betrieb. Möglicherweise werden auch bereits bestehende Legal-Tech-Plattformen Optionen zum Tracken der internen Produktivität integrieren, sodass Arbeitgeber KPIs messen und das Mitarbeiterverhalten besser verstehen können. Eine Möglichkeit, einer dauerhafte Zeiterfassung wie in Kanzleien zu vermeiden, besteht darin, die Arbeitsweise für begrenzte Zeiträume in Intervallen zu analysieren, anstatt einen „Always-on“-Ansatz zu verfolgen. 

Produktivität kann aber auch auf eine andere Weise gemessen werden, bei der man sich weniger auf den Output und mehr auf die Ergebnisse konzentriert. Wenn Teams auf eine Projektmanagement-Software umsteigen, werden sie wahrscheinlich damit beginnen, die Leistung anhand von OKRs und KPIs zu verfolgen. Dies ist ein guter Weg, um eine hohe Produktivität zu gewährleisten, ohne dabei zu anmaßend zu sein. Letztendlich werden Organisationen und Teams wahrscheinlich verschiedene Tools einsetzen, die ihnen helfen, die Leistung aufrechtzuerhalten und die gewünschten Ergebnisse zu liefern, wenn sie remote arbeiten. 

5) VON DER RECHTSPLATTFORM ZUR UNTERNEHMENSINTEROPERABILITÄT 

Der wohl bemerkenswerteste Effekt der Pandemie ist die beschleunigte und standardisierte Einführung von Tools zur Steigerung der digitalen Produktivität und Kollaboration. Zwar hatten viele Inhouse-Teams bereits Videokonferenzen und Instant-Messaging für sich entdeckt, hatten aber noch keine Erfahrungen mit Tools für die Remote-Zusammenarbeit und Kommunikation. Durch COVID-19 änderte sich das allerdings schlagartig. Die Nutzerzahlen von Microsoft-Teams stiegen zwischen März und November 2020 um 160% von 44 auf 115 Millionen Personen. Gleiches war bei Slack und Zoom zu sehen. Die Tools gehören mittlerweile also zur Standardausrüstung für das Arbeiten von zu Hause aus. 

Legal Tech-Anbieter müssen daher umdenken und ihre Strategien anpassen. Statt eigene Plattformen und IT-Systeme anzubieten, sollten sie den Nutzer:innen durch Plugins, Softwareintegrationen und APIs ermöglichen, weiterhin in ihrem bevorzugten System arbeiten zu können. Möglicherweise führt dies zu sogar zur Rekonstruktion bestehender Produkte, sodass sie in anderen Tools wie Microsoft Teams integriert werden können. 

IST DIE DIGITALE TRANSFORMATION DES RECHTSWESENS ENDLICH DA? 

Was alle oben genannten Punkte miteinander verbindet, ist die Tatsache, dass Technologie absolut unverzichtbar sein wird, um Arbeitnehmer:innen und ihren Organisationen den Übergang zum neuen dezentralen Arbeitsmodell zu erleichtern. Ausnahmsweise rennt die Technologie offene Türen ein – Arbeitnehmende und Arbeitgebende können digitale Produktivitäts-, Kollaborations- und Kommunikationstools gar nicht schnell genug einführen. 

Die Revolution des Remote-Arbeitens hat erst begonnen, die Zeit wird also zeigen, ob die oben genannten Vermutungen eintreffen. Wie es sich auch entwickeln mag, COVID-19 hat den Status Quo für Remote-Arbeiten verändert und der normale Dienst wird in der alten Form nicht wieder aufgenommen. Remote-first wird der Trend der 2020er Jahre sein, und Legal Tech-Anbieten sollten dies zu einem Kernbestandteil ihrer Produkt- und Kundenerfolgsstrategien machen, wenn sie wettbewerbsfähig bleiben wollen. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt. 

Contract Management in Procurement is Fueling Transformation and Streamlining Processes

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

At its core, contract management for procurement enables a team to manage spend against budget and automate the contracting process. We’ve previously explored how technologies like contract lifecycle management (CLM) and contract AI increase efficiency and reduce risk for general counsel, legal operations and sales operations. Now, we’ll examine the power of contract management for procurement and how it increases visibility and cuts time through automation.

Procurement is a critical role in any organization. As Chief Procurement Officer at a global enterprise, you’re ultimately responsible for all procurement transformation efforts around the world, and you’re expected to lead those efforts efficiently and effectively. In doing so, you enable spend owners, such as business units and functional partners, to maximize the value they receive from suppliers to meet their objectives.

Technology is integral to effective and efficient procurement in the modern era. Because contracts are such a key part of procurement activities, having the right contract management (CLM) tool for procurement can make all the difference.

