Author: Onit

When considering a legal process management software package, a lot of companies get overwhelmed by the features available. On one hand, it is very important the software is robust enough to truly automate processes that previously were done manually. On the other hand, there are key features that every organization needs the software to have in order for the legal department to function at its highest productivity level. Here are five must-have features:

1. Process Automation. Legal process management software needs to be able to automate different processes. Manual process management wastes time that can be spent on legal work, but by automatically routing tasks to the correct person in the legal department and creating an easy-to-follow to do list, the right software will reduce the chance that something will get lost in an email inbox.
2. Customization. Every company or organization’s legal department is different and handles different types of matters/projects. One size fits all solutions do not take that into account, and they force the legal department to rethink their processes – something that will slow down the legal department and be met with resistance. By choosing software that can create custom legal forms, the legal department has control over the software, not the other way around.
3. Legal Front Office Features. In an organization, the legal department is part of the back office. It does not have a receptionist to route calls or deliver documents dropped off at the front desk. A legal process management software package should have a front office interface that other departments within the organization can call, perhaps on the company intranet, to request legal work, such as contract review or drafting.
4. Collaboration. The legal process itself is full of collaboration, and the legal process management software should be no different. The package needs to allow the department requesting the legal services to see where the legal team is on the project, as well as allow the legal team to update the requestor.
5. Resource Management. Some tasks can be delegated, and some should go directly to more senior members of the legal department. The software should be able to simplify how the legal work is initiated within the department by routing the tasks appropriately. For example, a variable specified in the software could route contract requests over $1 million directly to a general counsel, while a simpler contract review could be automatically sent to a more junior member of the team.

In the end, the software package chosen should allow the legal department to interact seamlessly with the rest of the organization so that the sales force does not worry about contracts not being prepared and the legal department does not have to search for work or re-route tasks within the department. These five features ensure that the right processes are automated and that the entire organization, not just the legal department, can work collaboratively and increase productivity.

In the current climate of “doing more with less,” many organizations have seen layoffs across multiple departments, leaving those still standing to shoulder more responsibility with less assistance. Organizations that are still relying on the old methods of communicating and sharing work should consider project management software, a way to collaborate across departments using technology that can turbo-charge not only the legal department but the rest of the organization.

Process management is not just legal process management. It offers complete project planning capabilities, including document management, enterprise-class security, and communication features that make it easy to keep team members inside and outside the organization updated on the status of various matters/projects. Collaboration becomes easier using technology, and as the project becomes more complex (as is common in many organizations), team members can stay abreast of developments without having to dig through emails or waste time making phone calls, only to get voice mail.

Imagine being able to manage tasks, set due dates, and schedule reminders from one interface. With the same software, team members can also update their status on a project as quickly and easily as updating their Facebook status, share documents with the team and track document versions, create and share budgets, receive regular budget estimates, and “nudge” other team members to update their status or cost estimates.

Those big projects become more manageable as information flows across the organization and to team members outside the organization. The ideal process management package allows users to log in using their regular web browser so that no extra software needs to be installed on workstations and allows for Microsoft Outlook integration, giving users the option of emailing directly to their projects. The system is easy to use so that the process management interface is actually used, instead of reverting to the old way that wastes time and creates unnecessary stress.

Users tag their projects, tasks and documents, providing other users with the ability to view exactly where they are on the project and what documents have been uploaded. The interface is so seamless that everything from a simple task request to a large contract is viewed with just a few clicks.

If that sounds like the perfect solution, it is. To keep the IT and compliance departments happy, the ideal process management solution also has enterprise-class security with SAS Type II certification. That is the most secure certification available, and it ensures that only those with authorized access can view their projects, preventing prying eyes from stealing trade secrets and protecting confidential information.

This is the new, turbo-charged organization, using technology to collaborate across departments and even with outside vendors, allowing for fast, simplified project management. Imagine that for your organization, and then make it a reality.

Sign up for a trial today. All you need is an email address to get started.

Many organizations grapple with integrating the legal department with the rest of the company. Often, other departments only interface with the legal department when they need legal help, which makes perfect sense. What doesn’t make sense is the way the legal department is contacted: via email, which can get lost in an already full inbox, or with a phone call, which can end up in the voicemail labyrinth. Legal process management can change the way the legal department works with the rest of the organization, saving time for all departments in the process.

Here’s how it works: instead of calling or emailing someone in the legal department and hoping that he is the right person, a salesperson instead requests a contract for, say, a $3 million, mission-critical sale through an easy-to-use intranet interface. Using a customized portal specific to the company, the salesperson enters the amount, when the contract is needed by, and who the parties are. The salesperson can also select items such as terms of the contract from a menu. The salesperson then clicks “OK,” and the request is routed to the appropriate person in the legal department.

Since this hypothetical contract is $3 million, and the legal department has already specified that contracts for $3 million or more should be sent directly to the general counsel for review, the general counsel then gets the notification to review the contract. He can then update the status of the request, allowing the salesperson to see that he is working on it, and review the contract.

Compare that with the old way, which would involve the salesperson sending an email to, say, a more junior member of the legal department. That junior attorney would then either forward the email immediately, assuming that he read it right away, or the email would sit in his inbox until he got around to reading it. Then he would forward it to the general counsel, perhaps hours later. The salesperson would be sitting on pins and needles because he wants to close the sale, and he would most likely send another email or call the legal department, only to be slowed down while the junior attorney was searching for the email. Meanwhile, the general counsel is sitting in his office, working on something important but not as critical.

Using legal process management cuts through that convoluted process and allows the general counsel to immediately begin work on reviewing the contract. He can keep the salesperson updated, delegate tasks through the legal process management interface, and have the contract ready in a timely fashion while not sacrificing quality.

Legal process management saves time, period. It makes everyone’s job easier, allowing them to focus on what they do best: for the junior attorney, working on smaller contracts; for the salesperson, snagging more business for the company; and for the general counsel, reviewing large matters and efficiently running the legal department.

Watch this short video to see how a tool like Onit can help your legal department reap the time-savings benefits of a legal process management system.

Process management is inevitable when it comes to managing companies of all sizes. Consider all the processes that your employees deal with on a daily basis – accident/incident reports, contract review, employee termination, ethics violations, service mark/trademark registration, IP infringement, etc.

Process matters and process management tools can reduce costs, drive efficiently and enhance overall performance. Selecting the right legal process management tool requires evaluating several criteria. Careful analysis of these following 5 factors will ensure you select the optimal tool(s) for your company’s needs.

1. Deployment Selection: There are two basic models to consider; the traditional or enterprise model, or Software as a Service (SaaS) also known as the cloud model. Both have advantages and drawbacks to consider. Enterprise systems are customizable, have a high degree of complexity, while SaaS systems are ready made, and thus are much simpler to deploy. The complexity of an enterprise solution requires dedicated or virtual server space, and annual upgrades. SaaS solutions come with upgrades and maintenance included in the subscription, so there is no need to involve the IT department.

2. Cost: Enterprise solutions carry higher costs; they are purchased with licenses and require annual upgrades and maintenance which averages between 18-22% of the initial cost of the solution. SaaS subscriptions are much less expensive to purchase and maintain. Long term cost analysis should be conducted to determine the best fit.

3. Company Requirements: Assuming that your company recognizes the need for a legal process management tool, and has committed to the purchase, it needs to determine its requirements. At the very least, an automated solution needs to support process and workflow management across various departments and stakeholders with attention to deadlines and budget.

4. Integration Process: Carefully consider your company’s IT structure and area(s) of practice to ensure that the solution or combination of solutions you are considering are compatible with what is currently in place. Any good enterprise or cloud solution should offer availability, reliability, and security.

5. Consistency of Your Selected Solution: Process management involves numerous steps so it’s best to tie in with a reliable legal project management tool. This consistency ensures the scope of the project is clearly defined and the expectations are transparent. As part of this process, it is critical to have a centralized repository for documents, notes and relevant conversations related to the project. Your tool should be capable of managing all these aspects along with managing legal governance, risk and compliance.

An effective legal process management tool keeps everything flowing in a coherent, manner so companies can run smoothly and efficiently. Budget constraints and security concerns can be a roadblock to implement this type of tool but the benefits far out weight the cost. The right automated solution can drive costs, increase efficiency, and improve your company’s performance by streamlining workflow and increasing your legal team’s accessibility to information.

I have sold a lot of legal matter management (and light matter tracking) software over the last 12 years for lots of money to corporations.

I also spent a lot of money buying a leading legal matter management company in 2006 while CEO of the last company I founded.

Senator, I served with matter management, I knew matter management, matter management was a friend of mine. Senator, matter management is not what you need! (If you understand the reference here, you’re welcome for my brilliance. If you don’t, please forgive my clumsy attempt at humor).

So, the truth about matter management is that it has evolved as a big container for stuff; fields and tables and labels and such. It is a big database application. And, it does a good job at collecting stuff, as long as a corporation requires it to be done and there are sufficient administrative people to accomplish it. Where matter management has squarely fallen down is on helping lawyers get much of any value out of the data. Consequently, other than docketing and calendaring information (which is normally synced with their e-mail/calendar application already), there is no good reason for a lawyer to open a matter management tool. So they don’t.

Many corporations have spent in excess of $1 million in the selection, purchase and implementation of a matter management system. What should have been included in these systems are tools that actually help a lawyer do a better job, achieve better outcomes, spend less money, or all of the above.

In short, matter management always “should” have been based on project management discipline and on helping lawyers manage the “process” of law better. It wasn’t, precisely because of the belief that legal work was special; it had to be handled differently, by experts that would not get value from routinized steps (or checklists). And while we are on the topic of legal matters, I am of the mind that we should get rid of all terms that connote that legal projects are any different than other projects.

The more work we have done on legal project management, the more we have realized that it is almost exactly the same as project management for architects, engineers, builders, etc. So, a matter is a project. A case is a project. A deal is a project. A transaction is a project. Litigation is a special project. This will make things easier, now.

Project management is what matter management “should” have always been. Project management is process-driven, where appropriate, it is collaborative, it is work-flow and it is about planning, executing and monitoring.

Most legal matter and spend management applications today start the management of work at the receipt of the invoice. This is okay for some, I guess. After all, you can save 1 to 10% of your legal spend just by making sure that invoices comply with your business rules. But you don’t get better outcomes. You don’t get faster turnarounds. In short, you don’t get things better, faster, cheaper — just cheaper.

Here at Onit, our fundamental belief is that you have to start the management of your projects much earlier than the invoice.

In large corporations, legal departments are largely back-office operations. They handle contact review, employee terminations, litigation, trademarks and patents, and a plethora of other functions. The legal process itself demands a lot of paper, and legal departments often get buried in just the documents required for a project. When you add in the emails, calls and other requests from the front end – the sales department, human resources or other business units – the legal department slows down, trying to sort through not only existing work but also making sure that new requests are routed through the system efficiently. That’s a tall order, given the average amount of work most legal departments have, using less staff than a few years ago.

Legal process management ties together the front and back ends of the business. Here’s an example of how smooth the process could be: using a portal, customized forms and a data entry wizard, the human resources department could request that the legal department review the involuntary termination of an employee. The process would be simple for both sides:

1. The portal, which could be a part of the legal department’s home page, an intranet page or reside on the legal process management vendor’s server, would include a link to request legal services. The human resources representative would click on the appropriate link, i.e. “Review an involuntary termination.”
2. The link would bring up an online form that could be customized for the company. The human resources representative would then fill out those fields and attach supporting documentation like performance reviews or inappropriate emails sent by the employee.
3. Using the data entry wizard, the form could include a drop-down menu for the reason for termination, such as “inappropriate conduct.” Something like this could be flagged so that the termination would need to be reviewed by the general counsel. The request would then be routed to her by the legal process management system to be reviewed before giving approval to HR to terminate the employee.

By utilizing a legal process management system, the legal department gets everything it needs to begin working on an issue in a timely manner. Instead of back-and-forth emails that can easily get overlooked in overflowing inboxes or playing phone tag, the legal department is able to customize forms that ask the right questions from the inception. The department requesting the legal services is able to provide the right information and can track the progress of the legal department through the portal.

This efficient way of legal process management frees up time across the enterprise, allowing everyone to focus on their jobs. It simplifies the legal process, makes sure that the work gets done, and prevents costly, time-consuming lawsuits over missed deadlines. It saves time and money, both important resources in companies that are struggling to do more with less in a turbulent economy.

Watch this video to see how a simple tool like Onit Process can help a general counsel automate a contract review process with a sales manager. To see the tool, sign-up to view the Legal Process Management Onit Premium screencast.

Legal project management software can streamline your department’s processes and help you keep track of the large amounts of information that are commonplace in today’s paperwork-intensive legal departments. Whether it’s litigation encompassing e-discovery, keeping track of trademarks and patents, or contract management, a good legal project management tool can increase your efficiency, control costs, and ensure nothing slips through the cracks. Selecting a legal project management system is a big commitment so you’ll want to evaluate different vendors before making a final decision.

Here are 6 steps to consider when evaluating legal project management tools:

1. Determine your department’s needs. How many users do you have? What features do you need? What legal projects will you be using it for (litigation, contracts, NDAs, etc.)? It may seem very rudimentary but you’ll want to have the basics laid out before you start evaluating vendors.

2. Find out how easy it is to implement. You’re going to have to train your entire legal department on the software, so investigate the vendor’s demos, videos or screencasts. Request an online demo and ask questions specific to your project scope. If you have colleagues who already use legal project management software, ask them for a recommendation and find out how easy it was to implement.

3. Consult with your IT department. Do you need software that resides on servers in-house, or would a “cloud” offering (Software as a Service – SaaS) suffice? Involve your IT team in as much of the software selection as possible. They’ll be able to tell you what will work with your existing systems, what will require additional hardware purchases, and the requirements for installation and implementation. They’ll also be able to quickly access if the tools meet your company’s regulations and are compliant with your data security policies.

4. Review the software’s ability to “play nice” with your existing systems. This goes back to consulting with the IT department. They’ll be able to tell you if the software you’re considering can work with internal systems like Outlook or SharePoint or can integrate with other systems (i.e. document management, contract management, e-billing and matter management, time & billing, etc.)

5. Find out if the software offers the reporting you need. Can the solution you’re considering generate the reports you need on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to manage different projects? Is the user interface easy to use? Can you quickly create a report to check the status of all your projects?

6. Investigate the user interface. As eluded to above, a user-friendly interface makes managing projects and generating reports easier if it doesn’t require much training. Look for an intuitive, simple to use interface that allows you to see the status of different projects on one screen.

By following these 6 basic steps, you’ll be better prepared to select a suitable legal project management system that’s aligned with your company and legal department’s goals.

Want to get started today? Onit Project is a light-weight legal project management tool with full project planning functionality, document management and enterprise-class security. Register today and start tracking all your projects. You’ll be glad you did.