Author: Onit

5 Key Skills of Successful Legal Operations Managers

Posted on March 13, 2023 by - Legal Operations

Legal operations is gradually becoming one of the most important disciplines for legal departments around the globe. Broadly speaking, legal operations encompasses all the responsibilities of a legal department that are not the law itself, including spend management, increasing efficiency and productivity of the legal department, vendor management, legal technology implementation. It is, therefore, multi-faceted with many roles and responsibilities and enables legal counsel to focus on providing legal advice in the most valuable and productive way possible. A legal operations team needs a wide range of skills to generate the best outcomes.

Fortunately, the legal operations head does not need to be perfect in those areas, as they can sometimes build a diverse team around them. Nevertheless, an excellent legal operations manager should always strive to develop generalist skills to mentor and lead the specialists within the team. Those with teams are the fortunate ones, though. A solo legal operations manager runs most legal operations functions in Europe, and it is even more critical that this person develops the necessary key skills.

Whether you’re already in the job or aspire to transition into legal operations, here are five essential skills every legal operations professional should have or be actively working on improving, especially if they are in a “team of one.”

1. STAKEHOLDER MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

A legal operations manager needs to define and identify the relevant stakeholders for projects to understand their needs and address them while balancing competing requirements and priorities. On occasion, final budget decisions will be made in other departments of the organization, so maintaining effective communication and a positive relationship with all stakeholders is vital. The legal operations director is the link between the legal department and the rest of the organization, ensuring stakeholders are involved and updated. This may also entail influencing stakeholders to buy into a project in the first place by identifying how the project benefits the wider business. As other departments may be unfamiliar with the legal department’s workflow and the resulting obstacles, a legal operations manager must be able to explain projects and benefits in terms that make sense outside of the legal silo. They should be able to network and communicate with people at several levels throughout the organization. As Ben Eason, Head of Legal Transformation at Barclays, says, “Evidence of flexibility, interchangeability, negotiation, and managing stakeholders are crucial. These skills are arguably the most important for legal operations success.”

2. LEGAL DEPARTMENT BUDGETING

A legal operations manager should be able to manage and calculate the budget the legal department has and the budget it might need, even if this responsibility is outside their remit. Reliable, stable financial planning will help the legal department to develop consistently. While there should be an understanding of previous and actual budgets, as this helps with forecasting, actually planning the future is more important. The legal department will constantly be pressured to be more efficient, and resource optimization is key to success. Part of the job will be to spot new cost-saving opportunities. Spend management tools can make the visibility of these metrics, and therefore decision making, much easier. The legal operations director should have the acumen to acquire a budget for a project when there isn’t one by communicating with the budget holder/s and creating a business case that advocates what is best for the legal department and the whole organization. This links with stakeholder management and communication skill in that the business case must resonate with the budget holder/s aims and objectives, not just the legal department.

3. LEGAL TECHNOLOGY KNOWLEDGE

Technology is playing an ever more significant role in the role of a legal operations manager as legal departments strive to become more agile, collaborative, and efficient. A legal operations head needs to have an innovative and curious approach to problem-solving. They should be confident in rolling out tech (or knowing where to go for help) and have the ability to plan and implement a long-term process and technology roadmap. The rapidly evolving legal technology landscape can cause distractions, so staying up to date with legal tech trends and new entrants to the market to avoid any sense of overwhelm is important. This also helps the legal operations manager ensure projects and plans stay true to the department’s objectives. The ability to critically evaluate the relevance of the current plan and pivot quickly if required is essential. Since many lawyers are still doing repetitive and time-consuming tasks manually, the legal operations manager should find solutions to streamline and/or automate these processes by using existing enterprise tech or evaluating legal-specific vendors. An excellent legal operations head will know how to map out current processes and decide which can be improved by changing processes vs. those which require technology to solve and then prioritize accordingly.

4. FIRM AND VENDOR MANAGEMENT

In some organizations, the legal operations team manages the procurement of external legal services from law firms and vendors. In many companies, firms and vendors are traditionally selected through personal contacts or loyalty, though this status quo is being challenged more frequently now. A good legal operations manager has to turn this thinking around and focus on more effective and transparent solutions for the department. Instead of agreeing on standard pricing and staffing models, the head of legal operations should facilitate the negotiation of more flexible and transparent pricing models to create positive incentives. This can be a win-win for clients and firms, incentives such as ‘volume discounts’ encourage counsel to drive more work towards a single firm to reach the threshold that triggers a discount. Legal operations professionals not from a legal background need to familiarize themselves with how legal services are billed; rates, AFAs, LEDES, etc. They also need to approach vendor management with sensitivity to influence in-house counsel to the new way of thinking.

Legal services aren’t a commodity, and it can be challenging to quantify added value, so it is about more than “lowest cost wins.” By setting up a structured bidding request, as one example, the legal operations manager can force competitive rates from the firms while requiring counsel to objectively decide which proposal generates the most value for the cost. Another part of the work in this area is the administration of efficient onboarding for new vendors or firms. After choosing the right vendor/firm, clear rules (such as billing guidelines) must be introduced to measure the performance of the collaboration and get maximum value for money. The head of legal operations also needs to facilitate fair, transparent, and data-driven performance reviews with vendors and firms.

5. DATA LITERACY

Data literacy is vital for the work of a legal operations director. Many legal departments are making decisions inefficiently, using outdated processes such as spreadsheet reporting, anecdotal feedback, or simply “gut feel.” A legal operations professional is unlikely to start their job with sophisticated reporting tools and must be confident in navigating the existing paper or spreadsheet reports to find the needed data. While there is no need for a legal operations manager to be a data scientist, data literacy goes beyond compiling reports. Many legal departments waste time compiling frequent reports in which most data goes unused. The director of legal operations needs to avoid data tracking for the sake of it and understand how to use the information to develop the department and the organization as a whole. They should identify the goals (using existing data to help, if appropriate), work backward to identify key performance indicators (KPIs) and important metrics, and then ensure the department can capture the data points needed to measure KPIs. This consistent data lays the foundations for analytical capabilities to enable strategic decision-making and solve problems.

An excellent legal operations head needs to know how to structure, gather and analyze the relevant legal data. This can help in practical ways, such as maximizing value when negotiating external contracts or making a business case for increased headcount and budgets. Data literacy will also help the legal operations head to balance the needs of the department in an objective manner and decide where to focus their efforts.

Learn more about BusyLamp from Onit, our end-to-end legal spend management solution built for European corporate legal departments. 

5 KERNKOMPETENZEN ERFOLGREICHER LEGAL OPERATIONS MANAGER 

Posted on March 13, 2023 by - Legal Operations

Legal Operations entwickelt sich allmählich zu einer der wichtigsten Disziplinen für Rechtsabteilungen weltweit. Vereinfacht ausgedrückt, umfasst der Begriff „Legal Operations“ alle Aufgaben einer Rechtsabteilung, die nicht das Recht selbst betreffen. Es handelt sich also um einen facettenreichen Bereich mit vielen Rollen und Verantwortlichkeiten, der es den Anwälten ermöglicht, sich auf eine möglichst wertvolle und produktive Rechtsberatung zu konzentrieren. 

Um die besten Ergebnisse zu erzielen, benötigt ein Legal Operations Team ein breites Spektrum an Fähigkeiten. Glücklicherweise muss der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung nicht in allen diesen Bereichen perfekt sein, da er mitunter ein vielfältiges Team um sich herum aufbauen kann. 

