Category: Business Process Management

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 9

Posted on April 9, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


onitfinaostage.wpenginepowered.com Offering Free Business Continuity Apps Among COVID-19Onit Offering Free Business Continuity Apps Among COVID-19
Onit is offering free access to their new suite of business continuity apps for customers and non-customers alike. We hope to help with the transition to running your legal department remotely. These apps cover four critical areas: managing a remote workforce, overseeing business changes, managing risk and managing financial impacts. We know COVID-19 hasn’t been easy for anyone so hopefully, these apps can help ease some of the strain on your business.

 


COVID-19 Cools Legal Tech Investments, But Long Term Prospects Remain StrongLaw.com: COVID-19 Cools Legal Tech Investments, But Long Term Prospects Remain Strong
As the world has been settling at home during COVID-19, many have noticed a serious economic downturn, and the downturn catalyzed much more quickly than previously thought. During times like these, consumer spending is known for slowing down, a trend that could greatly affect the access legal technology offerings have to venture capital. While many in the legal industry believe the guidelines for who will obtain capital will remain largely the same, with compelling offerings not being at the same access risk, some believe that the higher risk profile of a bear market could prove difficult for about two-thirds of the offerings that don’t meet the higher expectation.


How To Practice Law Remotely and Efficiently During the COVID-19 CrisisABA Journal: How To Practice Law Remotely and Efficiently During the COVID-19 Crisis
Lawyers have been in a golden age of efficiency for the last decade or so, and there are many ways they can keep that going while working from home. Shauna Barnes comes to ABA’s Asked and Answered podcast to give insight on the best ways to stay on top of workloads when collaboration is more difficult.


David Lat, Eyeing Hospital Discharge, Talks About His Battle and Donating Blood to COVID-19 ResearchLaw.com: David Lat, Eyeing Hospital Discharge, Talks About His Battle and Donating Blood to COVID-19 Research
After nearly 17 days in the hospital, 11 of which in ICU, Above the Law Founder David Lat is finally being discharged. Lat was admitted to NYU Hospital on March 16th for breathing complications, and thankfully he was able to recover after a cocktail of strong anti-viral medications and a stint on a ventilator. Stay updated on Lat’s recovery by following his Twitter feed.


Law Firms Conduct Layoffs, Slash Salaries in Response to PandemicAbove the Law: Law Firms Conduct Layoffs, Slash Salaries in Response to Pandemic
It was only a matter of time before law firms had to respond to the changes to the legal profession caused by the COVID-19 lockdown. Above the Law has reported on more than a few Biglaw firms that have had to adjust their ranks and payment schedules to accommodate for the drop in productivity. While some firms are slashing partner compensation, other firms are laying off associates without severance, so the situation will develop differently at different firms.


$5M Coming to Law Students Struggling Financially Amid COVID-19Law.com: $5M Coming to Law Students Struggling Financially Amid COVID-19
During COVID-19, it’s become increasingly clear that students are having some of the more difficult experiences as they mostly aren’t eligible to receive American federal stimulus benefits. Thankfully, AccessLex is here to help with grants totaling $5 million to help students at over 200 ABA-accredited law schools. These grants are distributed as $25,000 per school for their emergency funds and will be further distributed to students going through financial hardship. Whether these grants will have a long-lasting effect for law students is unclear, but AccessLex said they wanted to be quick to the draw and help law students quickly and meaningfully.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 8

Posted on March 27, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


ICYMI – Highlights from Legalweek 2020: Trends, Technology and NetworkingOnit: ICYMI – Highlights from Legalweek 2020: Trends, Technology and Networking
Onit represented at the longest running tech show once again, this time showing off our recently launched CLM product in addition to other offerings. Check out this blog for a recap of the trends we spotted and sessions we attended. We hope to see you all next year for more of the best Legaltech has to offer!

 


2020, The Year Legal Operations Finally FlourishLaw.com: 2020, The Year Legal Operations Finally Flourish
It’s the start of a new decade and it’s already shaping up to be quite eventful for the legal ops function. Innovations with legal technology usually start on the technological advancement side, but process improvements are still key for leveraging all the value of your technology. The community of legal operations professionals has grown slowly over the last decade and now top professionals believe the community is mature enough for legal ops to have a large growth spurt over the next decade. Much of the legal profession lies within data that needs to be analyzed, and legal ops might be coming to the rescue for legal departments to tackle the multifaceted business demands.


