Author: Onit

Your Guide to Seamless Legal Tech Implementation: Part 3 — Change Management

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Part three of a three-part “Guide to Seamless Legal Tech Implementation” Parts one and two are below.

Part 1 – Scoping the project before buying or building the technology
Part 2 – Ensuring the internal and external project stakeholders are on-board

Change management is essential for successful legal tech implementation. It is often understated or not fully appreciated, sometimes seen as an “add-on” to the project’s more technical aspects. Those who underestimate the importance of change management during implementation often fail to achieve the desired business outcomes.

Routine tasks will change, and with that comes an inevitable learning curve. For example, with e-billing, manual invoice checks and approvals are replaced by automated rules-based processing. Change also brings more exposure to and interaction with business processes and data. Humans are wired to resist change, with numerous studies showing a strong preference for items and processes that have been around longer, even when maintaining the status quo is irrational. Changing takes conscious effort to learn something new, so communication is vital when presenting changes and benefits. Often the “why” and the “how” are not communicated company wide. Why has the organization decided to do this, and how will it benefit the organization and those that work there?

Unless everyone has a clear vision and understanding of the potential benefits, it can be difficult to institute change management. Change management includes guiding, educating, encouraging, and supporting the organization through this transition period. Complexity and scope define change management strategy for a software project. Let’s break this down into six key sections.

Sponsorship

Active sponsorship for change at a senior executive level is vital to success. This sponsorship must be active and visible to the project team and all stakeholders. In many cases, the sponsor will set the project’s strategic direction and drive the program forward. They will judge any conflicts that may arise and act as an “honest broker” in issue resolution to move the legal tech implementation forward. The sponsor will also be the primary source of high-level project communications and be the figurehead of any key announcements to the broader user population.

Stakeholder Buy-In

As we identified in the previous blog, it is essential to identify the key project stakeholders and stakeholder groups affected directly or indirectly. Some of these groups or individuals may be fully on board with the program and may require little management in expectations. If using a phased approach, start with this group and use them as a case study to communicate their achievements because of the change. It’s also better that any issues happen with a keen sub-group than the whole company.

Some likely key stakeholders may have other priorities or may be resistant to the change that a major project will bring about. Managing this resistance is very important if the project is to succeed, and you can use many tools and techniques to overcome it. This can range from the obvious, such as education and communication strategies, to the more extreme measures, including negotiation and bargaining. A last resort – coercion – will likely be counter-productive in the long term.

Involvement

Legal tech implementation and changing key processes will inevitably result in role and responsibility changes for some of the organization’s employees. The likely impact will depend on the business process level and operational change undertaken. As part of the planning phase, it is vital to engage and involve team members whose day-to-day tasks will change and capture the key business processes, both current and new, including reasons for change. These are likely the same users who provided requirements for the scoping document. This will help to ensure only necessary changes are made, not change for change’s sake. Also, capture their perceived negatives and positives, as you are unlikely to have considered everything; this helps with the implementation of legal tech and communication later. This analysis exercise will provide valuable information to the project team and the basis for discussions on potentially sensitive job reassignments undertaken as part of the implementation. With e-billing, most changes involve freeing legal teams of administrative burden to focus on high-value work, so the organization should positively receive these changes.

Impact

It may seem obvious, but it’s not always the case that identifying and measuring the benefits to be achieved is an essential stage in any legal project implementation. The structures and processes need successful implementation to help realize those benefits. The organization may not identify these benefits before implementing change but capturing them is essential. Benefits realization will extend beyond the implementation timescale, as benefits are often not realized until well after the go-live date.

Communication

On most projects, the first communication task undertaken by the legal change management team is the project launch announcement. Even though this may seem to have come from the project sponsor, the actual drafting will likely be by the project team itself. At the project launch, the team should inform the broader company about the project, its objectives, the expected benefits, key milestones, and members of the project team. There are many ways to transmit communications through an organization, which will often depend on the culture within the company. For example, it could be that the company’s intranet is a repository for updates and general project news, as well as other means – newsletters, departmental meetings, workshops, e-mail, etc.

It is essential to have a communication plan within the wider project plan, identifying formal information-related events as the project unfolds. As well as progress updates, inform employees of new process designs and changes. The more widely you communicate potential changes, the more likely people will understand, rationalize the benefits, and be open and accepting. It will also help with identifying possible project early adopters, who will prove invaluable when it comes to reinforcing the changes among their peers.

Readiness

Training is often left to the end of the project plan but is critical in preparing the company for a change. The project team should identify essential elements such as the approach to training, the delivery styles to be deployed, the level and nature of end-user help documentation, and how the team will measure the training program’s success. Training courses and documentation development must fully incorporate the business process information alongside the change messages and reasons for change. Courses and documents must match the depth of knowledge different groups of individuals need, from overviews to power-user level.

The organization will need help desk services, hand-holding and intensive one-to-one assistance, particularly in the immediate post-go-live period. Some software vendors provide this, but you may need to arrange it yourself, and your law firms will need support too. This investment will not only support the go-live process but will also serve as a knowledge base for new joiner training programs and possible future phases of implementation.

Related to training is the usability of the software you purchase or build. Do users need to learn a new interface? Is there another login to remember? How easy to understand is it? Many projects fail because users cannot get to grips with the system and find it easier to stick with the old process.

Change, in its broadest sense, is constant in organizations today and can be driven by many different forces, including customers, markets, and technology. Yet research shows that many change initiatives fail to accomplish their intended outcomes and may even limit the potential of an organization and its people.

The consequences of not managing change effectively can be devastating and long-lasting, so all company-wide stakeholders must understand the potential issues and equip themselves with techniques to support change-management initiatives.

Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp eBilling.Space helps customers plan their change management and user acceptance initiatives, as we understand how vital it is to your project’s success.

Learn more about BusyLamp by requesting a demo today.

LEGAL TECH ERFOLGREICH IMPLEMENTIEREN: CHANGE MANAGEMENT 

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Diese dreiteilige Blogserie dient als Leitfaden für die Implementierung eines erfolgreichen juristischen Technologieprojekts. 

Teil 1 – Scoping des Projekts vor dem Kauf oder Bau der Technologie 
Teil 2 – Sicherstellen, dass interne und externe Stakeholder an Board sind 
Teil 3 – Change Management während und nach der Implementierung 

Dieser Leitfaden zeigt die wichtigsten Bereiche auf, die es bei der Implementierung einer Rechtstechnologie zu berücksichtigen gilt. 

Erfolgreiches Changemanagement spielt eine wichtige und nicht zu unterschätzende Rolle bei der erfolgreichen Implementierung neuer Software in der Rechtsabteilung. Es sollte daher nicht nur als ein „Add-on“ zu den eher technischen Aspekten des Projekts gesehen werden. Denn wer die Bedeutung des Changemanagements im Laufe der Implementierung unterschätzt, gefährdet gleichzeitig die gewünschten Geschäftsergebnisse. 