Nichtsdestotrotz sollte ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager immer bestrebt sein, die Fähigkeiten eines Generalisten zu entwickeln, um die Spezialisten innerhalb des Teams anzuleiten und zu führen. Diejenigen, die über ein Team verfügen, können sich allerdings glücklich schätzen. Die meisten Rechtsabteilungen in Europa werden von einem einzelnen Legal Operations Manager geführt, und es ist umso wichtiger, dass diese Person die erforderlichen Kernkompetenzen entwickelt. 

Unabhängig davon, ob Sie bereits in diesem Beruf tätig sind oder einen Wechsel in die Rechtsabteilung anstreben, finden Sie hier fünf Kernkompetenzen, über die jeder Legal Operations Manager verfügen oder aktiv daran arbeiten sollte, sie zu verbessern. Insbesondere wenn er in einem „Ein-Mann-Team“ arbeitet. 

STAKEHOLDER-MANAGEMENT UND KOMMUNIKATION 

Ein Legal Operations Manager muss die relevanten Interessengruppen für Projekte definieren und identifizieren, um ihre Bedürfnisse zu verstehen und auf sie einzugehen und gleichzeitig konkurrierende Anforderungen und Prioritäten auszugleichen. Gelegentlich werden die endgültigen Budgetentscheidungen in anderen Abteilungen der Organisation getroffen, so dass eine gute Kommunikation und ein positives Verhältnis zu allen Beteiligten von entscheidender Bedeutung sind. 

Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung fungiert als Bindeglied zwischen der Rechtsabteilung und dem Rest des Unternehmens und sorgt dafür, dass die Beteiligten einbezogen und auf dem Laufenden gehalten werden. Dies kann auch bedeuten, dass er die Beteiligten dazu bringt, ein Projekt zu unterstützen, indem er aufzeigt, welchen Nutzen das Projekt für das gesamte Unternehmen hat. Da andere Abteilungen mit den Arbeitsabläufen in der Rechtsabteilung und den sich daraus ergebenden Hindernissen möglicherweise nicht vertraut sind, muss ein Legal Operations Manager in der Lage sein, Projekte und Vorteile so zu erklären, dass sie auch außerhalb des juristischen Silos Sinn machen. Er sollte in der Lage sein, Netzwerke zu knüpfen und mit Personen auf verschiedenen Ebenen des Unternehmens zu kommunizieren. 

Ben Eason, Leiter der Abteilung Legal Transformation bei Barclays, sagt: „Flexibilität, Austauschbarkeit, Verhandlungsgeschick und der Umgang mit Interessengruppen sind entscheidend. Diese Fähigkeiten sind wohl die wichtigsten für den Erfolg der Rechtsabteilung“. 

BUDGETIERUNG DER RECHTSABTEILUNG 

Ein Leiter der Rechtsabteilung sollte in der Lage sein, das Budget der Rechtsabteilung zu verwalten und zu kalkulieren, auch wenn dies nicht in seinen Zuständigkeitsbereich fällt. Eine verlässliche und stabile Finanzplanung wird der Rechtsabteilung helfen, sich kontinuierlich weiterzuentwickeln. 

Es sollte sichergestellt werden, dass vergangene und gegenwärtige Budgets bekannt sind, da dies beim Forecasting hilft. Die tatsächliche Vorausplanung ist jedoch am wichtigsten. Die Rechtsabteilung wird immer unter dem Druck stehen, effizienter zu werden, und die Optimierung der Ressourcen ist der Schlüssel zum Erfolg. Ein Teil der Aufgabe wird darin bestehen, neue Kosteneinsparungsmöglichkeiten zu identifizieren. Legal Spend Management Tools können den Überblick über diese Kennzahlen und damit die Entscheidungsfindung erheblich erleichtern. 

Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung sollte den Weitblick haben, Budget für ein Projekt zu beschaffen, indem er mit dem/den Budgetinhaber(n) kommuniziert und einen Business Case erstellt, der nicht nur das Beste für die Rechtsabteilung, sondern für die gesamte Organisation darstellt. Dies steht im Zusammenhang mit den Fähigkeiten des Stakeholder-Managements, da der Business Case mit den Zielen des Budgetinhabers abgestimmt werden muss, nicht nur mit denen der Rechtsabteilung. 

Legal Tech spielt eine immer wichtigere Rolle in der Funktion eines Legal Operations Managers, da die Rechtsabteilungen bestrebt sind, agiler, kooperativer und effizienter zu werden. 

Ein Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss einen innovativen Ansatz zur Problemlösung haben. Er sollte selbstbewusst bei der Einführung von Technologien sein (oder wissen, wo er sich Hilfe holen kann) und die Fähigkeit besitzen, einen langfristigen Prozess- und Technologieplan zu erstellen und umzusetzen. Die sich schnell entwickelnde Legal Tech Landschaft kann schnell zu Verwirrung führen. Daher ist es wichtig, über die aktuellen Legal Tech Trends und die neuen Marktteilnehmer auf dem Laufenden zu bleiben, um ein Gefühl der Überforderung zu vermeiden. Auf diese Weise kann der Legal Operations Manager auch sicherstellen, dass die Projekte und Pläne den Zielen der Rechtsabteilung entsprechen. Die Fähigkeit, die Relevanz des aktuellen Plans kritisch zu bewerten und bei Bedarf schnell zu reagieren, ist entscheidend. 

Da viele Anwälte sich wiederholende und zeitraubende Aufgaben immer noch manuell erledigen, sollte der Legal Operations Manager Lösungen finden, um diese Prozesse zu rationalisieren und/oder zu automatisieren, indem er vorhandene Unternehmenstechnologien nutzt oder spezialisierte Anbieter evaluiert. Ein erfahrener Leiter der Rechtsabteilung weiß, wie er die aktuellen Prozesse abbilden und entscheiden kann, welche Prozesse durch Änderungen verbessert werden können und welche eine technologische Lösung erfordern, und setzt dann entsprechende Prioritäten. 

DIENSTLEISTERMANAGEMENT 

In einigen Unternehmen verwaltet das Legal Operations Team die Beschaffung externer Rechtsdienstleistungen von Anwaltskanzleien und Anbietern. In vielen Unternehmen werden Kanzleien und Anbieter traditionell durch persönliche Kontakte oder Loyalität ausgewählt, obwohl dieser Status quo jetzt immer häufiger in Frage gestellt wird. Ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager muss diese Denkweise umkehren und sich auf effektivere und transparentere Lösungen für die Abteilung konzentrieren. Anstatt sich auf traditionelle Preis- und Personalmodelle zu einigen, sollte der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung die Aushandlung flexiblerer und transparenterer Preismodelle erleichtern, um positive Anreize zu schaffen. Anreize wie „Mengenrabatte“ ermutigen die Anwälte, mehr Aufträge an eine einzige Kanzlei zu vergeben, um den Rabatt auslösenden Schwellenwert zu erreichen. 

Personen, die im Bereich Legal Ops tätig sind, aber keinen juristischen Hintergrund haben, müssen sich mit der Art und Weise vertraut machen, wie juristische Dienstleistungen abgerechnet werden: Tarife, AFAs, LEDES usw. Sie müssen auch mit einem gewissen Maß an Sensibilität an das Dienstleistungsmanagement herantreten, um die internen Rechtsberater zum Umdenken zu bewegen. Rechtsdienstleistungen sind keine Massenware, und es kann schwierig sein, den Mehrwert zu quantifizieren, so dass es nicht nur darum geht, dass der günstigste Anbieter gewinnt. Mit einer strukturierten Ausschreibung kann der Legal Operations Manager beispielsweise wettbewerbsfähige Preise von den Firmen einfordern und gleichzeitig von den Rechtsberatern verlangen, objektiv zu entscheiden, welcher Vorschlag das beste Kosten-Nutzen-Verhältnis aufweist. Ein weiterer Teil der Arbeit in diesem Bereich ist die Verwaltung eines effizienten Onboardings für neue Anbieter oder Firmen. Nach der Auswahl des richtigen Anbieters/der richtigen Firma müssen klare Regeln (z. B. Abrechnungsrichtlinien/ Billing Guidelines) eingeführt werden, um die Leistung der Zusammenarbeit zu messen und ein optimales Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis zu erzielen. Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss außerdem faire, transparente und datengestützte Leistungsüberprüfungen mit den Anbietern und Firmen ermöglichen. 

DATENKOMPETENZ 

Datenkompetenz ist für die Arbeit eines Leiters der Rechtsabteilung von entscheidender Bedeutung. Viele Rechtsabteilungen treffen Entscheidungen auf ineffiziente Weise, indem sie veraltete Verfahren wie Tabellenkalkulationen, anekdotisches Feedback oder einfach ein „Bauchgefühl“ verwenden. Es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass ein Rechtsabteilungsleiter seine Arbeit mit ausgefeilten Berichterstattungsinstrumenten beginnt, und er muss sich sicher in den vorhandenen Papier- oder Tabellenkalkulationsberichten bewegen können, um die benötigten Daten zu finden. 

Ein Rechtsabteilungsleiter muss zwar kein Datenwissenschaftler sein, aber Datenkompetenz geht über die Erstellung von Berichten hinaus. Tatsächlich verschwenden viele Rechtsabteilungen ihre Zeit mit der Erstellung häufiger Berichte, bei denen die meisten Daten ungenutzt bleiben. Der Leiter der Rechtsabteilung muss die Datenverfolgung um ihrer selbst willen vermeiden und verstehen, wie die Informationen für die Entwicklung der Abteilung und der Organisation als Ganzes genutzt werden können. Er sollte die Ziele festlegen (gegebenenfalls mit Hilfe vorhandener Daten), rückwärts arbeiten, um wichtige Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) und Messgrößen zu ermitteln, und dann sicherstellen, dass die Abteilung die zur Messung der KPIs erforderlichen Datenpunkte erfassen kann. Diese konsistenten Daten bilden die Grundlage für analytische Fähigkeiten zur Entscheidungsfindung und Problemlösung.  

Ein erfolgreicher Legal Operations Manager muss wissen, wie man die relevanten juristischen Daten strukturiert, sammelt und analysiert. Dies kann in der Praxis hilfreich sein, z. B. bei der Maximierung des Nutzens bei der Aushandlung externer Verträge oder bei der Erstellung eines Business Case für eine Aufstockung des Personalbestands und der Budgets. Datenkompetenz hilft dem Leiter der Rechtsabteilung auch dabei, die Bedürfnisse der Abteilung objektiv abzuwägen und zu entscheiden, worauf er seine Bemühungen konzentrieren sollte. 

Addressing European Matter Management: A Complete, Proven ELM Solution from Onit 

Posted on March 8, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

When it comes to European matter management solutions, Legal organizations across the continent know that current options on the market just cannot measure up. As the needs of the legal organization grow into the spend management realm — extending beyond pure matter management for Legal in Europe — departments need a complete, robust ELM (Enterprise Legal Management) solution to match that growth.

Too often, the options for these organizations consist of either disparate systems or “point” solutions for either matter management or spend management with varying levels of sophistication and maturity. These “out-of-the-box” European matter management products offer limited or minimal configurability and require tiresome duplication of data when not integrated with a spend management system. As a result, reporting and analysis of data needs consolidation and exporting from two different places. That’s a mixture that results in significant challenges. Beyond the constant need for synchronization, this process is prone to errors — and requires constant, time-consuming manual data manipulation to ensure accuracy.

The European matter management market deserves a better solution than the ones out there. The good news? That a complete ELM solution is on the way.

Onit Matter Management + BusyLamp eBilling.space Integration

Available in July of 2023, Onit’s Matter Management and BusyLamp eBilling.space integration offers a complete, configurable, and proven ELM solution for European organizations with a single system of records for matter data. It removes the need for data duplication across two systems by offering a single source of truth for users, combining the power of Onit Matter Management with the unique vendor and spend management capabilities of BusyLamp eBilling.space that specifically address the requirements of European corporate legal teams.

The seamless integration provides European legal departments an easy-to-use and complete ELM solution that saves time, reduces errors, and enables streamlined processes. Solution users only enter matter data once; from there, the click of a button synchronizes relevant matters (those related to outside counsel) with the spend management solution. Empowered by Onit Matter Management + BusyLamp eBilling.space, European legal departments can get valuable time back for projects that help to materially grow the organization rather than spending time on the menial tasks of data consolidation, duplication, and proofing.

The comprehensive European ELM solution delivered by Onit Matter Management + BusyLamp eBilling.space will also deliver further innovations in 2023; future additions to the offering will include consolidated reporting and analytics for further organizational insights.

Interested in learning how Onit Matter Management + BusyLamp eBilling.space can help streamline your organization? Schedule a demo here.

The Key to Better Timekeeper Rate Reviews? Comprehensive Benchmark Data

Posted on March 8, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Timekeeper rate approvals are a constant headache for legal operations departments. With departments dealing with several different firms at the same time, going through the timekeeper rate approval process will likely happen daily — and take up too much time and too many resources.

Does this timekeeper rate approval cycle seem familiar to your Legal ops department? An invoice comes into the department flagged at a brand-new timekeeper rate proposed by the law firm. This change could be from a new legal team member joining from outside counsel, a promotion (a 2nd-year to a 3rd-year associate, for example), or an annual rate increase.

From there come the questions: What is this timekeeper rate compared to others in the firm? How does this rate for timekeepers compare to similar firms that you do business with? How does this rate compare to the market? You need to uncover old data, consult secondary benchmark reports on the market, and reach out to colleagues at your company or your network to see if the new proposed rate makes sense.

Gathering the data you need for timekeeper rate approval analysis can take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, and, unfortunately, can still be suspect (depending on the reliability of anecdotal network evidence and the quality of internal and external reports). And there is more work to do after data collection. The analysis to answer the “is this timekeeper rate appropriate?” question requires another few hours of time and brainpower dedicated to analyzing exhaustively collected, collated, and possibly paid-for timekeeper rate data that may or may not be completely accurate.

It all adds up to make the rate approval process for law firm timekeepers unreliable and exhausting (at best) for the legal ops department. In an era where Legal must take its rightful place as a material driver of the organization, the timekeeper rate approval process drains valuable resources and time away from projects that could grow the business.

Yet, keeping a watchful eye on timekeeper rates is integral for Legal. Simply okaying every rate approval can quickly cause expenses to spiral out of control in both the short and long term. Conversely, a long, drawn-out timekeeper rate approval process can slow the entire Legal department to a crawl.

However, there is a way out of this conundrum. Using AI-enabled technology at the point of decision allows for a better, more efficient, data-driven way to do timekeeper rate reviews.

Using Comprehensive Benchmark Data to Drive Timekeeper Rate Reviews

Onit’s new Spend Management + Bodhala Integration (available in July 2023) provides comprehensive benchmark data that unlocks efficient and accurate timekeeper rate reviews for legal operations teams. With the integration, Legal can make quick, accurate decisions on timekeeper rates without relying on expensive, out-of-date, time-consuming secondary rate analysis.

Onit users receive regularly updated and pre-analyzed timekeeper rate approval data (consisting of over 10,000 factors) on the same screen as their approval button. This allows for instant analysis and rate adjustment, approval, or rejection based on three powerful points of data comparison:

  • Information gathered within the specific firm
  • Information gathered across all the firms on your panel
  • Information gathered across the Bodhala industry database for that area of law — pulled from an immense repository encompassing over $47.6B in legal billings, over 200,000 timekeepers, and 8,900 law firms.

This suite of comprehensive benchmark data delivers a transformational moment for legal departments with their timekeeper rate reviews. The integration:

  • Enables a faster process, cutting down timekeeper rate approvals from the “hours to days” timeframe to one that takes “minutes to hours.” This allows higher-level legal ops professionals to shift their focus from analysis of timekeeper rates to projects that help Legal materially grow the organization and secure its rightful place as a revenue driver.
  • Empowers better, more confident rate approval decisions. With 10,000 data factors and keen insights from the industry and other firms, Legal can feel secure in their approval decisions, gain the metrics needed to back up rejections, and justify the department’s spend to the rest of the organization. That sense of security is enormously valuable.
  • Delivers better rates and savings across the organization both in the short-term and the long-term. Insights gained through the comprehensive benchmark data allow organizations to make better rate approval decisions, develop good timekeeper rate review habits, and see what spend is working (and what is not). Additionally, Legal can avoid spending extra funds on expensive secondary market rate benchmarking reports.

The benefits do not stop there. Insights gained through the Onit Spend Management + Bodhala integration helps power competitive analytics; it is easy for Legal to make firm-level comparisons (for example, on the average rate for timekeeper by level) and see if there are opportunities to renegotiate with firms or redistribute the work to other firms as needed. Onit’s “firm report cards” give a quick back-of-the baseball card look at each firm’s cost effectiveness, helping to make better directional decisions. After finalizing and renegotiating timekeeper rates, the integration can also drive better matter benchmarking throughout the organization.

Getting Started with Efficient Timekeeper Rate Reviews

In an environment where Legal must make every element of its processes as efficient as possible, optimizing timekeeper rate reviews is essential. The comprehensive benchmarking data delivered by Onit’s Spend Management + Bodhala integration provides the advanced edge Legal needs to work more efficiently, make more confident rate approval decisions, and deliver short- and long-term savings to the organization.

Interested in learning how Onit Spend Management can make the difference for your timekeeper rate reviews? Schedule a demo here.

DATENGESTEUERTE ENTSCHEIDUNGEN IM RECHTSWESEN: 5 USE CASES IM FOKUS

Posted on February 28, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Eine strategische Entscheidungsfindung ist von zentraler Bedeutung für den langfristigen Erfolg einer jeden Organisation. Doch besitzen Sie bereits die passende Lösung, die es ermöglicht, besser fundierte Entscheidungen zu treffen? Verstehen Sie die Entstehung Ihrer externen Rechtsausgaben im Detail? Egal ob für unterschiedliche Matterarten, Rechtsgebiete oder Kanzleien – Verabschieden Sie sich von zeitraubenden Tabellenkalkulationen. Wir bieten Klarheit über die Kostenstruktur. 

Mithilfe von BusyLamp, Onit’s Legal Spend Management-Lösung, kann Ihr Rechtsteam rechtliche Ausgaben präzise erfassen und analysieren. Zudem können Sie Potenziale zur Kosteneinsparung erkennen sowie fundierte Entscheidungen zur optimalen Verteilung der Rechtsressourcen treffen. Dank Echtzeit-Kostentransparenz und anpassbarer Dashboards unterstützt BusyLamp dabei, datenbasierte strategische Entscheidungen zu treffen, die den Geschäftserfolg maßgeblich fördern. 

Möchten Sie einen Einblick in die praktische Anwendung von BusyLamp gewinnen? Hier finden Sie fünf praxisnahe Anwendungsfälle, die verdeutlichen, welchen Unterschied BusyLamp bewirken kann. 

Das Inhouse Team wurde intern dazu aufgefordert, die Ausgaben für externe Rechtsberatung genau zu prognostizieren. Dies ist jedoch nur möglich, wenn zum Beispiel Matter aus Litigation und M&A getrennt betrachtet werden, da diese stark in ihren Kosten variieren können und kaum vorhersehbar sind. Unternehmen müssen die Kosten für diese Beratungsleistung in Kauf nehmen, unabhängig vom ursprünglich geplanten Budget. Die Rechtsabteilung hat daher mit dem Unternehmen vereinbart, dass die Prognosen nur auf Basis der üblichen und planbaren Ausgaben erstellt werden. 

Um ihre „Business as usual“-Ausgaben auf monatlicher und jährlicher Basis zu berechnen, verwendeten sie BusyLamp. Durch die in BusyLamp inkludierte Reporting-Funktion wurde der Prozess stark vereinfacht, da Litigation- und M&A-Matter bei der Report-Erstellung ausgeschlossen werden konnten. Der Report wurde abonniert und in regelmäßigen Abständen an die Stakeholder versandt. Dies ermöglichte eine automatisierte Bereitstellung der erforderlichen Daten und die tägliche Verfolgung der „Business as usual“-Ausgaben. In einem weiteren Schritt können diese Daten weiter analysiert werden, um zu verstehen, wie sich die Ausgaben nach Gerichtsbarkeit, Matterarten, interne Mandanten usw. zusammensetzen, sodass basierend auf diesen Informationen detailliertere Prognosen erstellt werden konnten. 

Unser Kunde hat die Genauigkeit seiner Prognosen durch BusyLamp erheblich verbessern können. Auch das Unternehmen ist mit der Genauigkeit, die es nun erhält, sehr zufrieden. 

USE CASE: TRANSPARENZ DER AUSGABEN NACH TÄTIGKEITSKATEGORIE 

Durch das Reporting nach Tätigkeitskategorien, konnte ein Team von Inhouse Juristen in BusyLamp erkennen, dass einige der in Rechnung gestellten Kosten durch die Kommunikation mit den Kanzleien verursacht wurden. Dies war auch bei zahlreichen Matter der Fall, bei denen man keinen hohen Abstimmungsbedarf erwarten würde. 

Auf Grundlage dieser Erkenntnis setzte sich das Team mit ihren Anwaltskanzleien in Verbindung, um einige Veränderungen herbeizuführen. So einigte man sich fortan auf die korrekte Zuweisung von Matter an den verantwortlichen externen Anwalt, um den Kommunikationsbedarf zu reduzieren. Zudem wurde vereinbart, dass das Unternehmen nicht mehr für überflüssige Kommunikationen finanziell aufkommen müsse.

Der Aspekt der Kommunikation wurde daraufhin in die Billing Guidelines aufgenommen, sodass in Rechnung gestellte Kommunikationstätigkeiten in zukünftigen Fällen automatisch zur Überprüfung gekennzeichnet werden. Unser Kunde konnte durch das BusyLamp Reporting somit seine Ausgaben verringern und zusätzlich die Zeit, die ein beratender Partner auf dem Matter arbeitet, reduzieren. 

USE CASE: ENTSCHEIDUNG, WELCHE KANZLEI BEAUFTRAGT WERDEN SOLL 

Nachdem das Inhouse Team BusyLamp bereits seit einiger Zeit nutzte, entschied es sich dazu, neben den bereits im System gespeicherten quantitativen Daten auch qualitative Daten zu sammeln. Durch das Verwenden der BusyLamp-Umfragen ließ sich die Qualität der Kanzlei-Arbeiten messen und in einem weiteren Schritt bewerten. Dabei wurden folgende Faktoren berücksichtigt: die Seniorität des externen Anwalts, die Bewertung der geleisteten Arbeit durch den Inhouse Juristen und die Matter-Art. 

Die Umfragen ergaben für die zwei verglichenen Kanzleien, dass Kanzlei A im Durchschnitt eine Bewertung von 9/10 für die Beratung im Rechtsgebiet Intellectual Property (IP) erzielte. Dabei beriet ein Partner der Kanzlei das Inhouse Team zu einer außerordentlich hohen Rate. Kanzlei B erzielte eine durchschnittliche Bewertung von 8/10 für ihre IP-Beratung. Dabei wurde die Arbeit von einem Associate verrichtet. 

Für viele Matter war eine Qualität von 8/10 Punkten ausreichend. Das Inhouse Team entschied sich deshalb, die IP-Beratung zunehmend an Kanzlei B zu vergeben. Durch den niedrigeren Stundensatz des Associates konnten so erhebliche Einsparungen generiert werden. Nur die wichtigsten und kritischsten IP-Projekte gingen weiterhin an den Partner der Kanzlei A. 

Zusammenfassend konnten die Kosten der IP-Matter erheblich gesenkt werden, sodass das Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis verbessert wurde, ohne Qualitätseinbußen in Kauf nehmen zu müssen. 

USE CASE: ERREICHEN VON MENGENRABTT-MEILENSTEINEN 

Einer unserer Kunden handelte mit seinen Anwaltskanzleien Mengenrabatte aus. Dabei bestand keine Möglichkeit zu verfolgen, wann die jeweiligen Meilensteine zur Realisierung eines Mengenrabatts erreicht wurden. Nach der Implementation von BusyLamp wurde eine Reihe von Reports für die automatisierte, regelmäßige Zustellung angelegt und abonniert. Einer dieser Reports umfasste das Tracking der Ausgaben pro Anwaltskanzlei.

Heute kennt das entsprechende Legal Operations-Team die genauen Ausgaben pro Anwaltskanzlei und kommuniziert diese bei Erreichen eines Rabattmeilensteins an das Inhouse Team. Den betreffenden Kanzleien wird so lange eine sinnvolle und angemessene Menge an Arbeit zugewiesen, bis bestimmte Meilensteine erreicht werden. Entsprechend können die vereinbarten Rabatte fortan aktiviert werden, was bereits zu einer sichtlichen Einsparung der externen Ausgaben geführt hat. 

USE CASE: BUSINESS CASE FÜR MEHR PERSONELLE RESSOURCEN 

Aufgrund der knappen personellen Ressourcen war ein Inhouse Legal Team nicht mehr in der Lage, Fristen einzuhalten und lagerte daher Matter häufig an externe Rechtsdienstleister aus. Durch den BusyLamp-Report konnten sie im Laufe des Jahres ihre Ausgaben nach Matter-Arten clustern und nachvollziehen. Dabei bewerteten sie die Ausgaben für jeden Praxisbereich und die Post-Qualification-Experience (PQE) eines mandatierten Anwalts. 
Anhand dieser Analyse ließ sich erkennen, dass ein hoher Anteil kaufmännischer Aufgaben aufgrund des Kapazitäten-Mangels ausgelagert wurde. Unser Legal Spend Management Tool ermöglichte ihnen einen detaillierten Vergleich zwischen den Kosten für die Auslagerung der Matter und den Kosten für eine personelle Aufstockung, um anfallende Arbeit intern bewältigen zu können. 

Das Legal Operations-Team erstellte auf Basis dieses Vergleiches einen Business Case. Daraufhin wurden zwei weitere Wirtschaftsanwälte eingestellt, die zuvor ausgelagerte Arbeiten übernahmen. Dies führte zu einer signifikanten Einsparung der Kosten für externe Rechtsberatung. 

  • Erhalten Sie Einblick in alle Legal Matter und Rechtsausgaben Ihres Unternehmens über einen digitalen Hub. 
  • Verstehen Sie, wie Ihre externen Rechtsausgaben zustande kommen; welche Kosten fallen für welche Matterarten, welche Rechtsgebiete oder Kanzleien an.  
  • Verschwenden Sie keine Zeit mehr mit der Erstellung von Tabellenkalkulationen – Reports können mithilfe eines intuitiven Reporting-Assistenten oder mit den sieben Standardreports erstellt werden. 
  • Sparen Sie Zeit, indem Sie die Erstellung häufig benötigter Reports automatisieren und per E-Mail an Stakeholder versenden. 
  • Erstellen Sie Reports zu jedem beliebigen Bereich der Applikation, um Ihre Matter besser zu verstehen und datengestützte strategische Entscheidungen zu treffen. 
  • Visualisieren Sie Daten übersichtlich im System oder exportieren Sie diese als Excel-Datei, um sie lokal weiter zu bearbeiten oder mit anderen Datenquellen zu kombinieren.  

Möchten Sie mehr erfahren? Kontaktieren Sie uns für eine BusyLamp Produktdemo.  

How Can You Import Contracts to CLM Without Breaking the Bank? 

Posted on February 1, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Upgrading to a contract lifecycle management (CLM) system is an absolute must for modern organizations — saving time and money and providing game-changing insights. However, the actual uploading of contracts to your CLM system can be an exhaustive, expensive process. What’s the secret to getting your contracts into your CLM system without breaking the bank?

If your business recognizes the need to upgrade to a contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution, congratulations – that’s a great first step. However, far too many organizations overlook the importance of legacy contract migration when searching for their new CLM solution. Legacy contracts encompass legal documents that could be scattered in various places around the organization, including:

  • On a shared repository, like a legacy CLM, Google Drive, or SharePoint
  • In digital files on employees’ hard drives
  • In a physical, hard-copy file tucked away in a cabinet or storage bin somewhere

Typically, organizations face significant challenges with their legacy contracts:

First, you must decide how to get the contracts into your system (if at all). Some organizations give up on bringing older contracts into CLM before even getting to this stage, preferring to “start fresh.” By deeming these contracts as legacy and then forgetting about them, organizations are playing with fire. These contracts may possess a ton of value to a business.

An organization gains an enormous amount of insights and data from legacy contract information, helping to better inform decisions and negotiations in the future. For example, legacy contracts could enable organizations to discover the complex nature of relationships between companies (suppliers, customers, and partners) or detail the key financial terms (prices, payment terms, and discounts) between two parties.

Beyond those insights, legacy contracts also contain risks and obligations that organizations need to know; the cost of overlooking even one of these elements can put the business in an uncomfortable legal, financial, and reputational position. After investing time and money in a CLM system, deciding to skip the import of these legacy contracts almost immediately cuts down on the ROI for the entire venture.

Once an organization decides to bring in those contracts (and work to the full value of their CLM investment), they can go one of two ways: subcontracting the job to another resource to bring all that contractual information into the system or designating internal teams to do the same.

Unfortunately, both of those options present the same significant downside.

You face a massive cost — and value — issue. Many organizations have hundreds of thousands of contracts to get into their CLM system; some even have millions. Sub-contracting this work to another company is enormously expensive. The average cost per hour for quality outsourcing of contract migration is around $25 USD; it takes around 22 minutes per contract for review and data extraction.

This time can rise substantially depending on the quality of the contract, its location (and if there is a retrieval process), the number of details needing capture, contract complexity, level of quality assurance, and many other factors. Adding in project management and outsource team training on top of that money, and the real cost per contract import could go as high as $40/hour USD. That’s an enormous expense for a department looking to find value.

Dropping contract migration into the laps of your organization’s resources is another subpar option for a busy legal department. Designating the task to internal teams takes away critical hours that could be spent on higher-value projects, a recipe for department-wide bottom-line disaster.

Faced with two not-ideal options, an organization could quickly find their investment in a CLM solution — one that is supposed to streamline workflows and improve cost efficiencies — blowing up their budget.

The ideal solution: AI-assisted data migration

There is a way for organizations to get the most out of their legacy contracts with their new CLM system without letting costs spiral out of control: AI-assisted data migration. By deploying a dedicated human team augmented by AI-powered insights, organizations can quickly get the most value out of their CLM system (and secure significant investment).

Here’s why the combination of human and AI for data migration is so powerful:

  • It saves time. Get a rapid head start on collecting (and finding) the data you need. With AI-assisted data migration, users can save up to 90% of time finding and extracting vital information from contracts — and internal teams can spend more time on higher-value projects for the organization.
  • It saves money. Secure the bottom line. AI-assisted data migration allows organizations to reduce outsourcing expensive contract upload work to external resources and saves significant money on revenue leakage.
  • It reduces risk. Help protect the overall organization by collecting vital information from within contracts. With AI-assisted data migration, organizations can quickly create structured insights, benchmarks, and risk assessments from chaotic data.
  • It makes project management easier. Cut down on headaches and streamline processes with AI-assisted data migration. Deploy a single environment to collaborate, assign, manage, and automate large-value projects. Ensure greater consistency by reducing human error through automation, and improve quality assurance by incorporating guidelines, examples, and reporting.

AI-assisted data migration is integral to securing the good ROI demanded by any significant software investment. This type of AI-powered technology enables organizations to quickly upload their contracts into an efficient CLM environment — allowing for eye-opening insights, quick searches, key fields, and streamlined management that secures true value for the solution.

Onit’s ExtractAI solution helps find, organize, and action critical information in large volumes of contracts. Click here to learn more.

The Next Steps for DEI in Legal: A Conversation with JusticeBid

Posted on January 25, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Omar Sweiss, founder and CEO of JusticeBid, and Matt DenOuden, Onit’s Senior Vice President of Sales, recently shared an in-depth discussion regarding the need for diversity innovation in legal operations – and how moving the needle requires both personal courage and playing as a team. Here are their insights (view the webinar in its entirety here).

When it comes to establishing a diverse and inclusive workplace where every voice is represented, acknowledged, heard, and valued, change is no longer an option – it is essential. This ideology spurred mission-driven attorney, entrepreneur, and CEO Omar Sweiss to pioneer JusticeBid, a minority-owned diversity analytics and outside counsel selection provider transforming how companies embed diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) into their business operations through data intelligence and transparency tools.

Born in Jordan and living in Chicago since the age of three, Sweiss noticed the marginalization of the south and west sides of the city early on. Later, as an MBA candidate, “I wanted to build businesses and bring them up with me,” he told Onit SVP of Sales Matt DenOuden.

It was then that Sweiss, already a passionate champion of DEI, enrolled in law school – and was stunned by the lack of diversity in Legal. Thus, JusticeBid’s groundbreaking analytics platform and RFP/e-auction SaaS technology to source legal services were born.

With a new year upon us, what are the next steps for corporate legal departments in embracing diversity innovation? The answers lie in “giving data points at the right place and time to drive DEI decision-making,” Sweiss said.

Diversity as a team sport

While interest in DEI initiatives has grown in the past decade, both Sweiss and DenOuden agreed: Much evolution remains required.

“In terms of diversity, many more corporate law departments have become like foot soldiers on the front lines, having conversations to effectuate change,” Sweiss noted. They have good intentions, intending to harness data to leverage vendors and overall operations. However, on occasion, this can lead to what Sweiss calls “eye-opening but troubling conversations” regarding companies requesting data solely to meet DEI requirements.

Once, Sweiss says, he got the impression that a company believed there was excellence, and then there was diversity – as if the two were mutually exclusive. This practice, known as “malicious compliance,” is where diversity is pitched but meaningful opportunities not provided.

DenOuden concurred.

“The legal world can inherently be an inside game – you want the best, and the people you know are the people you know. Does this run the danger of having the same loop occur?”
Sweiss’ suggestion? Drive out that attitude with data.

“When I’ve said, ‘What if I show you data that showed there are actually more diverse attorneys who have performed better. Would that change your viewpoint?’ The result was a resounding yes.”

“Diversity is a team sport,” DenOuden concluded. Not only must eyes remain open to origination credit – who is working on matters and what kinds of work they are performing – but to ensure inclusivity, “all hands must be on deck.”

Courage is the key

That said, “I can give you all the data, but if you fear repercussions, what good is data?” Sweiss postulated.

Certainly, having such conversations is underpinned by courage, DenOuden noted, adding how – in a corporate landscape punctuated by privacy issues – gathering data can pose a rock-and-hard-place catch-22.

There has been pushback, Sweiss admitted – but consent, he believes, in embedded in the process. He cited one pharmaceutical company who fired an Am Law 10 firm because they refused to provide data.

“They had a minority GC who was very courageous and stood his ground. Yes, it’s business, but we should be doing this for the right reasons. If you won’t be transparent about data, what that says is that you don’t align with [a company’s] values.” Companies with courage take a stand and only work with firms and vendors that share their values.

What success looks like

Imaging the future of DEI, DenOuden speculated on possible, tangible change in the present.

“Top of mind is for minority communities to offer STEM programs that lead to greater higher education opportunities,” Sweiss articulated. Another focus is arguments for affirmative action and their influence on law schools. “If race can no longer be looked at in admission process, what will this do to our pipeline as we try to solve that pipeline issue?

“This is a moment creating eye-opening effect. We’ve finally seen some progress. What will this do for profession and industry?”

Although goals can be different for every corporate law department, at the end of the day, being on the edge of diversity and achieving DEI success comes down to two principal matters, according to Sweiss:

“Making sure everyone in-house is playing a role in results, and showing diversity in legal operations that is reflective of society and challenges systemic inequality.”

This, in turn, forms a foundation for a more inclusive and just society for all.

The robust relationship between Onit and JusticeBid
JusticeBid is a founding member of the “Operation Empowering Change” (OEC) initiative to facilitate DEI data collection to support change in the legal industry, which exemplifies Onit’s commitment to advancing DEI in the legal ecosystem. This strategic alliance between Onit and JusticeBid will provide clients with cutting-edge tools to achieve deeper understanding of their current diversity climate, as well as an opportunity to scale the diversity of their outside counsel across various matters, including panel refresh, AFAs, consolidation, rate review, and more.

The Power of Intelligent CLM: Leveraging AI to Optimize Contract Management

Posted on January 25, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Intelligent new CLM solutions optimize the contract management process by eliminating siloed business practices, unlocking maximum contract portfolio value, and driving efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and compliance. So what is your team waiting for? It’s time to lead the legal tech evolution, which begins with AI.

Technology has become essential in how we work — and contract lifecycle management (CLM) is no exception. Yet not all CLM solutions are created equal. With recent studies revealing that legal, sales and procurement teams can spend as much as 65% of their time on administrative contracting tasks, it is more urgent than ever to find a solution that can automate contract activity, control legal spend, and improve compliance.

An intelligent CLM solution makes your work flow trailblazing, reducing time spent on contracts, highlighting portfolio value, and transforming collaboration between teams. Here is how AI-powered CLM can solve three top challenges of contract management so that you can get back to doing what you do best – cultivating meaningful partnerships, negotiating forward-thinking deals, and igniting colossal revenue impact.

Pain point: Contract review demands an inordinate amount of company time.

SOLUTION: Intelligent CLM is a proven powerhouse at identifying common delays and information silos. With an intuitive user interface (UI) and the ability to report on all things contracting, it uncovers patterns that human professionals might not accurately quantify, such as average time spent per contract type and how long a contract has been in the “hands” of each department.

AI-powered CLM can even provide data visibility into specific languages and terms. The truth is, if you must create a particular type of contract once, you’ll likely have to do it again (and again). Developing a playbook with up-to-date, purpose-built document templates enables sales teams to generate contracts and finalize non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and quotes using predefined language, so signing every new client doesn’t necessarily require the legal team to step in. Utilizing a clause library with a modernized digital dashboard can reveal how specific clauses are used and modified by breaking contracts into constituent clauses and autonomously extracting key data points. Because AI comprehends the contract in context, it can recognize clauses and keywords, define new opportunities, and evaluate risks for actionable decision-making — slashing delays and inconsistencies, shrinking cycle times by up to 20%, and speeding time to revenue by up to 24%.

Pain point: Contracts often feel overwhelmingly complex and risky.

SOLUTION: Contracts can indeed be complex (why else do so many fast-forward to “I accept,” ignoring the fine print?). Of course, they are complex for several valid reasons: the relationships, deals, and terms they cover and protect can be challenging, and the legal department exists to mitigate risk. However, intelligent CLM can diminish much of this complexity, translating “legalese” into plain language and enabling legal, sales, and procurement teams to initiate standardized new contracts in compliance with all business policies, as well as offering insights into top-performing vendors and negotiated price breaks.

Taking it even further, intelligent CLM can advance operational effectiveness, cost efficiency, and transparency. When combined with a risk analysis dashboard, CLM software streamlines business processes, leverages AI to assess low, medium, and high-risk contracts, and automatically calculates risk scores for each.

Pain point: The contract portfolio is losing value.

SOLUTION: While revenue leakage can occur at any stage of the contracting process, it tends to happen most frequently during contract creation and post-execution management. That said, intelligent CLM can eliminate revenue leakage at every stage. Not only does CLM with AI accelerate automated renewal productivity by 5%, but it can reduce liability and improve compliance from the time contracts are negotiated. It can also mitigate fees and fines due to missed deadlines and renewal dates on the back end via tracking obligations like milestones and payments.

System integrations that allow departments to sync lead data and initiate the creation of NDAs and master service agreements (MSAs), requisitions, purchase orders, and invoices also capitalize on portfolio value, eliminating the need for expensive custom work. Additionally, they lessen siloed contract management by providing a holistic view of supplier relationships while elevating end-to-end contract collaboration — saving up to 9% annually per contract and 33% in legal spend overall.

CLM with AI: Tomorrow’s tech, here today

There is empowerment in transformation. Intelligent CLM utilizes the best in AI to support the entire contract lifecycle, from document generation to signature (and beyond), with advanced analytics, self-service platform methodology, and impeccable regulatory compliance.

The future of Legal means more than just unlocking the latest in technology. Embracing the latest tech will provide modern digitalization, optimized workflows, and requisite collaboration to prove that Legal is more than just a compliance and risk regulator. Legal is equipped to grow your business materially and continue evolving today, tomorrow, and for future generations.

 Tired of Slow, Manual Contract Reviews?

AI can do the heavy lifting. Onit’s ReviewAI speeds up contract analysis, reduces manual effort, and ensures accuracy—all in minutes.

See it in action

AI (+CLM): It’s Not Just a Buzzword

Posted on January 23, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Everywhere these days it seems people are talking about artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s more than just a popular tech term — AI can be harnessed to slash contract delays, enhance collaboration, and transform Legal into an efficient and strategic business partner for your business and the future.

When you consider the term AI, what immediately leaps to mind?

Is it the self-checkout kiosks at your local supermarket? Commanding Siri to “Play old-school hip hop” as you’re making dinner? Star Wars’ shiny gold protocol droid C-3PO declaring he is fluent in more than six billion forms of communication — or a far more nefarious Hollywood vision, where sentient machines rise and threaten our survival, like HAL 9000 from “2001: A Space Odyssey”?

While each of these do illustrate some facet of AI — or intelligent automation, of which AI is a foundational component — the reality is that AI is not now, nor will it likely ever be, that. AI will not destroy humanity as we know it. What AI can do, especially amidst a quickly evolving business landscape, is serve as an essential tool to elevate connection, diminish costs, and advance competitive differentiation for your enterprise.

The birth and growth of AI

A common 21st-century buzzword, AI was initially pioneered and named by mathematician and cryptanalyst Alan Turing in 1950 with the question, Can a machine imitate human intelligence?

Today, AI can refer to any machine, tool, or technology designed to act intelligently and mimic human actions and decision-making. While AI ­can make decisions, these decisions are mapped via machine learning (ML) — complex algorithms that amass data patterns to assess correlations, predict behavior, and reach a predefined conclusion. Most of us have been ML test subjects. It’s what’s utilized to supply insights for things like “Movies We Think You’ll Like” on Amazon Prime and other streaming services. Another extensively used business application is natural language processing (NLP), the capability of software to recognize human speech patterns and determine output. “Smart” assistants such as Siri and Alexa use NLP, disseminating language into word stems, parts of speech, and other linguistic features in order to respond. Chatbots who communicate on company websites do the same, but with typed text.

Over the past decade, AI has exploded and emerged as a cutting-edge phenomenon for retail, manufacturing, banking, and healthcare — and legal operations is no exception. More than 90% of new contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions include AI as a critical functionality as it can catapult operational efficiency and drive revenue generation in game-changing ways. For instance, during the contract drafting stage, ML can suggest, simplify, and organize creation. NLP can be employed to “catch” missing phrases or correct inaccurate terms in new or existing contracts. Both skyrocket accuracy while reducing time spent on contracting — which is highly necessary when the 2022 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report revealed Legal can spend half of their workdays reviewing contracts and Sales and Procurement often spend as much as 65% of their time on administrative tasks, like document preparation.

Elevating the power of CLM with AI

Contract management isn’t solely a legal issue — it’s an enterprise issue, inextricably intertwined with both revenue and relationships. Because every function within a company requires contracts, leveraging next-generation CLM proves a golden opportunity to impact and transform the business at large by:

Accelerating contract cycles.

AI is a shortcut to shortening your contract management time, acting (and even thinking and reasoning) like a junior lawyer by reviewing contracts and redlining contracts, often in under two minutes.

Slowing down the speed of the contract review process can increase the riskiness of the contract portfolio. AI-enabled CLM clause libraries can update and make actionable decisions backed by data — and when contract language is standardized and pre-approved and AI-powered playbooks are used, it can speed time to revenue by 24%. That time can then be used to focus on cultivating partner relationships so revenue isn’t left on the table.

Maximizing productivity while minimizing spend.

Intelligent automation that is CLM plus AI dramatically speeds processes, which organically reduces operational costs. By automating contract data extraction, AI can remove significant costs from sizable projects. Further, it can lower the odds of human error.

Eliminating repeat data entry is a simple and effective way to expedite CLM as well as magnify cross-functional collaboration by confirming correct data for every department. In fact, a study found that legal AI contract review software made new users 51.5% more productive and 34% more efficient. AI-aided validation has also been shown to escalate contract data entry and field validation by 400%.

Minimizing overall risk.

CLM solutions infused with AI can substantially increase control over contracting by determining, calculating, and assigning a risk score for each contract within your portfolio. This offers thorough visibility and transparency into an organization’s contracts, identifying non-compliant contracts proactively, verifying compliance, and lowering the odds of missed obligations that lead to penalties, fees, and fines — as much as 9% annually per contract and 15% in additional revenue each year.

Blazing CLM — and business — forward

There is no doubt that AI is metamorphosing digital transformation, driving organizational change, and revolutionizing the world as we know it. However, CLM + AI has proven to be so much more than a mere buzzword.

There is hope in technology, and AI is at the heart of innovation. Being on the forefront of its adoption and integration is certain to help you lead your enterprise into the future in groundbreaking ways.

 Tired of Slow, Manual Contract Reviews?

AI can do the heavy lifting. Onit’s ReviewAI speeds up contract analysis, reduces manual effort, and ensures accuracy—all in minutes.

See it in action

Moving to Next-Generation CLM: Corporate Collaboration Without the Complexity

Posted on January 23, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

There has been exciting evolution on the contract lifecycle management (CLM) front —proving the tech solution of tomorrow is here now, in new and game-changing ways to unlock innovation, keep cross-departmental functions connected, and redefine what is possible for legal operations and your entire business.

Collaboration has sometimes been called a serendipitous collision.

Take what transpired from the young women assembled at Bletchley Park to crack top-secret WWII codes. John Lennon and Paul McCartney parlaying their outdoor church concert into musical legend. “The Steves,” Jobs and Wozniak, introduced at their part-time summer gigs, as they both happened to like electronics.

Yet attributing collaboration even in part to chance doesn’t give the concept enough credit. Working in tandem to advance any goal requires developing trust, sharing responsibility, and honoring the strengths of others. Only then can there be a real fusion of talent and cooperation.

Today, technology is what keeps Legal connected with both internal clients and outside vendors — and yet, half of legal professionals (47%) believe their tech is outdated, according to the 2022 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report. A similar number (46%) do not even have automated systems for managing contracts, necessitating manual labor to painstakingly review contracts.

File cabinets of hanging folders, individual drives, and legacy platforms may have helped create a foundation for CLM, but next-generation solutions with end-to-end automation have the capability to transform contracts into actionable intelligence and navigate how modern teams operate.

Here are three ways next-generation CLM can reduce complexity and catapult collaboration within your enterprise:

1. Create more visible workflows

One of the major roadblocks to efficient contract management is contracts spread across multiple systems. Often this means that every employee will go to Legal for every question about every arrangement. CLM can solve this visibility issue by keeping contracts in a single, easily accessible location with assigned user groups and security permissions spanning your business.

CLM can also help avoid delays by outlining each step in the contract lifecycle and creating well-defined workflows. Mapping out precisely how a contract travels through the proper channels ensures it “stops” at the right person at the right time so any issues can be identified and resolved. It also provides transparency for everyone involved in the contract management process, allowing real-time, synchronized negotiation and collaboration from request to renewal.

Delving deeper, a next-gen CLM solution with artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled dashboards can assist the entire enterprise in optimizing contract management. For example, a risk analysis dashboard can up-level visibility by furnishing insights to calculate and understand overall contract portfolio risks, while a comprehensive clause-usage dashboard harnesses essential language to assist in expediting the contract lifecycle, contributing to a productivity increase of more than 50%.

“CLM solutions provide the answer to the ever-prevalent question, ‘What is the status of my contract?’ Without a point of reference, an enterprise can waste time and energy tracking their in-flight contracts,” James Kearney, Director at Qualitas Consulting Group, an Onit partner, explained.

2. Accelerate deal closures

In a corporate landscape where time equals money, it’s easy to see why there can be a push-pull mentality between Legal and Sales: whereas Sales wants to close deals as quickly as possible to meet targets and drive revenue, Legal must scrutinize every detail of each contract to minimize risk and ensure regulatory compliance.

While it’s no secret that streamlining contract cycles can fuel sales velocity, being truly conscientious requires time — and this is where next-gen CLM comes in. By using pre-configured and data-sourced templates, automated digital signatures, and a library of terms and conditions, revenue operations can execute accurate contracts without necessarily waiting for legal operations’ contract-by-contract approval. Additionally, instead of passing versions back and forth, the latest CLM tools allow Legal and Sales to redline contracts simultaneously, often in two minutes or less – a process that is proving to elevate collaboration as well as advance sales cycles by as much as 24%.

“We are seeing more legal departments looking for ways to empower and shift responsibility for lower risk, higher volume contract work to the parties more directly involved in those transactions,” added Kearney. “Finding and properly leveraging a CLM platform capable of reducing the inherent friction between business and Legal, while simultaneously improving the overall fidelity of the final contracts themselves, will be a critical consideration for clients in 2023 and beyond.”

3. Prevent revenue leakage

Contract renewals are vital for recurring revenue recognition and business retention. Missed contract obligations can damage your company’s relationships and reputation (not to mention the potential financial cost). With a next-gen CLM solution, your company can devise playbooks that lay out the ground rules for contract negotiations and amendments and automate AI alerts for obligation management.

You can also stay on top of renewals — and augment efficiency overall — by integrating with an external, cloud-based system. System integrations can drive efficiency by reducing repeated manual labor, synchronizing data that initiates contract creation, and eliminating siloed systems for more vital enterprise-wide collaboration.

“It is imperative that companies take steps to insulate themselves against legacy contracting processes that may have been completely manual or ad-hoc in nature,” Kearney elaborated. “Such processes are typically born out of necessity by tenured staff, who have the institutional knowledge collectively locked up inside their heads. Transforming ‘this is the way we have always done it’ processes and incorporating historical knowledge into a robust CLM solution will help mitigate against the likelihood of both missed obligations and lost opportunities.”

Collaboration first – and future-forward

There is empowerment in collaboration. For businesses and practitioners that wish to grow, differentiate, and succeed, next-generation CLM can be a catalyst for evolution, helping to diminish complexity across the enterprise as it saves time, simplifies workflows, and bolsters contract portfolio value.

When openness and innovation meet, risk is better managed, costs are better understood, and true connection can occur. By breaking down silos, the most innovative and intelligent CLM will galvanize every function within an enterprise to work together, driving your business toward operational excellence with the technology of tomorrow leading the way.

Learn how Onit’s next-generation CLM solutions and AI-powered innovations meet you where you work with end-to-end automation of the contract management process to cultivate partnerships, elevate efficiency, and ignite revenue growth for enterprise-wide success.