Half of Legal Departments Do Not Have Anyone Dedicated to Legal OperationsLaw.com: Half of Legal Departments Do Not Have Anyone Dedicated to Legal Operations
According to ACC’s Chief Legal Officers Survey, roughly 70% of legal departments have one or fewer dedicated legal ops professionals. While this is mostly the case because a good population of the respondents come from smaller companies with small legal departments, Catherine Moynihan, executive director of the Association of Corporate Counsel’s legal operations arm believes that legal departments with legal ops functions are better build for scalability. At the end of the day, legal ops professionals can be vital to making sure lawyers get to focus on practicing law now and avoiding stressful change management later.


In-House Departments Lead Legal InnovationAbove the Law: In-House Departments Lead Legal Innovation
Corporate law might be something of a pressure cooker based on the way businesses tend to use lawyers as a first line of defense, but some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten come from a slow steam cook. According to Parley Pro’s Olga V. Mack, the business demand facing legal seems to be a major driver for innovation in the legal practice as corporate lawyers are often tasked with being key decision makers in corporations. Despite the risk of arduous change management, Mack offers the advice that legal technology can be a lawyer’s best friend and becoming familiar with the solution landscape can help them find the diamond in the rough solution of which they might willing to be an early adopter.


Tips, Tools and Biggest Bummers: What Lawyers Really Think About the State of Legal TechLaw.com: Tips, Tools and Biggest Bummers: What Lawyers Really Think About the State of Legal Tech
One of the best parts of Legaltech 2020 was hearing what top legal professionals have to say about the technology they’re using every day. In this installment of LegalSpeak, ALM’s Vanessa Blum and Leigh Jones speak with some of the most innovative people in legal about the best tools they’ve found for driving greater efficiencies, such as AI and blockchain. They also discuss what has what might be a bit over-hyped, such as AI and blockchain!


Feeding A Baby Unicorn — Land A Startup ClientAbove the Law: Feeding A Baby Unicorn — Land A Startup Client
The start-up world can be kind of scary as the value of the company can be quite volatile and everything could come crashing down at any moment. Sarah Feingold shares her accounts working with Etsy and Vroom while they were in their “baby unicorn” status before they became a full blown billion-dollar mythical creature. This article is the first in a series of Feingold’s accounts.

CareerUp!: How to Know if a Position in Legal Ops Might be for You

Posted on February 26, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Legal Operations

In the not-so-distant past, legal operations was thought of as a field for people interested in administrating law offices (if it was thought of at all). However, in the past five years or so, the position has completely turned around and become extremely in-demand because of the myriad ways it has proven to improve legal process efficiency and service delivery in corporate legal departments.

One of the major catalysts for the upswing in legal operations careers is the information explosion that has affected all parts of legal. The steep increase in records and data attached to legal matters, and the cost of managing that increase, has resulted in a desperate need for dedicated professionals. While some legal ops professionals excel with more granular tasks among legal practice areas, the best of the bunch tend to be agile generalists who can multitask and take on a wide range of problems. This was a key theme of the session moderated by Onit’s Paige Edwards at Legaltech 2020. The session featured experienced legal ops professionals from Prudential, Purdue Pharma and Toyota.

As the practice of law and the business of handling an organization’s legal and regulatory matters becomes more multi-disciplinary and demanding, legal ops professionals must often be the bridge between people and technology. They often serve as interpreters between legal, IT and the business. Legal ops professionals are tasked with convincing executives that processes and/or technology need updating and overhauling. Sometimes the change can be costly and time consuming, and the best legal ops professionals are the ones that “wade through the tall grass and bring data” to prove that the change is worth it.

Legal ops professionals tend to be some of the most dedicated professionals in the legal industry, and their results speak for their tenacity. Some of the most notable professionals got their start from sitting in on meetings with the idea that they could do something better and faster and then having the courage to approach a manager or executive about their findings. If you think you have the skills to see legal matters on a big picture level, understand technology and have a drive for process efficiency, a career in legal operations might be a great fit.

If you’re interested in a legal operations career, or if you’re looking to hire and need a legal operations job description, check out this blog post from SimpleLegal.

Onit Introduces Partner Recognition Tiers in Strategic Alliance Program

Posted on February 14, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

Today, we announced that we have instituted a three-tier partner recognition system in our rapidly expanding Strategic Alliances Program, which provides end-to-end support for Onit’s partners through the entire cycle of onboarding, enabling, selling, and delivering.

We introduced the performance-based partner ranking system to enhance Strategic Alliances program effectiveness and nurture competitive spirit. The membership tiers in the program are Affiliate, Premier and Elite. Qualification for a tier is evaluated on an ongoing basis and is based on a variety of considerations that include revenue, Onit-certified resources and implementation experience. Through these new tiers, Onit seeks to recognize all of its partners and the accomplishments they have achieved in service to our collective clients.

The Strategic Alliances Program was initiated to establish and support external alliances that promote growth and success for their clients and partners; the principles of which are strategy, transparency, accountability and rigor. This program addresses the needs of not only our trusted partners, but of their clients as well. The Strategic Alliances program is comprised of an experienced and trusted team that offers tangible results through a robust ecosystem of partners to meet our clients’ needs.

Read the press release.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 7

Posted on January 24, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


Law firms Still Don't Get Legal OperationsThe Global Legal Post: Law firms Still ‘Don’t Get’ Legal Operations
Since we’ve started the Highlight Blog series we’ve been talking about how important we think having dedicated legal operations staff is, and we’re happy we have another opportunity to beat that drum. At CLOC London, most of day two was spent bringing this point home with legal ops professionals and GCs running an open dialogue. CLOC London attendees now have a better understanding about what makes the most effective legal operations partnerships and are now more equipped than ever to move their organizations toward the future. We would expect to see legal operations become ever more important in Europe as more discussions like these happen. Spoiler alert…Onit and our partner Duff & Phelps might even host a few! Stay tuned.


Alibaba Legal Tech Summit 2019: 5 Key TakeawaysAsian Legal Business: Alibaba Legal Tech Summit 2019: 5 Key Takeaways
Lawyers have been hearing the same line over and over for the last few years: legal technology will make your operations more efficient so you can deliver better service for clients. Speakers at the Alibaba Legal Tech Summit also conveyed how deep legal technology runs as it affects many business units outside of legal that are still integral to service delivery. The main point being driven home was how technology enhances lawyers’ abilities to tackle complex matters and how they should be looking at these technologies as a revitalizer rather than a replacer. This idea of incorporating business units outside of just legal in order to make all legal processes more efficient is foundational to Onit’s approach to our customers’ challenges.


The New Legal Tech Leaders: 8 Big Industry Moves From 2019Law.com: The New Legal Tech Leaders: 8 Big Industry Moves From 2019
2019 was a big year for technology, and an especially big year for the legal tech sector. The eight people listed in this article made colossal waves during a year crammed full of M&As and tectonic technology shifts. These industry shifts were in the news throughout 2019, but this summary shows some of the biggest news in one of the biggest legal tech sectors – eDiscovery.


As Legal Tech Incubators Multiply, Past Entrants Reveal What Makes a Successful EngagementLaw.com: As Legal Tech Incubators Multiply, Past Entrants Reveal What Makes a Successful Engagement
It’s well known at this juncture that the process of creating and selling new legal tech products has about as many similarities to starting up a regular tech company as it does differences, and one of those differences shows through the incubator experience. Victoria Hudgens from Legaltech News shares this difference that mostly comes from Big Four and Biglaw organizations running the incubators as well as how the experience can differ once companies have been accepted. Respondents share that while incubators that provide support in a wide range of business areas are the most helpful, accelerators and incubators for legal tech often don’t have as much investment experience as the companies being incubated have much less effect on their bottom line. These insights are especially interesting to us since Onit started in a “regular tech” incubator. My how far we’ve come!


The 2019 Legal Department Operations Survey ReportAbove the Law: The 2019 Legal Department Operations Survey Report
In case you missed it, the LDO Survey Report is back. The 12th edition of this report, produced in association with Morae Global and sponsored by Onit, comes to us on the heels of another year of impressive growth, but even the mightiest can still fall. This year’s report covers professional assessments of legal project management, contract lifecycle management, formal metrics programs, AI and other emerging technologies.


Women Hold Editor-in-Chief Positions at the 16 Most Elite Law ReviewsLaw.com: Women Hold Editor-in-Chief Positions at the 16 Most Elite Law Reviews
We’ve heard a lot about workplace equity and diversity for the last couple years now, but one lesser talked about cornerstone of legal culture among professionals is literature. Among the top 16 law schools’ law review publications, all 16 of them have women as editor in chief for the first time in their history. This is part of an upward trend over the last decade with women only making up 29% of the editors at these top institutions in 2012. This milestone is a strong victory for lawyers and institutions trying to cultivate a more hospitable environment for women, people of color, and first-generation law students.

Onit Announces 2020 Training Schedule

Posted on January 23, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Here at Onit, we have established ourselves as a leading provider of innovative software products for the legal industry. Our organization and global market share have grown exponentially over the last couple of years through strategic investments and successful acquisitions. As we continue this exponential rise in customers, end-users, and partners, our primary focus and vision remain the same, the support and service of our customers. At Onit we pride ourselves on our ability to arm our customers, new and existing, with the ability to not only use our products to their fullest potential but to ensure they are utilizing them in ways that fit their business needs and maximize adoption, productivity and ROI. We employ teams of industry thought leaders and software experts that teach proper business processes, techniques, and best practices throughout various disciplines and how to utilize our software to support those processes.

Today, we are excited to announce that we have rolled out our new training schedule for 2020! There are three training tracks: Apptitude, Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). The Apptitude track offers courses for Apptitude developers. Within the ELM and CLM tracks are courses that are in either the technical or non-technical lanes, depending on whether you are an Apptitude developer or project manager. All tracks consist of four certification levels.

Whatever your role, and whether you’re a valued Onit customer or partner, attaining formal Onit credentials demonstrates to the world that you have the knowledge and skills to transform business processes using the Onit platform. Our formal certification program provides an easy-to-navigate framework for both securing and quantifying your Onit expertise.

Here are the upcoming courses that we have posted on our training calendar. If you find an upcoming course that you’d like to attend, sign up on our registration page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out directly or send an email to [email protected].

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 6

Posted on January 3, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


2020 Vision: A Look Into What In-House Counsel Need to Know for the New YearLaw.com: 2020 Vision: A Look Into What In-House Counsel Need to Know for the New Year
Corporate Counsel magazine reporters spoke to several general counsel about what they say will impact their work and the legal industry. From outside counsel merging with other law firms to the use of artificial intelligence to keep down legal department costs, this article outlines some of the trends in-house counsel may find themselves dealing with in the new year.


First 90 Days Game Plan To Building A Legal Operations FunctionAbove the Law: First 90 Days Game Plan To Building A Legal Operations Function
Olga V. Mack has interviewed Twitter’s Legal Operations director Colin McCarthy and this week they’re sharing a comprehensive take on what employing a legal operations function should look like. According to McCarthy, the main goals of this deployment should be good decision making, future-proof technology solutions, proper spend and scaling and all of this should be recorded for future analysis. These 90 days are critical to a successful legal ops function as they will determine whether your relationships with key stakeholders are solid, which inefficiencies can be eliminated and how to implement your plan under what timeframe.


Could a Legal Operations Role Benefit Your Organization? Here’s How to DecideLaw.com: Could a Legal Operations Role Benefit Your Organization? Here’s How to Decide
Legal operations has been rapidly cementing itself as a cornerstone role in legal departments across the world, but the decision of whether you want to dedicate the resources to that position is a tough one. In the last few years as corporate counsel have noticed their workflows becoming more demanding and requiring more business knowledge, the legal operations position has helped companies like Liberty Mutual, Google and The Gap meet demands with stringent budgets and extensive administrative hurdles. If you’re a general counsel and you feel like you’ve been bogged down by all of business-related tasks you need to tackle, employing a dedicated legal operations role might help you and your department get back to the legal work you’re more specialized in, while also driving efficiencies in critical business-focused areas.


Who’s Afraid Of Machine Learning?Above the Law: Who’s Afraid Of Machine Learning?
Many legal professionals are becoming increasingly nervous about AI and machine learning because of the unknown nature or inherent bias that surrounds them. However, machine learning in its current state is designed to do one ley thing: recognize patterns. These tools are driving serious efficiency in administrative tasks and can help legal professionals gain a deeper understanding of the matters they are assigned.


The Top 9 Legal Tech Investments of 2019Law.com: The Top 9 Legal Tech Investments of 2019
Onit was included in the top nine investments in Legal Tech in 2019, a year that marked significant capital infusion into the legal technology space. This article highlights the investments that were deemed significant enough to reshape the legal tech market. Onit was a recipient of one of the largest capital investments, at $200 million, in the list. That strategic investment is contributing to more robust features in our existing products like Enterprise Legal Management, as well as new product lines like Contract Lifecycle Management. It is also helping to grow the company through acquisition, starting with the addition of SimpleLegal as a subsidiary.


Lawyers Want Easier Technology. But Providers Aren't Sure What That MeansLaw.com: Lawyers Want ‘Easier’ Technology. But Providers Aren’t Sure What That Means
In technology (and especially legal technology), feedback is critical as developers are trying to make their user experiences more friendly for the professionals that rely on them. Everyone wants the tools they use to be intuitive, and bridging the gap between legalese and tech talk might be the key to developing better legal technology. Even though legal is a fast-paced world, legal tech companies would like to see lawyers dwell on their previous matters for just a little longer and give developers proper feedback to hone their tools for what is coming next.


5 Legal Technologies You Thought Were Dead But Aren’tAbove the Law: 5 Legal Technologies You Thought Were Dead But Aren’t
There are good reasons to be wary of adopting cutting edge technologies early before all the kinks are worked out, but at some point you just have to rip the bandage off. According to the ABA 2019 Legal Technology Survey Report, books, CDs, fax machines, BlackBerrys and even WordPerfect are still being used by lawyers all over the country for one reason or another. Even though there have been massive leaps in technology available to lawyers, sometimes the old methods are gold and it’s not worth the billable hour to teach new tricks.


Legal Departments Use 'Moneyball' Approach to Pick Lawyers and Fight Mega VerdictsLaw.com: Legal Departments Use ‘Moneyball’ Approach to Pick Lawyers and Fight Mega Verdicts
For anyone that hasn’t seen the film or are unfamiliar with the Oakland A’s of the early 2000s, the “moneyball” approach entails using predictive analytics to show what methods and tools are undervalued in order to reduce spend and stay ahead of the curve. More law organizations and corporate counsel are employing these predictive measures to get critical information that might completely change the way they choose to run their case. New predictive technologies are giving lawyers information about spend, strategy and personnel. Some lawyers believe these tools will be necessary for practicing law within the next 20 years.

Legal Department Operations Survey 2019 Results are Out

Posted on December 18, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Onit is once again a sponsor of the Legal Department Operations (LDO) Survey. In its 12th year, this survey is the leading barometer for trends in legal operations. Onit Founder & CEO, Eric M. Elfman, contributed an article to the survey results package. Please read that article below and download the full survey results here.

Driving Disruption in the Legal Department: Legal Ops and Technology Lead the Way
By Eric Elfman

Legal operations is all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to grow and protect the company it serves. As such, legal departments are seeking a higher level of operational excellence. This is evidenced by their embrace of innovation, increased demand for automation of repetitive tasks and a workflow-centric approach and understanding of how to use technology to create operational wins.

Driving efficiencies and containing costs are two key reasons that legal operations is important and is growing so quickly. Legal departments were forced to adopt a more operationally focused mindset as a result of the Great Recession. The 2008 downturn was so severe, and efficiency and cost-cutting were considered so critical to the survival of the business at large, that it was no longer acceptable to spend freely. Since then, C-suites have increasingly been making their law departments behave more like other business units. This ultimately led to the rise of a profession dedicated to bringing business discipline to the law department: legal operations.

Legal department operations professionals (LDOs) handle the management of vendors, systems, strategic planning, technology, knowledge, financial issues and the myriad other tasks that plague the legal department. Legal operations are all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to support the business and is a multi-disciplinary function that optimizes legal services delivery by focusing on twelve core competencies. The competencies, developed by CLOC, are divided among three levels: foundational, advanced and mature.