Routineaufgaben werden sich ändern und das bringt eine unvermeidliche Lernkurve mit sich. So werden beispielsweise bei der Einführung einer eBilling-Software manuelle Rechnungsprüfungen und -freigaben durch eine automatisierte, regelbasierte Verarbeitung ersetzt. Veränderungen bringen auch mehr Kontakt zu und Interaktion mit Geschäftsprozessen und Daten mit sich. Zahlreiche Studien haben gezeigt, dass der Mensch eine starke Vorliebe für Dinge und Prozesse hat, die es schon länger gibt. Diese bleibt selbst dann bestehen, wenn es irrational scheint, den Status quo beizubehalten. Veränderungen erfordern bewusste Anstrengungen. Das Neue muss erst erlernt werden, daher ist die Kommunikation bei der Präsentation von Veränderungen und Vorteilen entscheidend. Oft wird das „Warum“ und das „Wie“ nicht unternehmensweit kommuniziert: Warum hat die Organisation beschlossen, dies zu tun und welchen Nutzen hat es für die Organisation und die dort Beschäftigten? 

Wenn nicht jeder eine klare Vision und ein Verständnis für die potenziellen Vorteile der Legal-Tech-Implementierung hat, kann das den Prozess der Implementierung erschweren. Das Changemanagement setzt genau an dieser Stelle an: Es ist die Praxis des Führens, Aufklärens, Ermutigen und Unterstützen der Organisation durch diese Übergangszeit. Die Changemanagement-Strategie für ein Softwareprojekt hängt weitgehend von der jeweiligen Komplexität und dem Umfang ab und kann in sechs Schlüsselbereiche unterteilt werden, auf die im Folgenden näher eingegangen wird. 

SPONSORSHIP 

Eine aktive Unterstützung der Veränderung durch die oberste Führungsebene ist für den Erfolg entscheidend. Sie sollte aktiv und für das Projektteam sowie alle Beteiligten sichtbar sein. In vielen Fällen hat der Sponsor die strategische Richtung des Projekts festgelegt und treibt das Programm voran. Dieser ist der Schiedsrichter bei eventuell auftretenden Konflikten und fungiert als „ehrlicher Makler“ bei der Problemlösung. Der Sponsor ist auch die Hauptquelle für die Projektkommunikation auf hochrangiger Ebene und das Aushängeschild für alle wichtigen Ankündigungen an die breitere Anwenderschaft. 

STAKEHOLDER-BUY-IN 

Wie im vorherigen Blog bereits erläutert, ist es essenziell, die wichtigsten Projekt-Stakeholder und Stakeholder-Gruppen zu identifizieren, welche direkt oder indirekt betroffen sind. Einige der Gruppen oder Einzelpersonen sind möglicherweise voll und ganz mit dem Programm einverstanden und benötigen nur wenig Management in Bezug auf ihre Erwartungen. Wenn Sie eine stufenweise Implementierung durchführen, beginnen Sie mit dieser Gruppe und nutzen Sie sie als Case Study, um ihre Erfolge als Ergebnis der Veränderung zu kommunizieren. Etwaige Probleme treten so nur bei der positiv-gestimmten Gruppe auf und lassen sich gemeinsam mit dieser lösen, bevor das gesamte Unternehmen oder eher negativ-eingestimmte Gruppen involviert werden. 

Es wird wahrscheinlich wichtige Stakeholder geben, die andere Prioritäten haben oder sich gegen die Veränderung, die ein Großprojekt mit sich bringt, wehren. Der Umgang mit diesen Widerständen ist entscheidend, wenn das Projekt erfolgreich sein soll. Um die Widerstände zu überwinden, können verschiedene Werkzeuge und Techniken eingesetzt werden: Von offensichtlichen Maßnahmen wie Aufklärung und Kommunikationsstrategien bis hin zu extremeren Maßnahmen wie Verhandlungen und Feilschen. Tatsächlicher Zwang ist stehts als letztes Mittel anzusehen, denn dieser wird auf lange Sicht höchstwahrscheinlich kontraproduktiv sein. 

EINBEZIEHUNG 

Durch eine Änderung der Schlüsselprozesse und der Implementierung von Technologie wird es zwangsläufig für einige Mitarbeiter:innen zu neunen Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten kommen. Die wahrscheinlichen Auswirkungen hängen dabei sowohl von der Ebene der Geschäftsprozesse ab als auch von den betrieblichen Veränderungen, die vorgenommen werden. Als Teil der Planungsphase ist es deshalb wichtig, die Teammitglieder, deren tägliche Aufgaben sich ändern werden, mit einzubeziehen. Zudem müssen die wichtigsten Geschäftsprozesse, sowohl die aktuellen als auch die neuen, sowie die Gründe der Änderung erfasst werden. Die betroffenen Mitglieder:innen sind wahrscheinlich dieselben, die auch die Anforderungen für das Scoping-Dokument geliefert haben. So kann sichergestellt werden, dass nur notwendige Änderungen vorgenommen werden und keine „Änderungen um der Änderungen willen“. Erfassen Sie im Zuge dessen auch ihre wahrgenommenen negativen und positiven Aspekte – dies kann später bei der Implementierung und der Kommunikation helfen. Diese Analyseübung wird dem Projektteam wertvolle Informationen liefern und dient auch als Grundlage für Diskussionen über potenziell heikle Stellenumbesetzungen, die im Rahmen der Implementierung vorgenommen werden. Bei der Implementierung einer Legal eBilling-Software besteht der größte Teil der Änderungen darin, die juristischen Teams von administrativem Aufwand zu befreien, damit sie sich auf anspruchsvollere Arbeit konzentrieren können. Diese Veränderungen sollten daher positiv aufgenommen werden. 

IMPACT 

Das Identifizieren und Messen des zu erzielenden Nutzens ist eine wichtige Phase bei jeder Projektimplementierung. Es müssen Strukturen und Prozesse geschaffen werden, die dazu beitragen, dass der erhoffte Nutzen auch realisiert wird. Es kann durchaus vorkommen, dass nicht alle Vorteile vor der Entscheidung für die Änderung identifiziert wurden. Deshalb ist es umso wichtiger, sie jetzt zu erfassen. Die Realisierung des Nutzens geht weit über den Zeitrahmen der Implementierung hinaus, meist wird er erst nach dem Go-Live-Datum tatsächlich realisiert. 

KOMMUNIKATION 

Bei den meisten Projekten ist die erste Kommunikationsaufgabe, die das Changemanagement-Team übernimmt, die Ankündigung des Projektstarts. Auch wenn es den Anschein hat, dass diese vom Projektsponsor stammt, kommt die tatsächliche Ausarbeitung meist vom Projektteam selbst. Beim Projektstart sollte das Team das gesamte Unternehmen über das Projekt, seine Ziele, den erwarteten Nutzen, die wichtigsten Meilensteine und die Mitglieder:innen des Projektteams informieren. Es gibt viele Wege, wie die Kommunikation in einer Organisation ablaufen kann. Diese hängen oft von der Kultur innerhalb des Unternehmens ab. Es könnte zum Beispiel sein, dass das Intranet des Unternehmens als Kommunikationsmittel für Aktualisierungen und allgemeine Projektnachrichten verwendet wird. Aber auch andere Kommunikationskanäle wie Newsletter, Abteilungsbesprechungen, Workshops oder E-Mails sind denkbar. 

Es ist wichtig, einen Kommunikationsplan im Rahmen des Projektplans zu erstellen, der formelle, informationsbezogene Ereignisse im Verlauf des Projekts festlegt. Neben den Fortschrittsmeldungen sollten zudem alle Mitarbeiter:innen über neue Prozessentwürfe und -änderungen informiert werden. Je breiter potenzielle Änderungen kommuniziert werden, desto wahrscheinlicher ist es, dass die Mitarbeiter:innen die Änderungen verstehen, die Vorteile rationalisieren und der Änderung offen und akzeptierend gegenüberstehen. Dies hilft auch bei der Identifizierung potenzieller „Early Adopters“ des Projekts, die sich als wertvoll erweisen können, wenn die Änderungen unter Kolleg:innen verstärkt werden sollen. 

BEREITSCHAFT 

Die Schulung wird oft ans Ende des Projektplans gestellt, ist aber entscheidend für die Vorbereitung des Unternehmens auf den Wandel. Das Projektteam sollte wichtige Elemente identifizieren, wie beispielweise den Schulungsansatz, die Art der Durchführung, den Umfang und die Art der Dokumentation für die Endbenutzer sowie die Messbarkeit vom Erfolg des Schulungsprogramms. Bei der Entwicklung von Schulungskursen und -unterlagen müssen die Informationen über die Geschäftsprozesse sowie die Änderungsbotschaften und -gründe vollständig berücksichtigt werden. Die Kurse und Unterlagen müssen der Wissenstiefe entsprechen, die verschiedene Personengruppen benötigen – von Überblicken bis hin zum Power-User-Level. 

Die Bereitstellung von Help-Desk-Services, Hand-Holding und intensiver Einzelunterstützung wird vor allem in der unmittelbaren Zeit nach dem Go-Live erforderlich sein. Einige Softwareanbieter bieten dies zwar an, möglicherweise müssen Sie es aber selbst arrangieren. Auch Ihre Anwaltskanzleien werden Unterstützung benötigen. Diese Investition unterstützt nicht nur den Go-Live-Prozess, sondern dient auch als Wissensbasis für zukünftige Schulungsprogramme für neue Mitarbeiter:innen und mögliche zukünftige Phasen der Implementierung. 

Mit der Schulung verbunden sind die Fragen der Benutzerfreundlichkeit der gekauften oder erstellten Software. Müssen die Benutzer:innen eine neue Oberfläche erlernen, gibt es eine weitere Anmeldung, die man sich merken muss, wie einfach ist die Software zu erlernen? Viele Projekte scheitern, weil die Benutzer:innen mit dem System nicht zurechtkommen und es deshalb als einfacher empfinden, bei dem alten Prozess zu bleiben. 

Veränderungen sind heute eine Konstante in Unternehmen. Sie können durch eine Reihe verschiedener Kräfte angetrieben werden, darunter Kunden, Märkte und Technologie. Untersuchungen zeigen jedoch, dass viele Veränderungsinitiativen ihre beabsichtigten Ergebnisse nicht erreichen und sogar das Potenzial einer Organisation und ihrer Mitarbeiter:innen einschränken können. 

Die Folgen eines nicht effektiv gemanagten Wandels können verheerend und lang anhaltend sein. Es ist daher wichtig, dass alle unternehmensweiten Stakeholder die potenziellen Herausforderungen verstehen und sich mit Techniken zur Unterstützung von Changemanagement-Initiativen ausstatten. 

Onit hat erkannt, wie wichtig Changemanagement- und User-Acceptance-Initiativen für den Projekterfolg sind, deshalb unterstützen wir unsere Kunden bei der Planung dieser Initiativen. Erfahren Sie mehr über Onit und die vielfältigen Legal Operations-Lösungen und fordern Sie noch heute eine Demo an. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt. 

What is Legal Operations?

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Legal operations encompasses all the legal department’s responsibilities that are not the law itself. This includes spend management, efficiency and productivity, communication, vendor management, technology, change management, and data analysis. The most specific definition on offer is from the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), which umbrellas legal operations over 12 competencies that every legal function should aspire to have at three maturity levels; you can find this resource on their website.

Typical roles and responsibilities of legal operations include:

  • Defining and driving initiatives to improve efficiency and process workflows
  • Managing outside counsel guidelines, legal spend (visibility, control, and reduction) and department budget
  • Optimizing law firm performance for maximum value for money
  • Implementing, measuring, and analyzing metrics that inform decision-making, turning them into actions that deliver improvements
  • Implementing technology to achieve these goals
  • Working cross-functionally to demonstrate the legal department’s value within the organization to the business
  • Effectively executing these functions to produce benefits that improve the productivity and profitability of the legal department, allowing the team to demonstrate their value to the business
  • Helping to shape focus areas for the department and defining areas for short- and long-term improvement.
  • Introducing metrics and KPIs for measuring and benchmarking these focus areas.
  • Deploying dedicated legal operations resources undistracted by the practice of law to focus on raising the profile of Legal and its value to the business.
  • Building stronger, data-driven, transparent relationships with external providers to maximize value
  • Building more strategic partnerships with outside counsel and service providers.
  • Standardization and automation of repetitive or administrative tasks such as invoice review so that the team can spend more time on high-value work.
  • Encouraging consistent use of technology and processes across the team and integrating with systems in the broader business for company-wide strategic analytics.
  • Influencing data-driven staffing, matter resourcing and other decisions.

The function has been around longer than you might realize. CLOC, for example, was formed in the USA back in 2010. In our survey of legal departments, the Legal Operations Benchmarking Report, only 2% of departments were not focusing on legal operations at some level.

So, what’s driving the recent prevalence of the legal operations function? In the 1980s and earlier, corporate legal departments were almost entirely focused on risk and compliance and advising the business. The legal function was the cost of doing business. Over time, business has become more complex, regulated, and global. With that, demand for legal services (and therefore costs) has increased, with increased pressure to control these costs and complexities. Organizations now expect the legal department to manage budgets and efficiencies like other departments.

General Counsel are under more pressure than ever to justify their legal costs and improve the efficiency of their department. With this demand to make the legal department act more “like a business” comes a need for cost control and process improvement. The challenge for a traditional legal team is that the skills needed to do this effectively are separate from a standard lawyer’s repertoire. This has led to the need and rapid spread of legal operations-specific technology, processes, and people.

Options are available for legal departments that need to cover legal operations responsibilities. They can upskill existing legal team members, bring in commercial managers from elsewhere to manage the legal operations, use consultants, or hire an experienced legal operations manager from outside.

An effective legal operations manager combines knowledge of the practice of law, an understanding of the business and its challenges, and commercial skills. Besides the technical skills of change management, commercials, data analysis and technology, a successful legal operations manager can navigate the business and manage multiple stakeholders. As a support function, if the manager is unaware of the challenges, they will not be able to solve them. They should also demonstrate a proven track record of transformation, efficiency, and cost control initiatives.

For example, a lawyer moving into this role may need upskilling in data and technology. A business manager moving into this role will need upskilling in managing law firms and the legal industry. All the necessary skills are essential throughout the team, even if they are not the legal operations manager. Don’t split the team into lawyers and non-lawyers but have the whole team working together operationally towards common goals. Identify where your skills gaps are and look to address these when hiring the legal operations manager.

Even in teams with no legal operations manager, the responsibilities of legal operations are still getting done – even if they don’t have the “legal operations” name. Around 44% of the Legal Operations Benchmarking Report respondents have legal operations tasks assigned to one or more individuals not solely dedicated to the legal operations function. In this case, ensure there is someone in the business who oversees the responsibility, usually the General Counsel. If the skills exist throughout the team and there is an individual responsible for the strategy, your legal department can achieve operational goals without a dedicated manager.