CLM and Contract AI in Procurement

A Chief Procurement Officer is responsible for accomplishing some of the organization’s most critical business goals, including ensuring that the company has ongoing value creation via a world-class supply base, developing the company’s overall procurement strategy and identifying and realizing cost-saving and cost reduction opportunities for the enterprise. There’s also the need to manage budgets and an overall expectation for procurement transformation to create a center of excellence resulting in lasting value for the organization.

In addition to these crucial overarching functions, Chief Procurement Officers must also control and manage the inner workings of the procurement department, including its employees and the systems they use. They must manage procurement staff in and across sourcing, contracting, transactional purchasing, supplier management, and miscellaneous internal procurement support activities, while also managing the skills and competency development of that staff, including training development and knowledge management capabilities.

As a foundation for all of these important roles and expectations, the Chief Procurement Officer is responsible for the selection and management of procurement systems. This can, and indeed should, include incorporating the technologies necessary to build the procurement center of excellence the organization expects and needs. Because contract management for procurement, along with contract AI, is imperative, having the right CLM tool for procurement will boost effectiveness and efficiency across all those activities, increasing excellence and bringing value to the enterprise as a whole.

Benefits for Procurement

In selecting a CLM tool to transform your procurement operations, keep in mind the importance of understanding the needs of different stakeholders who will be impacted by any new system. Consider the benefits of contract management for various different roles within your procurement staff, and balance their needs to get the most out of your system. At its core, your CLM solution for procurement must be flexible enough to meet a variety of needs and be easily applied across all the different tasks that make up the procurement function.

Because contract management for procurement is so foundational, your CLM solution needs to serve as a centralized tool for managing procurement contracts across the organization, regardless of where around the globe they originate – think of your CLM solution as a single point of truth for your procurement activities across the enterprise.

Being able to centrally manage contracts will help you handle some of your most critical Chief Procurement Officer tasks, including improving business outcomes, decreasing risk and managing spend against budget. With a CLM solution, you’ll always be able to know exactly where every procurement contract is and see the status of current contract negotiations. If someone is causing delays, you’ll know who it is and how you can help move them forward. CLM tools can also automate routine contracts like NDAs, bringing even more efficiency to the procurement function and shifting your focus to tasks that create more value for your organization.

When you’re the head of procurement at an organization responsible for high levels of spend, you understand the importance of contract management in procurement to deliver savings and value. You need the right CLM tool for procurement to make the most of those contracts and support the critical activities of your enterprise.

Onit’s CLMs solution provides the flexibility and efficiency your procurement function needs to become a center of excellence for your enterprise. Contact us today to learn more.

How Legal AI and Automation Work for Law Department Operations

Posted on February 19, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Implementing legal AI and automation is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. With numerous forms of both technologies, it helps to examine specific use cases and the corresponding benefits that come to the table.

In the first part of this blog and podcast series, we outlined what AI is at its foundation. In part two, we tackled how artificial intelligence and law departments are already working together.

Now, we’re back for the third and final segment of his AI series, which covers the combination of legal AI and automation. With the many different types of legal automation and AI assistance available today, we have some crucial points to consider for automation and AI’s role in it.

Starting the Journey of Combining Artificial Intelligence and Law Departments

Start by asking yourself some basic questions about the drivers you’re trying to achieve through automation. Is your goal to increase productivity, efficiency and quality? Are you most concerned about risk mitigation and compliance? Or are you trying to be efficient about identifying trends and actionable insights with the data you currently have?

For example, if your goal is to enhance efficiency, contract AI software and automation can speed up contract approval by up to 70% and increase user productivity by 51.5%.

Your reason for automating your law department will have an impact on how you go about implementing it. Regardless of your goals, you always need to be considering how automation can help your legal department become more valuable to the rest of the organization.

The Different Types of Legal AI and Automation

Automation isn’t one-size-fits-all and there many varieties of it available now. Before you start implementing automation and legal AI, it’s helpful to understand the different automation types that exist today. The goals you have might impact the kind of automation you choose.

There are three significant types of automation, plus a fourth that ties them all together:

  1. Intelligent process automation (IPA) focuses on optimizing tasks that traditionally require some form of human interaction. It assumes that companies have already digitized business processes and created workflows. IPA uses software to perform processes and automate tasks while completing workflows and automating and integrating digital processes. It extends the scope of process automation that has capabilities for reading documents. Think OCR, machine learning and natural language processing. It also manages processes through event triggers and intelligent workflow and helps collate and process data across multiple systems. For example, in the legal domain, an IPA-based platform can read and analyze contracts to automate the identification, extraction and evaluation of contract terms, identify business-critical information such as contract entities and assess them against standard clause statements.
  2. Business process automation (BPA) is the technology-enabled automation of tasks that accomplishes a specific workflow or function. BPA has somewhat similar goals as IPA, but its primary goal is to automate a business process while improving and simplifying business flows. A critical difference between BPA and IPA is that IPA is more about optimizing existing digital workflows, while BPA is about digitization. An example of this in the legal world would be digitizing all incoming matter-related documents and forms, with BPA capturing and validating information in any format as soon as such information is available.
  3. Robotic process automation (RPA) uses intelligent automation technology to handle high-volume, repeatable tasks, enabling business users to devote more time to other, higher-value work. The distinguishing characteristic of RPA is its capacity for awareness and ability to adapt to changes in circumstances.
  4. Hyperautomation brings together several components of legal automation and AI and machine learning to amplify work automation. The goal of hyperautomation is to optimize and deliver work more effectively, more efficiently and at a lower risk to drive innovation. A crucial component of hyperautomation is the ability to include humans in the digitization process. Hyperautomation can provide insights into ROI and leverage AI to enable end-to-end intelligent automation. For example, consider a law firm utilizing two technologies – one that intelligently reads data and documents and the other being an RPA tool (robot). An incoming email from a client triggers the RPA robot to read the email and its attachment. It logs in to the client’s system as an accredited user and downloads the data to be processed by the reading tool. The tool reads all the document’s data (which a human usually had to do) and extracts the relevant information utilizing machine learning to pass back to the RPA robot to populate the case management system and the finance system. It then notifies the supervising partner of the critical case information. With hyperautomation, the time to open a file decreases from 90 minutes to 10 minutes. It meets the service-legal agreement for the first response and the file opening administration team – through AI-assisted automation – focuses on higher-value work for the more complex cases.

Once you understand the different types of legal AI and automation and what you’re trying to achieve through automation, you can start to develop and implement your ideal technology plan for your law department.

To hear more about legal AI and automation, the benefits of combining artificial intelligence and law departments and the essential elements to consider before deciding on technologies, you can listen to our entire podcast (see below.)

February Digest: The Latest in Legal Operations Trends and News

Posted on February 17, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Welcome to our February run-down of the latest in legal operations trends and news. In this digest, we dig into the results from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2021 Chief Legal Officers survey and how ADM controls legal spend. Experts will share real-life numbers that illustrate contract AI benefits and a new approach to legal operations maturity models. Finally, we’ll talk about CLOC and its strategy for expanding membership.

#1

Contract Management Tops General Counsel Wish Lists, According to Survey

 According to the 2021 Chief Legal Officers survey conducted by the Association of Corporate Counsel, corporate legal departments are pursuing more hiring as privacy and compliance challenges increase. More than 30% plan to add in-house lawyers and nearly half said they will send more work to outside counsel this year and increase headcount for corporate legal.

Artificial Lawyer analyzed the results as well, focusing on the types of legal technology GCs and CLOs want in the next two years. Taking first place: Contract management, with 67%. With contract AI accelerating contract approvals by up to 70%, it isn’t hard to understand why this is a priority corporate legal top brass.

The ACC survey includes feedback from 947 participants in 44 countries.

(sources: Corporate Counsel and Artificial Lawyer)

#2

ADM Legal Chief Redesigned Law Firm Relationships and Cut Spend. Here’s How.

In legal operations news regarding outside counsel spend, Cam Findlay, Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary at Archer Daniels Midland, shares how his team significantly reduced legal spend. The company dropped its legal spend from 85% to 50% of its budget. How? The department relied on technology, best practices and a law firm panel.

As he explains to Bloomberg Law:

“One of the first things we did was get better technology. We put in place a matter management system that allows us to track every penny—well, we think we track every penny—of spending by an outside law firm. We can even track the diversity of the lawyers who are working for us, how many hours were done by women or people of color.

“We use Onit, and we were one of the first major companies to use it, I believe. It’s a very good system because it’s beyond just matter management and e-billing, and we use it for all sorts of purposes throughout the company. It’s a good platform that you can plug and play other aspects onto.”

He also discusses how the law firm panel – called the ADM Law Firm Alliance – helped drive them to their global spending goals:

“We sit down with our top firms early in the year, every year, and through our Onit system, we’re able to prepare a firm report card for them that shows how their rates compare to other law firms, how their staffing compares, in terms of whether they are partner heavy or associate heavy. It also shows how they’re doing in terms of the diversity of the team that they’re putting on our matters. That’s been a really effective tool. We can sit down with a firm and say, ‘Your team was 100% white male. Your competitors here have been able to put much more diverse teams on our matters. That’s something we want you to work on for next year.’”

(source: Bloomberg Law)

#3

How Effective is Contract AI for Legal? Here Are the Numbers.

A panel of experts from Adobe and Onit gathered at Legalweek(year) tackled the latest legal operations trends by discussing contract AI and its impact on corporate legal. Instead of general benefits, though, these presenters provided quantitative numbers showing how effective this technology is.