Cost control and cost management have always been among the legal department’s greatest challenges. Economic downturns in recent decades served to exacerbate the “do less with more” mindset. In order to meet these intensifying challenges, many departments began increasing the workload of existing resources or bringing on more in-house lawyers. Others have built and started executing technology roadmaps. Technology has been optimizing legal operations in several key areas. Workflow and automation of processes deserve a spot at the top of the list. Data analytics is also important, as analytics can demonstrate the value of technology in the department and the value of the legal department to the business. Technology is assisting with the competitive bidding process on certain types of cases. Automating many routine tasks can shave hours off any busy schedule. Collaboration using  technology gives a whole new meaning to “working together.”

Today’s state-of-the-art technology allows all stakeholders from anywhere in the world – including legal departments, other service providers, and members of the corporation’s accounting team and business units – to be on a single platform. Technology will increasingly play a prominent role, as more LDOs are discovering they can better fulfill their mission by leveraging well-chosen technology solutions to automate processes, track legal spend and deliver key decision-ready information. The increasingly robust alliance of legal ops and technology is now helping to forge the future of legal operations in amazing ways we could never have imagined a decade ago. Onit purpose-built our technology platform to help drive this alliance and enables customers to execute their technology roadmaps over time.

Interested? Request a demo now!

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 5

Posted on December 13, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House CounselLaw.com: Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House Counsel
While law firms are reminiscing about a year of increased demand during this bonus season, corporate legal department numbers show they are looking toward a future recession and having to cut spending back. Even though law department spend is a concern even outside of the prospect of hard times on the horizon, only 40% of law departments responded to an Altman Weil survey saying they increased their budgets, with 38% of departments saying they’ve cut their budgets in the past year (up from 27%). Despite 2019 being a demanding year for law firms and corporate legal departments, Gretta Rusanow of Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group mentions that legal matters will still need to be attended to regardless of how departments and firms configure their budgets.


The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers WantAbove the Law: The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers Want
As we have mentioned in this blog series before, legal matters are becoming more business-centric and corporate legal departments are increasingly selecting solutions and ALSPs based on how much they fit in with their business’ needs. This Above the Law column says that in-house lawyers don’t just want a service provider that can do the work but want a more full-blown partnership that act on their client’s needs rather than reacting to them. It also asserts that this type of partnership ends up being mutually beneficial as the work providers might be doing could open up whole new revenue streams from previously unknown capabilities. We couldn’t agree more!


In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last YearLaw.com: In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last Year
According to a report released by alternative legal services provider Konexo, 63% of in-house lawyers report feeling more stressed about their workloads than they did last year, with common pressures being costs, lack of resources and team culture. Even though legal technology has been helping law departments work more efficiently, respondents also cited issues with technology onboarding and the need for them to serve as business partners within their companies. It probably won’t come as a surprise that respondents recommended more holistic approaches than the use of point solutions to make departments more efficient and better equipped for their growing demands. Again, we couldn’t agree more!


Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for LawyersBloomberg Law: Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for Lawyers
We’ve been hearing about blockchain technology and the hype around it since the Bitcoin boom a couple of years ago, but it would be unwise to completely dismiss blockchain as a hype machine without addressing how it can be used for legal contract management. This article says that because blockchain ledgers are especially strong at maintaining authentication the technology has great applications for contract management software and allows lawyers to spend less time on clerical aspects of their contracts. This article contends that as data gets more valuable, blockchain has proven itself to be especially useful for legal records management, and blockchain contract management solutions should definitely be on every lawyer’s radar in the years to come. See what you think!


Penn Law Keeps Its Name — For NowLaw.com: ‘Penn Law’ Keeps Its Name — For Now
In an earlier edition of the LegalOps Highlight Blog, we shared an article about how Penn Law students voiced concerns over the swift change in name to Carey Law. Since then, University of Pennsylvania’s law school has agreed to gradually rebrand to Penn Carey Law by 2022 in efforts to recognize the recent large contribution by the W.P. Carey Foundation. This return from the earlier name change shows that the school’s administration has listened to the hundreds of student and alumni voices and recognizes the prestige of Penn Law.


California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPRTechCrunch: California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPR
We’ve been covering the CCPA for a little while now because of its implications on data collection and management. It’s also important to note that the CCPA has different language on what it considers personal information under the law, and the writing also shows what companies could be fined for violations. The new law (and others being proposed by other states) shows that the US is on its way to meeting the standard of privacy legislation set by GDPR and gives lawyers an idea of the information management matters they may have coming to them.