You may, however, need to introduce non-lawyers into the team if the change, technology, data, and commercial skills are otherwise lacking. We do advocate hiring a dedicated resource to manage legal operations. Without a dedicated resource, operations will take a back seat to the practice of advising the business, especially during busy or under-resourced periods. A dedicated manager ensures operational goals get the focus and attention they need.

In today’s business world, the combination of skilled personnel and software fuels goals such as transparency, efficiency gains and data analysis. Legal Operations is no exception, proven by glancing at the world’s leading legal operations teams. No one among them does not rely on legal operations tools in their daily work.

Some of the applications and benefits of technology include:

  • Creating workflows for repetitive tasks automates manual processes and improves productivity
  • Real-time dashboards on matter or contract statuses give visibility to stakeholders
  • Legal e-billing ensures law firms adhere to billing guidelines which saves money and time
  • Organizations can compare law firm prices and performance for more transparent and fair reviews and negotiations
  • Knowledge management tools make it easier to collaborate, search and find information and documents
  • Consistent data creates reports and analytical capabilities to enable decision making

Our Legal Operations Benchmarking Report found a high correlation between legal operations maturity and the breadth of legal technology used. Whether the results compare country, industry, or company size, the result is the same; there is a correlation between mature legal operations and technology usage. Using technology to assist in achieving goals means greater success, which leads to growing legal operations departments and more advanced capabilities and goals. But a warning: legal as a department is typically behind the curve when it comes to digitalization, and although the benefits of legal technology are apparent, adoption and change management issues can slow down your route to success. Look for experience in this area when building your team.

E-billing, legal spend, and matter management are solutions often implemented for legal operations because it’s easy to achieve a fast ROI. As many of the benefits are directly related to cost savings, the solution soon pays for itself. For example, automatic enforcement of billing guidelines spots errors a human invoice reviewer can miss, generating considerable savings in the first year of software usage. Real-time cost transparency, such as Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp eBilling.Space‘s Work in Progress tracker, removes surprises when the invoice arrives and allows for more accurate budgeting.

In addition, matter and spend management solutions deliver many efficiency and collaboration benefits, such as:

  • Invoice processing is automated, faster than a human reviewer, reduces manual errors, and frees up lawyers to do more valuable and engaging work.
  • Reports and dashboards are generated automatically or built quickly, using a centralized database of matter and spend information. No more hours and days wasted compiling information from multiple sources of on and offline data. They also improve the visibility of actual and upcoming spend and flag high-risk matters.
  • Centralized matter and documents improve collaboration internally and with law firms and enable fact-based negotiations and reviews.
  • The data generated by using technology can be analyzed and used to make strategic decisions to further improve legal operations and Legal’s value to the business.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.space.

WAS IST LEGAL OPERATIONS? 

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Unter dem Begriff „Legal Operations“ versteht man grundsätzlich die Gesamtheit aller Aufgaben einer Rechtsabteilung, die nicht die Rechtsberatung selbst betreffen. Dazu zählen folgende Disziplinen: Ausgabenmanagement, Effizienz und Produktivität, die Kommunikation einer Rechtsabteilung sowie das Dienstleistermanagement, die verwendeten Technologien, das Changemanagement und die Datenanalyse. Die wohl spezifischste Definition stammt vom Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), die den Begriff Legal Operations in 12 Kernkompetenzen aufgliedert, die wiederum in drei unterschiedliche Phasen eingeteilt sind. Eine Übersicht dazu finden Sie hier. 

Typische Aufgaben und Verantwortlichkeiten von Legal Operations umfassen: 

  • Definieren und umsetzen von Initiativen, um die eigene Effizienz zu steigern und Prozessabläufe zu optimieren 
  • Management des Legal Spends (Transparenz, Kontrolle und Reduzierung), eigener Abteilungsbudgets sowie der Guidelines für externe Rechtsberatung 
  • Optimieren der Leistung von beauftragten Kanzleien für ein besseres Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis 
  • Implementieren, Messen und Analysieren von entscheidungsrelevanten Metriken und deren Umsetzung in strategisch sinnvolle Maßnahmen 
  • Implementieren von Technologien, die es ermöglichen diese Ziele zu erreichen 
  • Funktionsübergreifende Zusammenarbeit, um den Mehrwert der Rechtsabteilung intern zu verdeutlichen und als Business-Unit erfolgreich zu operieren 

Eine effektive Umsetzung all dieser Funktionen steigert die Produktivität und verbessert die Rentabilität der Rechtsabteilung. Diese Vorteile ermöglichen dem Inhouse-Team, den eigenen Mehrwert für das Unternehmen zu demonstrieren: 

  • Legal Operations unterstützt Rechtsabteilungen beim Setzen von Schwerpunkten für die Abteilung und definiert Bereiche für kurz- und langfristige Verbesserungen. 
  • Die Einführung von Metriken und KPIs ermöglicht das Messen und Benchmarken der definierten Schwerpunkte. 
  • Die Abteilung verfügt über dedizierte personelle Legal Operations-Ressourcen, die nicht durch das eigentliche juristische Geschäft abgelenkt sind. Diese können sich dann auf die Wahrnehmung der Rechtsabteilung und das Stärken ihres Mehrwertes innerhalb des Unternehmens konzentrieren. 
  • Stärkere, datengetriebene und transparente Beziehungen zu externen Rechtsdienstleistern, um deren Wert zu maximieren und strategische Partnerschaften mit ihnen aufzubauen. 
  • Standardisieren und Automatisieren von sich wiederholenden oder administrativen Aufgaben, wie der Rechnungsprüfung. So bleibt dem Team mehr Zeit für wertvolle und anspruchsvolle juristische Tätigkeiten. 
  • Konsequenter Einsatz von Technologien und Prozessen im gesamten Team sowie deren Integration mit Systemen in weiteren Unternehmensbereichen, für ganzheitliche strategische Analysen. 
  • Datengesteuerte Personalbesetzung, Matter-Vergabe und andere strategische Entscheidungen werden ermöglicht. 

Der Bereich Legal Operations gewinnt immer mehr an Popularität – dabei ist der Begriff an sich nicht neu. Das CLOC-Institut wurde beispielsweise bereits 2010 in den USA gegründet. In unserem Legal Operations Benchmarking-Report von 2021 gaben zudem 79% aller Befragten an, dass sich ihre Rechtsabteilung bereits mit Legal Operations befasst. 

Wieso sind Legal Operations-Funktionen heutzutage wichtiger denn je? 

In den Jahren um 1980 konzentrierten sich Inhouse-Jurist:innen noch fast ausschließlich auf die Beratung von Unternehmen im Hinblick auf Risiken und Compliance-Aspekte.. Die Rechtsabteilung als solche war zu dieser Zeit somit ein zusätzlicher Kostenfaktor bei der Geschäftsabwicklung. Im Laufe der Zeit entwickelte sich das Geschäft – es wurde komplexer, stärker reguliert und globaler. Dadurch ist die Nachfrage nach Rechtsdienstleistungen und deren Kosten entsprechend gestiegen. Schnell entwickelte sich innerhalb von Organisationen der Druck, die hier entstandene Komplexität einzudämmen und Kosten zu reduzieren. Infolgedessen gilt es, dass Rechtsabteilung zur heutigen Zeit ihre Budgets ähnlich effizient wie andere Business Units zu verwalten haben. General Counsel stehen in einer immer stärker regulierten Welt zunehmend unter Druck, ihre Rechtskosten zu rechtfertigen und die Effizienz ihrer Abteilung zu verbessern. Mit der Forderung, die Rechtsabteilung „wie eine Business-Unit“ zu managen, entsteht die Notwendigkeit zur Kostenkontrolle und Prozessverbesserung. Eine große Herausforderung für klassische Rechtsteams besteht darin, dass die Fähigkeiten, die für eine effektive Umsetzung erforderlich sind, nicht unbedingt zum Standard-Repertoire eines Juristen gehören. Dies führte zur hohen Nachfrage von Legal Operations-Technologien, -Prozessen und -Personal. 

Es gibt einige Optionen für Rechtsabteilungen, die Aufgaben im Bereich Legal Operations abzudecken: Sie können das bestehende Rechtsteam weiterbilden, kaufmännische Manager:innen aus anderen Bereichen des Unternehmens für die Leitung gewinnen, Berater:innen einsetzen oder erfahrene Legal Operations Manager:innen neu einstellen. 

Qualifizierte Legal Operations Manager:innen verfügen über juristische Kenntnisse und kombinieren diese mit einem Verständnis für Ihr Unternehmen und dessen Herausforderungen sowie kaufmännischen Fähigkeiten. Neben den technischen Kenntnissen in den Bereichen Changemanagement, Datenanalyse und Technologie sollten sie in der Lage sein, die anfallenden Tätigkeiten zu steuern und mehrere Stakeholder zu managen. Sie sollten ebenfalls in der Lage dazu sein, eine nachgewiesene Erfolgsbilanz von Transformations-, Effizienz- und Kosteneinsparungsinitiativen vorzuweisen. Jurist:innen, die in diese Rolle wechseln, müssen sich zum Beispiel in den Disziplinen “Daten und Technologie” weiterbilden. Business Manager:innen, die in diese Rolle wechseln, sollten sich über das Steuern von Kanzleien und der Rechtsbranche informieren. Wichtig ist, dass alle erforderlichen Fähigkeiten im gesamten Team vorhanden sind, insbesondere wenn sie ein:e Legal Operations Manager:in nicht selbst vorweisen kann. Teilen Sie das Team nicht in Jurist:innen und Nicht-Jurist:innen auf, sondern lassen Sie das gesamte Team operativ auf gemeinsame Ziele hinarbeiten. Erkennen Sie Qualifikationslücken im Team und versuchen Sie, diese durch die Einstellung zu füllen. 

Auch in Teams ohne dedizierte Legal Operations Manager:innen fallen Legal Operations-Aufgaben an. Bei 35% der Befragten im Legal Operations Benchmarking Report von 2021 werden Aufgaben im Bereich Legal Operations von einer oder mehreren Personen wahrgenommen, die nicht ausschließlich für diese Funktion zuständig sind. Stellen Sie in diesem Fall sicher, dass es jemanden im Unternehmen gibt, der die Verantwortlichkeiten im Blick hat – der General Counsel könnte diese Rolle beispielsweise übernehmen. Solange die erforderlichen Legal Operations-Fähigkeiten im Team vorhanden sind und eine Person die Verantwortung übernimmt, kann Ihre Rechtsabteilung die operativen Ziele auch ohne dedizierte Legal Ops Manager:innen erreichen. Dafür kann es erforderlich sein, auch Nicht-Jurist:innen in das Team aufzunehmen, welche die Kenntnisse in Bezug auf Change Management, Technologien, Daten und kaufmännische Aspekte aufweisen. Wir empfehlen Ihnen jedoch, eine dedizierte Person einzustellen, die die juristischen Abläufe leitet. Ohne eine solche Person wird das operative Geschäft erfahrungsgemäß gegenüber externer juristischer Beratung in den Hintergrund treten – insbesondere in Zeiten, in denen viel los ist oder die Ressourcen nicht ausreichen. Engagierte Manager:innen stellen sicher, dass die operativen Ziele den nötigen Fokus und die nötige Aufmerksamkeit erhalten. 

In der heutigen Geschäftswelt werden Ziele wie Steigerung der Transparenz und Effizienz sowie Datenanalyse durch die Kombination von qualifiziertem Personal und Software erreicht. Legal Operations bilden dabei keine Ausnahme, wie ein Blick auf die weltweit führenden Legal-Operations-Teams beweist. Es gibt nicht eines unter ihnen, welches sich bei der täglichen Arbeit nicht auf eine Legal Operations-Technologie verlässt. 

Einige der Vorteile solcher Technologien sind: 

  • Das Erstellen von Workflows für sich wiederholende Aufgaben automatisiert manuelle Prozesse und verbessert somit die Produktivität. 
  • Echtzeit-Dashboards zum Status von Matter oder Verträgen geben den Beteiligten einen allumfassenden Überblick. 
  • Legal eBilling stellt sicher, dass Kanzleien die Billing Guidelines einhalten, was zu monetären Einsparungen führt. 
  • Kanzlei-Preise und Leistungen können sichtbar gemacht werden und für einen fairen Vergleich und Verhandlungen herangezogen werden. 
  • Knowledgemanagement-Tools erleichtern die Zusammenarbeit, das Suchen und Finden von Informationen und Dokumenten. 
  • Konsistente Daten schaffen Reporting- und Analysemöglichkeiten für eine strategische Entscheidungsfindung. 

In unserem Legal Operations Benchmarking Report aus dem Jahre 2021 haben wir eine hohe Korrelation zwischen dem Reifegrad von Legal Operations und dem Umfang der eingesetzten Rechtstechnologien festgestellt. Unabhängig davon, ob man die Antworten nach Land, Branche oder Unternehmensgröße vergleicht, ist das Ergebnis dasselbe: Ausgereifte rechtliche Abläufe und der Einsatz von Rechtstechnologie korrelieren miteinander. Der Einsatz von Technologien zur Zielerreichung verspricht großen Erfolg und führt zu fortschrittlicheren Fähigkeiten Ihres juristischen Teams. Aber bedenken Sie: in Digitalisierungsthemen liegen Rechtsabteilungen oftmals zurück. Auch wenn die Vorteile von Legal Operations-Technologien ganz klar auf der Hand liegen, kann die Implementierung herausfordernd sein. Achten Sie bei der Zusammenstellung Ihres Teams deshalb auf die nötigen Change-Management-Erfahrungen und entnehmen Sie unserem Whitepaper “Ein Business Case für Legal Spend Management” praktische Best Practices. 

Häufig werden eBilling, Legal Spend und Matter Management-Lösungen implementiert, mit denen sich ein schneller ROI erzielen lässt. Da viele der Funktionen solcher Lösungen mit direkten Kosteneinsparungen verbunden sind, macht sich die jeweilige Einführung schnell bezahlt. Zwei wesentliche Vorteile dabei sind: 

  • Das automatisierte Überprüfen und Durchsetzen von Billing Guidelines deckt häufig Fehler auf, die ansonsten unbemerkt geblieben wären. Dies führt bereits im ersten Jahr der Softwarenutzung zu enormen Einsparungen. 
  • Durch den BusyLamp eBilling.Space Work-In-Progress Tracker schaffen Sie beispielsweise Kosteneinsparungen in Echtzeit. So werden Überraschungen bei der Rechnungsstellung vermieden und gleichzeitig eine genaue Budgetierung während der gesamten Projektlaufzeit ermöglicht. 
  • Darüber hinaus bieten Matter- und Spendmanagement-Lösungen viele Vorteile in Bezug auf Effizienz und Kollaboration, wie z.B: 
  • Die Rechnungsverarbeitung wird automatisiert, wodurch manuelle Fehler vermieden werden können. Der Prozess wird beschleunigt und den Anwält:innen wird mehr Zeit für wertvolle juristische Tätigkeiten geschaffen. 
  • Reports und Dashboards können sowohl automatisch generiert als auch individuell erstellt werden, indem eine zentralisierte Datenbank mit Informationen zu Matter und Ausgaben verwendet wird. Informationen müssen nicht mehr unter hohem Zeitaufwand aus verschiedenen On- und Offline-Datenquellen zusammenzugestellt werden. Zusätzlich zur Zeitersparnis, verbessert sich so auch die Transparenz der tatsächlichen und anstehenden Ausgaben und Matter, die mit einem hohen Risiko behaftet sind, werden gekennzeichnet. 
  • Zentralisierte Matter und Dokumente verbessern die Zusammenarbeit, sowohl intern als auch extern mit Kanzleien und ermöglichen gleichzeitig faktenbasierte Verhandlungen und Reviews. 
  • Die durch die Technologie generierten Daten können analysiert und für strategische Entscheidungen genutzt werden, um die rechtlichen Abläufe und den Wert der Rechtsabteilung für das Unternehmen weiter zu verbessern. 

Using Legal Data to Drive Decision-Making 

Posted on April 4, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Strategic decision-making is crucial to the long-term success of any organization. But do you have the right solution that enables you to make more informed decisions? With BusyLamp, your Legal team can track and analyze legal spend, identify areas for cost savings and make informed decisions about the allocation of legal resources. By providing real-time cost transparency and customizable dashboards, Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp eBilling.Space helps to make data-driven decisions that drive business success.

Want to hear about BusyLamp in action? Here are five real-world, game-changing use cases that show the difference BusyLamp can make.

This in-house team was under pressure from the business to accurately forecast external legal spend. However, this is only possible after removing anomalies, as matters such as litigation and M&A are unpredictable. The business will always pay for this type of work, regardless of budget and where spend is regarding budget. The legal department, therefore, agreed with the business that they would deliver forecasting on business-as-usual spend only.

The team deployed BusyLamp to calculate their business-as-usual spend on a monthly and annual basis. This is easy with BusyLamp reporting, as they can exclude litigation and M&A data categories when creating a report. This report gets sent to stakeholders regularly and enables daily tracking of business-as-usual spend. This data is further analyzed to understand what this spend looks like by jurisdiction, matter type, internal client, and more so that they can provide more detailed forecasting.

Our client has dramatically improved their forecasting accuracy, and the business is happy with the level of detail they now provide.

Making a Business Case for More Headcount

A very under-resourced internal legal team often outsourced matters because they could not meet internal deadlines. They used BusyLamp reporting to understand their spend by matter type over a year, assessing what they spend on each practice area and the PQE of the external lawyer doing the work.

They could spot that a lot of general commercial work was being outsourced purely because of the capacity of their team. They quickly understood how much they were spending on these matters in total, so they evaluated what the cost would be if they could work on these matters internally instead.

Legal Operations created a business case to grow the team by two additional personnel. After approval, they successfully added two general commercial lawyers to the team, reducing the volume of work outsourced to their law firms. This resulted in a substantial reduction in their total legal spend.

Deciding Which Firms to Outsource Work

After using BusyLamp for some time, this in-house team decided they wanted to collate qualitative data and the quantitative data already held in the system. They chose to use BusyLamp surveys to measure the quality of the work completed by firms. The team looked at the seniority of the external lawyer, the score given by the in-house lawyer assessing the work, and the types of matters.

They identified that one of their law firms had scored an average of 9/10 for IP work, with a partner doing the work at a premium rate. Another one of their law firms had scored an average of 8/10 for IP work, with an associate doing the work.

They considered that 8/10 was still of sufficiently good quality but at a much lower rate than the partner at the other firm. The team allocated more IP work to the Associate, with the most critical IP work still going to the other firm’s partner. This resulted in a significant saving in costs for IP matters without compromising on quality or value for money.

Reaching Volume Discount Milestones

In this case, a customer had negotiated volume discounts with the law firms; however, they had no way of tracking when firms reached the spend milestones. After implementing BusyLamp, the company scheduled several reports for periodic automatic delivery, including monitoring spend by firm.

Today, legal operations know the exact spend for each law firm. When the firm approaches a rebate or discount milestone, the in-house team allocates as much work as is reasonable and appropriate to these firms to hit the milestone and activate the discount. This significantly reduces annual external spend.

Getting Visibility of Spend by Activity Type

By using “spend by activity type” reporting in BusyLamp, this in-house legal team realized they were spending a lot of money on “internal communications” with their law firms. This spend included many matter types that did not usually require this amount of internal communication allocation.

The team contacted their law firms and requested that the correct lawyer be allocated to their matters in the first instance to reduce internal communications. They also informed the law firms that the organization would no longer pay for internal communications. Their law firms agreed to the terms.

Internal communications were then added to their billing guidelines so that any line items relating to this activity type would get flagged for review. The change helped our client to reduce their spend and the amount of time their law firm partners spend completing their matters.

How BusyLamp Helps

With BusyLamp, Legal departments can:

  • See their legal matters and spend from the entire business in one place.
  • Understand where legal budget is being spent; what types of matters, in what jurisdictions, with which firms
  • Stop wasting time compiling spreadsheets – reports can be built in an easy-to-use report wizard.
  • Save even more time by automating delivery of reports that are needed frequently.
  • Create reports on any field within the system to understand your matters and make data-driven strategic decisions, whether that be to reduce legal spend, manage legal risk, or evaluate law firm performance.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.space.

Legal’s Brand Image: A Shining Opportunity for Positive Influence

Posted on March 23, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Legal Operations

Legal is most often viewed as a stellar guardian of the enterprise and outstanding advisor — yet its perception as a business partner is not quite as golden. In these uncertain economic times when businesses are searching for both cost efficiency and growth, what can Legal do to reconcile its reputation and magnify its material impact?

In business as in life, image is essential. It is also a principal focus of the 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report*, which reconfirms one of the most prominent findings from its inaugural edition: Four in five (78%) corporate employees perceive Legal’s enduring image as a trustworthy protector of the business that imparts sage advice.

Yet even though respondents view Legal as an authority figure and business protector, nearly three in four (73%) do not consider Legal an approachable business partner. In fact, many view Legal as a “bottleneck,” as “adding unnecessary roadblocks,” or “simply expect to experience holdups” when interacting with legal teams. As a result, relationships between Legal and its internal clients have declined year-over-year (YoY) in every department — by almost 10% in HR, 18% in Finance, 30% in Sales, 27% in Marketing, and 41% in Procurement.

Image is (Almost) Everything

Though Legal’s inherent image has remained, the world has changed dramatically over this past year. The bullish economy at the outset of 2022’s data collection is now besieged by the effects of inflation and layoffs due to the macroeconomic climate. This itself had been sparked by the continuing effects of the global pandemic and social and political unrest that have set off a chain reaction of privacy concerns, regulatory revisions, and disruptions to overseas vendors and supply chains.

Cost containment and EBITDA are now the terms of the day, and legal departments are no exception to enduring employee burnout and smaller budgets. For a function established to protect the business, it is not overwhelmingly startling, then, that when so much seems fragile and beyond our control, trust in Legal might experience a stress fracture of sorts.

There is a silver lining, however: The major finding in the 2023 ELR Report is that Legal can play a meaningful part in impacting business materiality, growth, and operational efficiency. Right now, Legal has the opportunity to reset expectations and reshape its reputation in the eyes of its internal clients and executive teams. Here are three ways that Legal can “up” both its positive image and material impact, especially in these times of economic uncertainty.

1. Collaborating more intently.

The 2023 ELR Report reveals that nearly half (43%) of the study’s non-legal respondents state that better communication and collaboration is the most essential way Legal can support its internal clients. Of course, execution of matters is always important. Providing better law firm or outside counsel management is as well. But what clients say they need more from Legal is more involved client service within the business, and that starts with better communication and greater responsiveness.

2. Accelerating processes and workflows.

While there are many capacities in which Legal shines, almost half (45%) of corporate employee respondents feel that Legal can be too slow. Another 15% cite the fact that they feel processes are overly manual, which also has a negative impact on efficiency. Some legal matters do take longer than others, of course, but this is where technology — including AI — can play a significant role in keeping everything from spend management to contracts moving.

3. Championing corporate culture.

Another way Legal can demonstrate its charter as protector is with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Although current macroeconomic conditions may force companies to put the bottom line ahead of investment in cultural initiatives, Legal has a powerful base from which to influence DEI: More than half (57%) say Legal’s impact on corporate culture is positive. That fact must remain top of mind for Legal — to provide a safe and equitable work environment, to elevate problem-solving and competitive differentiation, and to foster and nurture lasting trust.

Reputation, it has been said, is the echo that remains once we are no longer in the room. It can make or break us — and that goes for legal departments as well. Fortunately, Legal has a firm foundation on which to continue building, with its enduring image as trustworthy protector and advisor. Yet Legal doesn’t exist only to protect.

This is Legal’s metamorphosis moment to evolve its image into that of a greater, more strategic business partner — by communicating more deeply with clients, accelerating efficiency, and embracing cultural and technological innovation. In turn, Legal will have a more positive and direct influence on the growth and materiality of every corner of the enterprise.

Read Chapter 1 of the 2023 ELR Report to discover new and enduring perceptions of the legal department, how corporate employees view their interactions and relationships with Legal, and ways in which Legal can evolve its brand image to more directly impact revenue generation, growth, and operational efficiency for its businesses.

*The 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report is the second installment of a multinational annual study spotlighting year-over-year changes in the brand image of corporate legal departments through the eyes of their internal clients.

Experts Evaluate the Potential of Legal Contract Management Software and AI  

Posted on March 23, 2023 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Legal contract management software also referred to as contract lifecycle management, has made significant headway in the world of in-house counsel, racking up impressive stats such as reducing the average sales cycle by 24% and saving 9% on annual average costs. But what happens when you combine legal contract management software with AI?

A panel of legal and AI experts from organizations including Adobe and Onit, presented at Legalweek on just this topic, examining the potential impact of AI on managing contracts and how to start implementing AI into your contract management workflows. The conversation touched on the business value of using AI in legal ops, the efficiencies AI can bring to your business and future trends in AI, among other things.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways for AI and legal contract management software.

How to get started with AI

One of the easiest places for legal departments to start using contract AI and automation is in common use cases like reviewing NDAs and other routine contracts because these are high-value but time-consuming activities. The need to increase speed is high, but the risk is relatively low.

On the applicability of AI to law

AI has strong applications to both the business side of law and the practice of law. From a business perspective, contract AI can help with important, routine tasks like invoice review and billing. As for the practice of law, AI is ideal for tasks like tracking 20 different clauses in the 56,000 NDAs you handle each year, significantly boosting productivity and efficiency.

Do your research

To get the most out of your AI tools, you want your relationship with your technology vendor to be a true partnership, and you want to apply your own judgment to why your solutions are doing what they’re doing. With both your vendor and your solution, you want to retain a certain level of control to ensure you’re getting the results you want.

Have a strategy

When you start implementing AI with your legal contract management software, you don’t want to be thinking just six or twelve months down the road but further down the horizon. When you create a longer-term vision, you’ll be better able to take into account the needs of your various stakeholders and secure their buy-in for your chosen AI solutions.

Laying the groundwork for adoption

Many companies find it easiest to start with a single use case or data set and train their AI models from there. Once you have your first success, it will be easier to roll out your new technology across other business units and the organization as a whole.

AI and compliance

When you use AI for contract lifecycle management, your tools can help you stay on top of the constantly changing federal and state regulatory landscape. AI can assess your legacy contracts against new regulatory changes and ensure that any necessary updates are made.

Contract AI and CLM

AI helps in the pre-signature phase of contracts by creating centralized workflows for contract management and templates that allow your team to draft, review and redline contracts with just a click. AI also assists in the post-signature phase by extracting actionable intelligence from your contracts that can serve as the basis for informed decision-making.

On justifying spending money on AI to the C-suite

According to a recent study, users saw on average a 51.5% gain in productivity after using AI for contract review. That’s an almost immediate gain in productivity, and some use cases saw even better results. Moreover, the efficiency continued to increase over time as users became more familiar with the tools and the tools got smarter. The data extraction capabilities of AI contract tools also help to reduce risk and stop revenue leakage, which has a positive financial impact on the business as a whole.

Future trends in AI

While AI was originally targeted more toward law firms, the focus has shifted to in-house teams. We’re likely to see an even greater emphasis on using AI in contract drafting and CLM this year.

If you’d like to learn more about AI and contract lifecycle management, here are two helpful webinar replays:

  • The Future of Contracting: CLM + AI Transformation at Lenovo – Every company needs a faster and more efficient contracting process that enhances risk and spend management, improves revenue and profit margins, and increases visibility into counterparty relationships. The Lenovo Legal Department’s transformation journey is delivering value to the business by centralizing the global legal transactional support resources, standardizing the contract process across the company and optimizing the process with technology.
  • AI Mythbusters: Deprogramming Misconceptions – Confusion and misinformation around what Artificial Intelligence is and how it works is widespread, particularly in the legal technology space. Watch this webinar to debunk ten common misconceptions and learn how to decipher marketing-speak to separate true AI from just software.

OnitX Legal Holds Management: An Easier Path Through a Challenging Trail

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The legal holds process is often a painful one; it’s also a necessary part of doing business, as a critical and extremely visible cornerstone of litigation and e-discovery. Unfortunately, too many legal holds products on the market present a poor fit for legal organizations. Most options for legal holds come built for specialized teams, with complex software, manual processes, and a highly technical focus; they’re built for e-discovery first, with the idea of legal holds as an afterthought (at best).

This presents a massive challenge to mainstream legal departments, as these options lack the accessibility, convenience, and straightforward management required to secure a smooth legal holds process throughout the organization. The good news? There is a better legal holds option out there.

A Simpler Solution for Legal Departments: The Benefits of OnitX Legal Holds Management

Purpose-built for mainstream legal teams, OnitX Legal Holds Management delivers an easy-to-use, easy-to-initiate solution for this vital task. OnitX Legal Holds Management offers a straightforward four-step process for initiating holds:

  • Select the custodians you want to put on the hold. A pre-configured integration works with virtually every HR and back-end system to ensure distribution to the correct parties. One-click options release or restore custodians from legal holds as the needs of the matter change.
  • Draft and review the legal hold notice. Utilize the Legal Holds Management template library to cut down on creation time and use for future holds.
  • Review the legal hold notice with essential parties. Approval steps can be configured and assigned to the appropriate reviewers.
  • Distribute the legal hold. Custom dashboards and reports allow organizations to check in on the status of legal holds and analyze key metrics.

Another benefit of OnitX Legal Holds Management? Significantly improved communication with essential custodians throughout the organization. Instead of a time-intensive administrative task — chasing down non-responsive custodians to secure their involvement – Legal Holds Management provides a streamlined, automated way to communicate the legal hold status to involved parties. Communication features include:

  • Automated custom scheduling of communications to remind custodians of the legal hold status — and alert others to non-responsive personnel
  • Proxy acknowledgment to reduce the burden on key executives, empowering assistants and other proxies to keep the legal holds workflow going
  • Custodian digest emails so custodians can quickly see which holds they are on and what they must do
  • Custodian dashboards to easily resolve all holds in one space

Finally, Legal Holds Management takes the pressure off an organization’s IT department by delivering simplified and comprehensive document preservation through Integration (powered by Workato). Legal no longer needs to coordinate with overworked IT staff to ensure the department secures every must-keep document. Legal Holds Management removes the ask for IT support with easy, fast preservation of all necessary files and includes:

  • Single-checkbox enablement by legal staff, with no IT help required (beyond initial setup)
  • Slack preservation by channel and direct message
  • Google Vault preservation for docs, chat, and/or email on a service level
  • Microsoft 365 email and Teams preservation with the click of a button

Legal Holds Management also delivers organizations complete auditability, getting a complete trail of legal hold activity and complying with Electronically Stored Information (ESI) requests for overseas employees.

Seamless Integration with Matter Management

In an economic environment where the organization expects every department to drive business revenue, Legal must take the initiative to create streamlined processes and make the most out of its resources. Legal Holds Management integrates seamlessly with OnitX Matter Management where the initiation of a litigation matter starts.

The simplified, user-friendly, and accessible Legal Holds Management gives Legal the efficient edge it needs.

Learn more about OnitX Legal Holds Management here.

Powering Scalable and Rapid Integrations: Onit’s Partnership with Workato 

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Legal Operations

A streamlined, scalable, and rapid application integration layer is essential to the success of a SaaS platform. A modern platform must ensure connectivity and communication with business-critical applications and data sources throughout the organization. This makes it easy for users to perform workflows that cross over multiple applications. Integrations also deliver critical connections between the platform and stand-alone analytic tools, enabling powerful insights derived from the platform’s data repository.

If application integrations are seamless and easy to implement, the solution can do what it must without any headaches for vendor or customer — and quickly secure its return on investment. On the other hand, a platform that fails to integrate rapidly with other necessary business applications can be devastating for an organization. Poor integration can bring about a loss in productivity, wasted time and resources, and overall platform failure (not to mention the catastrophic budgetary consequences).

OnitX, a smart workflow platform for sophisticated legal matters and contract solutions, has introduced a scalable and secure integration layer powered by Workato. One of the most honored companies in the space (recognition includes a coveted place on the “Forbes” Cloud 100 list and the “Leader” designation from Gartner five years in a row), Workato delivers simple connections of applications that match business needs and reinforce integrated workflows.

The new OnitX integration layer offers SSO authentication, tailored resources, and custom integrations. It also provides unlimited scalability, a centralized admin console, and high-end security features that allow for future growth, easy management, and complete customer and vendor safety. Powerful auditability features enable IT departments and compliance efforts to track the digital trail of essential documents and communications. Additionally, Workato API abstraction makes it simple to adopt new software versions.

Additionally, the platform makes it simple for organizations to preserve APIs as future versions roll out — keeping integrations up to date, so clients do not have to worry about time-consuming version maintenance.

The OnitX platform provides three integration options:

  • Standard OnitX integrations for typical applications that are part of legal matters and contract workflows
  • Custom integrations built by Onit to support the unique needs of individual corporations
  • Partner or customer-built integrations later this year using the OnitX Integration Builder

Several standard OnitX Integrations are either available today or will be available shortly, including:

  • OnitX Legal Holds Management integrations: Allows for the seamless preservation-in-place of electronic documents through integrations with standard productivity tools such as Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Slack.
  • Salesforce integration for OnitX CLM: Gives sales teams the transparency to always know the location and status of their contracts within Salesforce, including agreements coming up for renewal.
  • SAP Ariba integration for OnitX CLM: Enables users to initiate contract workspace creation within SAP Ariba and streamline the flow of supplier data into OnitX CLM, reducing data re-entry and improving efficiency.

To learn more about the OnitX platform, please read this blog.

Introducing Onit Catalyst – Upping the AI Game for ELM and CLM

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Legal Operations

Since the birth of artificial intelligence at a conference held at Dartmouth College in the summer of 1956, it has made rapid strides. In recent years, AI has garnered considerable investment; as of the end of 2020, the top 100 AI startups globally had a combined valuation of over $258 billion.

However, in some regards, AI technology has become a commodity, with many of the technologies being part of the open source community. Its application to specific business or technical use cases that depend on models built by a combination of data scientists and engineers, functional or industry experts, and a large amount of curated data makes AI a valuable business contributor.

We have been at the forefront of incorporating AI technology into our product as we seek to add more customer value through automation and intelligence. Beyond AI-based products developed in-house, we have acquired various AI-based products and technologies to bolster our capabilities.

We are excited to announce the new brand name of our AI-enabled products purpose-built to transform ELM and CLM is Onit Catalyst. A chemical catalyst is an inert substance, but when added to a reaction, it accelerates it. Onit is applying AI in the same way – combining it with your data, use cases, and other Onit products – to accelerate the value you receive from it. The Onit Catalyst products were previously marketed under the Precedent and Bodhala brands.

Onit Catalyst provides actionable insights from legal matters or contract data through better reporting, dashboards, benchmarks, and legal business intelligence. They can be implemented alongside an existing third-party ELM or CLM implementation or with the OnitX platform, to which they have tight and seamless integrations. With Onit Catalyst, we have done the data science for you. In addition, our AI Center of Excellence has applied AI and other analytic techniques to address real and practice use cases related to enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management. Powering the Onit Catalyst products is a dataset that includes $47B+ in legal billings, over 200,000 timekeepers, 8,900 law firms, and more than 1 million assisted legal interactions each year.

Below are the products within the Onit Catalyst family:

Onit Catalyst for ELM
Proactive law firm management using legal business intelligence so legal can run like a business		Onit Catalyst for CLM
Smart management of legal documents via process automation, augmentation, and intelligence
Onit Catalyst Report Cards
Onit Catalyst Quarterly Business Review
Onit Catalyst Rate Benchmarking
Onit Catalyst Matter Benchmarking
Onit Catalyst Rate Proposal Analyzer
Onit Catalyst Comparative Analysis		Onit Catalyst ReviewAI
Onit Catalyst Contract Extraction

Onit Catalyst products will always work best with the OnitX platform to form smart solutions that provide insights at the point of decision and need.

Contact us to learn how Onit Catalyst can enhance your ELM and CLM workflows today.