A recent study of contract AI found that:

  • New AI users become 34% more efficient with their time and 51.5% more productive
  • Contracts are reviewed and redlined in less than two minutes
  • The technology helps corporate legal reduce contract processing costs by 33%
  • Users can shift work to higher-value activities, with one senior lawyer reallocating 15% of his time from contract work and team management to more strategic endeavors.

To hear the panel discussion, visit here.

(source: Legalweek[year])

#4

A New Approach to Legal Operations Maturity Models

According to the 2020 State of the Industry survey by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), there has been a steady growth trajectory in legal operations across organizations of all sizes. The outcome has been an increase in new hires and technology to deliver legal services efficiently, cost-effectively and across departments.

Nathan Wenzel, the co-founder of SimpleLegal, proposes an alternative to existing legal operations maturity models – one honed from working with more than 200 corporate legal departments.  While he outlines five distinct levels of legal operations maturity, he also emphasizes that the goal is to find the place in the spectrum that works best for your organization.

(source: Law Technology Today)

#5

CLOC Welcomes New Legal Technology Members

In 2016, CLOC allowed only in-house counsel as members. In 2019, they welcomed legal operations professionals. In the latest legal operations news, they’re opening the doors wider by inviting more members, including technology companies, service providers and law schools.

What should all CLOC members expect? According to Betsi Roach, CLOC’s executive director, there will be an expanded array of topics and perspectives. As she explains in the CLOC press release on the matter:

“Our members and the greater legal community are hungry for more resources to answer questions and advance their careers. Creating a place that champions diversity of ideas and thoughts will not only disrupt the business of law but will define professional growth paths and pave the way for future generations. This is an exciting advancement on our continued journey to make a real impact on both the legal industry and for those in our community to grow their networks.” 

To learn more about CLOC memberships, visit here.

(sources: Corporate Counsel and CLOC)

Discover More Legal Operations Trends with Lean Into Legal Ops

Speaking of legal operations, Onit is expanding our Lean Into Legal Ops virtual learning program to include even more members of the legal community and provide even more diverse content. Past webinars have included:

Get the inside track on legal operations trends, the very best events and helpful content from the legal community by joining Legal Into Legal Ops today. Visit this page to join.

Onit Honored as One of the Top Workplaces in Houston; Hear Why on this Podcast.

Posted on February 11, 2021 by - Company News and Events

With more than 14,000 employers, including 21 Fortune 500 companies, the competition to be named one of the top workplaces in Houston is stiff. That’s all the more reason why Onit is honored to be included as one of the Houston Chronicle’s Top Workplaces for the third year in a row, coming in at number 30 for 2020.

We also earned the program’s only Communications Award. The award, also based on employee feedback, is reserved for the organization continually going above and beyond to keep employees informed.

The Houston Chronicle’s Top Workplaces awards program recognizes the most sought-out businesses in the Houston region, based on the feedback of more than 37,000 employees gathered through a third-party survey. The award considers 15 factors critical to any company’s success, including culture, organizational health, engagement, satisfaction, leadership, cooperation, communication, work-life balance, training, pay and benefits.

The Inside Scoop on Onit

What exactly makes Onit one of the best places to work in Houston? In a recent podcast (see below), employees Angela Mulligan, director of organizational health, and Carlos De Leon, senior recruiter, joined Nash Gates to share why they think Onit won this award – and what it means to prospective employees, including:

  • Entrepreneurial culture – Onit encourages employees to have an entrepreneurial spirit while focusing on innovation and creative problem-solving. Have an issue you want to discuss? There’s an open-door policy from the top down.
  • Fast-paced growth – Onit completed three acquisitions in less than two years and recently expanded its offerings with an AI platform and contract AI software. Activities like this, coupled with our emphasis on its customers and innovation, earned us an impressive triple-digit percentage increase in 2020 revenue growth, number seven among the fastest-growing companies in Texas according to Inc. and number nine on the Houston Business Journal’s Fast 100 list.
  • Customers – Onit works with some of the largest companies in the world, with more than 45 Fortune 500 customers.
  • Dedication to employees – While other companies focused on workforce reductions during the onset of the pandemic, Onit grew its employee base by 22% in 2020. The company’s leadership also took measures to support their employees’ well-being during these challenging times, offering help with perks such as additional personal days.
  • Global reach: Onit has a presence on five continents, with representation in Houston, Austin, Mountain View (California), Pune (India), Auckland (New Zealand), London (UK) and Kyiv (Ukraine).

How to Apply for a Job at One of the Best Places to Work in Houston

Are you interested in working at Onit? We’re always happy to hear from qualified candidates.

We also believe in having open transparency with our potential hires from the start. We encourage you to check us out on Glassdoor and LinkedIn, so you understand our culture and our people before you apply. If you think Onit might be a good fit, you should visit Onit Careers to view current job openings and apply.

For more insight on Onit, you can listen to the entire podcast here: