Category: Company News and Events

Onit Takes Home Three More Awards in 2020 for Rapid Growth

Posted on December 22, 2020 by - Company News and Events

As 2020 draws to a close, Onit is proud to announce that it has won three more awards, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, the Growjo 10K and the Vet100.

Deloitte 2020 Technology Fast 500

Deloitte has named Onit to its distinguished 2020 Technology Fast 500 list, an annual ranking of the fastest-growing North American companies in the technology, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and energy tech sectors. Onit landed at #190 on the list, with a three-year growth of 641%.

This is the third consecutive year Onit has been included on this prestigious list.

The rankings over the years demonstrate a consistent increase for Onit. Last year, we ranked #249 on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 with a percentage growth of 441%. In 2018, we landed at #264 with a three-year growth of 327%.

Technology Fast 500 awardees are selected based on percentage fiscal year revenue growth from 2016 to 2019. Overall, the 2020 Technology Fast 500 companies achieved revenue growth ranging from 175% to 106,508% over the three-year time frame, with a median growth rate of 450%.

You can view the entire Technology Fast 500 list here.

The Growjo 10K, an Exclusive List of the World’s Fastest-Growing Companies

For the second consecutive year, Onit is honored to be included in the 4th edition of the Growjo 10K, a list of the world’s fastest-growing companies. Growjo evaluates more than one million companies for the list each year.

This year, Onit scored #648.

Growjo also ranks the 10,000 on its list by geography and industry – meaning that Onit earned additional recognition, including:

  • #4 for the fastest-growing companies in Houston
  • #20 for the fastest-growing companies in Texas
  • #52 for the fastest-growing companies in technology services

Growjo, the leader in identifying the list of the top growing companies in the world, utilizes unique growth indicators like revenue growth, alternative competition analysis, valuation increases, funding news, hiring announcements, job openings, leadership team developments and other financials.

Click here to see the Growjo 10K report.

The Vet100, a List of the Fastest-Growing Veteran-Owned Businesses

Finally, Onit has been named to the annual Vet100, a compilation of the nation’s fastest-growing veteran-owned businesses. The ranking, created in partnership with Inc. Magazine and Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), was born out of the iconic Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies based in the U.S. Both distinctions are considered hallmarks of entrepreneurial success.

Onit’s co-founder and CEO, Eric M. Elfman, served in the Navy for 10 years and credits it for helping him define his entrepreneurial path. As he told the One Million by One Million blog earlier this year:

“I had a different educational journey compared to a lot of entrepreneurs. I dropped out of high school when I was in 10th grade and joined the Navy. The Navy turned me around and straightened me out. It helped me understand that the path from a high school dropout to running a successful business required education. My experience in the Navy showed me the need to get my GED and go to college. I eventually got my MBA here at Rice University.”

“Military experience provides veteran entrepreneurs with skills and knowledge we know to be valuable in the business world,” said Mike Haynie, Syracuse University Vice Chancellor and IVMF Founder and Executive Director. “The growth of this year’s list is a hopeful and inspiring indication of how important and valuable veteran entrepreneurs are to our society and economy. These businessmen and women not only served in defense of our collective freedom and security, they now continue to serve by bettering the economies in their communities and across the country. We are proud to partner again with Inc. magazine and are grateful for their efforts to shine a spotlight on the success of veteran-owned businesses.”

For more information on the Inc. Vet100 List, visit here.

Additional 2020 Awards

This year, Onit has won more than 10 awards – many of them linked to the company’s cumulative growth and increased revenue over the past three to five years. Inc. included Onit on its Inc. 5000 (#737) and 250 Fastest-Growing Companies in Texas (#70) as well as its Private Titans list, which names the 1,000 largest iconic private companies in the United States. The Financial Times placed Onit as #153 on its 500 Fastest-Growing Companies in the Americas award, and the Houston Business Journal ranked the company number nine on its 2020 Fast 100 list and number three on its inaugural Middle Market 50 awards.

Onit is positioned to continue its assertive growth in 2021. In the past 19 months, we have acquired SimpleLegal, McCarthyFinch and AXDRAFT. In November, Onit introduced AI technology with its second platform, the Precedent Intelligence Platform, and ReviewAI, software that uses artificial intelligence to quickly review, redline and edit all types of contracts. Now, Onit is the only company in its space with two platforms – Precedent and Apptitude, its no-code business process and automation platform. Additionally, we’ve continued hiring in the pandemic, adding 140 new employees worldwide this year alone.

These awards would not have been possible without the exceptional dedication of the entire Onit team and our amazing customers. In 2021, we will continue to focus on what we value the most: our customers, our people and our passion for legal technology and innovation. Thank you to everyone!

Legal Operations Experts Have Hacked the House; Now, We Have a Hackathon Winner

Posted on December 18, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

They came. They saw. They hacked. And now, Onit has a Hack the House winner!

In October, Onit launched its first hackathon – Hack the House. The friendly competition consisted of Onit customers, partners and staff seeing who can build the most useful and compelling workflow and collaboration solution using the Onit Apptitude platform.

Five teams accepted the Hack the House challenge. They include legal and business experts, certified App Builders and project managers. Within three weeks, each group identified a corporate legal department challenge, defined the requirements and built the solution from scratch using Apptitude.

Team Europe created the Data Breach Incident Reporting App to report a data breach in compliance with GDPR and other data privacy regulations. Many organizations currently use spreadsheets, phone calls, and emails – a highly manual process that is the perfect candidate for Apptitude automation. Their Hack the House App simplifies the process and helps meet expectations by regulators in Europe that reporting must happen within 72 hours from the point of breaches.

Team HR wanted to veer away from the traditional goal-setting and reviewing goals with a supervisor with their mentorship and career development App. Their Hack the House solution is a combination of several Apps for mentors, mentees and project opportunities. Users select areas of interest and then anyone across the company can find them and invite them to participate in special projects in their area of interest. Employees then gain more exposure throughout an organization to progress their careers.

Team IP focused on the trademark renewal decision process for Hack the House, one they identified as a challenge for any company that owns a significant number of trademarks worldwide. They combined Apps into a solution that streamlines the communication out to global teams, alerting them that it is time to make decisions about whether to renew trademarks or not. It gathers feedback on why decisions were made and automates the process for trademarks that will unquestionably be renewed. The team also built an additional App that tracks who in an organization has access to which trade secrets.

Team Diversity created an App to help law departments establish a baseline for diversity statistics and tracking. Using the App, a legal operations professional can gather a high-level view of a law firm’s diversity efforts, track historical progress and report on efforts. The App sends law firms a survey where they can upload their diversity stats and initiatives. They based the App on the ABA Model Diversity Survey to align with existing industry standards.

Team Pro Bono Program Management wanted to help pro bono leadership track, manage, recognize and report on time spent by attorneys and be able to thank each one for their volunteer efforts. Their Hack the House App centralizes requests and gives lawyers a space to collaborate with internal resources and third parties such as outside counsel on pro bono initiatives. Users can easily report out the work to different bar associations or internally. Best of all, it helps show appreciation for pro bono work in the form of automated document generation for thank you letters.

Judging Hack the House

The five judges found an impressive array of solutions to evaluate. The panel included:

  • Maria Anassutzi, Lead IP Counsel EMEA, Canon Europe
  • William Hayes, Senior Lawyer, BBC
  • Mary Shirley, Head Of Culture Of Integrity And Compliance Education, FMCNA
  • Jonathan Powers, Director Of Learning & Development, Onit
  • Kristi Gedid, Senior Director, Global Legal Operations, Mylan

They judged based on a variety of criteria, including the ambition of the idea, how closely it fit with the original idea, the ease of use and the constructed App’s completeness. They also had a helping hand from hundreds of voters in the legal space.

“It was awesome to see the level of work and the thought that everybody put into their respective projects,” commented Mary Shirley, a judge and Head Of Culture Of Integrity And Compliance Education, FMCNA. “There is going to be a lot of real-world use for the Apps that have been produced. I had a fantastic time being a judge.”

“This hackathon made me feel empowered – not only as a judge but also as someone who works in and heads up legal teams,” said William Hayes, judge and Senior Lawyer at BBC. “I say empowered because I work with data scientists and technologists and developers, and often we are relying on them to try to get a solution developed. Seeing what the hackathon teams did with Apptitude, I feel like I can take my legal team now and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do it ourselves.’ We can use these tools. We can use these ideas and create something ourselves. So it was empowering. I think that was something that I didn’t expect.”

After much deliberation and admiration for all the teams and their Apps, the judges selected the winner.

And the Winner Is …

TEAM IP!

Congratulations to Team IP and all the teams!

Thank you to everyone who participated in Hack the House.

Team EU

  • Ed Rastelli, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Lee Harrison, BT Group
  • Robert Johnson, Onit
  • Claire Banham, Onit
  • Alyssa Kokilah, Cognia Law
  • Tyler Reno, Onit

Team HR

  • Curtis Batterton, McDonald’s
  • Chris Hultgren, Deere and Company
  • Weston Wicks, Morae Global
  • Brett Baccus, Morae Global
  • Dipish Parmar, Morae Global
  • David Duffey, Onit

Team IP

  • Matt Burdman, Colgate Palmolive
  • Ken Capece, Colgate Palmolive
  • Ed Kelly, Colgate Palmolive
  • Nadine Stuttle, Duff and Phelps
  • Rebecca Cotton, Duff and Phelps
  • Atlantis Langowski, Onit
  • Larry Gianneschi, Colgate Palmolive
  • Josie Johnson, Onit

Team Diversity

  • Eric Kabot, Royal Caribbean Cruises LTD.
  • Michele Compasso, Corteva Agriscience
  • Gregg McConnell, Corteva Agriscience
  • Jesse Viani, Onit
  • Sam Lu, Consilio
  • Lisa Morris,  Consilio
  • Debby Young, Consilio
  • Rhonda Oliver, Onit

Team Pro Bono

  • Nick Panagoplos, Chubb
  • Kim Takacs, Chubb
  • Paige Edwards, Onit
  • Massimo Penzo, Morae Global

Thank you also to Cosmonauts, who collaborated with Onit on Hack the House.

These Legal Operations Pros Hacked the House. Now You Decide Which App Wins.

Posted on December 3, 2020 by - Company News and Events

Three weeks ago, Onit kicked off its inaugural legal operations hackathon – Hack the House. The friendly competition, which includes Onit customers, partners and staff, has one goal: to see who can best use Onit Apptitude to solve challenges faced by legal departments and the business units they support.

Now, we need your vote to determine who will win Hack the House.

Five teams of legal operations experts have created Onit Apptitude Apps that address challenges in areas such as HR, IP, data breaches, diversity and Pro Bono work. (You can see demos of each App here.)

App: Data Breach Incident Reporting

Team Name: Team EU

Members:

  • Robert Johnson, Onit
  • Claire Banham, Onit
  • Alyssa Kokilah, Cognia Law
  • Ed Rastelli, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Lee Harrison, BT Group
  • Tyler Reno, Onit

Organizations must take immediate action to report potential data breaches to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours. Team EU created joined the legal operations hackathon to build an App that reports, manages and tracks data breaches and notifies regulators. It collects data breach information, automatically sends a notice to the security and compliance team and offers a rules-based dashboard and a quick entry point to review records. It even generates ICO reports and submits them in addition to collecting feedback from the organization.

App: Mentorship and Career Development

Team Name: Team HR

Members:

  • Weston Wicks, Morae Global
  • Brett Baccus, Morae Global
  • Dipish Parmar, Morae Global
  • Curtis Batterton, McDonald’s
  • Chris Hultgren, Deere and Company
  • David Duffey, Onit

Team HR, or rather “Hackathon Royalty,” created an App that allows people seeking professional development to connect to people who can offer it. Mentors and mentees can access the App to fill out a short intake form and provide information about themselves, their areas of interest and hobbies. It alerts users of new projects that align with their interests, giving them the ability to review and apply. Overall, it enables self-serve professional development while allowing a central administration to oversee the process.

App: Trademark Renewals and Trade Secrets Access Management

Team name: Team IP

Members:

  • Nadine Stuttle, Duff and Phelps
  • Rebecca Cotton, Duff and Phelps
  • Matt Burdman, Colgate Palmolive
  • Ken Capece, Colgate Palmolive
  • Atlantis Langowski, Onit
  • Larry Gianneschi, Colgate Palmolive
  • Josie Johnson, Onit

 Team IP, who consider themselves the “dark horse” in this legal operations hackathon, has used Apptitude to automate the annual trademark renewal process. This exercise typically includes highly manual work and often relies on stakeholders in various regions and departments to decide whether to renew or not. The App streamlines the process, providing visibility into the status of each trademark renewal and automating some of the communications and reminders involved while gathering decisions.

App: Vendor and Law Firm Diversity Tracking

Team name: Team Diversity

Members:

  • Eric Kabot, Royal Caribbean Cruises LTD.
  • Michele Compasso, Corteva Agriscience
  • Gregg McConnell, Corteva Agriscience
  • Jesse Viani, Onit
  • Sam Lu, Consilio
  • Lisa Morris, Consilio
  • Debby Young, Consilio
  • Rhonda Oliver, Onit

Team Diversity has devised an App-based solution to help expand opportunities for diversity and an equal opportunity workspace. Using the App, a legal operations professional can gather a high-level view of each of their law firm’s diversity efforts, as well as track historical progress and report on efforts. The App sends law firms a survey to gather the information, where they can share their diversity status and initiatives.

App: Pro Bono Program Management

Team Name: Team Pro Bono

Members:

  • Nick Panagoplos, Chubb
  • Kim Takacs, Chubb
  • Paige Edwards, Onit
  • Massimo Penzo, Morae Global

For decades, lawyers have volunteered their time and expertise to donate legal services to those in need. In recognition of this effort, Team Pro Bono has built a solution to help Pro Bono leadership track, manage, recognize and report on time spent by attorneys of these programs. The App provides details for Pro Bono opportunities, including the location and can volunteer via the App. Using the App, Pro Bono program administrators can generate thank you notes to participants and review and report on all Pro Bono activities employees participated in.

Vote now!

Now it’s your turn. Choose the team you think has built the best App and vote for your favorite! Voting closes on Friday, December 11 at 5 p.m. EST, so vote soon.

As a thank you for your vote, we will enter you for a chance to win an electric scooter –  the same grand prize the hackathon winners will receive. The winner of the scooter will be selected at random from the public voting pool.

We invite you to join us on December 15 at 11 a.m. EST for the Hack the House winner announcement.

Many thanks to Cosmonauts, who collaborated with us on Hack the House. And many thanks to everyone who participated. All the teams and their Apps are already considered winners!

The Great Debate: Three Teams of Legal Operations Management Experts Explore How to Reduce Outside Counsel Expenses

Posted on December 2, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The general counsel of your $30 billion conglomerate approaches you with a request. As the new GC, she’s looking to make her mark while addressing the unique challenges brought on by COVID. She’s tasked you with a critical mission: Discover how the corporate legal department can reduce outside counsel expenses.

This was the hypothetical scenario presented in a recent debate hosted by Buying Legal Council and Onit. Three teams of legal operations professionals examined how to accomplish this for this fictional company, which has $200 million in legal spend, a panel of 100-200 law firms and 75 internal staff in multiple countries. Here’s an overview of what each team proposed.

Team One: Bring More Work In-House

Members:

  • William Bremner, Sr. Director, Law Department Management, Consilio (captain)
  • Vianka Wong, Sr. Corporate Paralegal, Tronox
  • Roycee Hasuko, Director of Product Engagement, SimpleLegal

The first team proposed in-house staffing optimization, including work analysis and skills assessment, to preserve in-house positions while maximizing existing resources. This included a value review of all outside counsel work based on a level of complexity, quality and cost. Based on this research and resulting analytics, the team proposed a Legal Entity Management beta program that brought more work in-house and resulted in 60% program savings. When extrapolated to an entire year, the team found a potential for outside counsel savings of $34 million.

Team Two: Leverage Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) More

Members:

  • Robin Snasdell, Managing Director, Consilio (captain)
  • Jo Ellen Hatfield, Sr. Manager, Procurement Professional Services, Bunge Ltd.
  • Brad Rogers, COO and Chief of Staff, TIAA

Team Two determined that the best way to achieve savings with the lowest risk and better results is to leverage ALSPs. This “replacement cost revolution” relies on new firms offering alternative ways to get work done at a lower cost.  Lawyers spend 25% of their time below their license and permanent staff can eventually end up overqualified. The ALSPs offer numerous opportunities, including costing three to seven times less than in-house or law firms, instant access to talent and expertise and the ability to “plug and play” repetitive tasks with established and consistent performance metrics.

Team Three: Renegotiate Terms With Existing Outside Counsel

Members:

  • Silvia Hodges-Silverstein, Buying Legal Council (captain)
  • Greg Kaple, Sr. Director Legal Department, Kaiser Foundation
  • Richard Brzakala, Director Global Legal Services, CIBC

Team Three advocated for renegotiation to focus on transparency, partnership and innovation. In this scenario, the company’s relationship with firms goes beyond transactional work. However, there is still the need to balance the value of those relationships with the company’s fiscal responsibility to shareholders ahead of a potential economic downturn. The team recommends cost management actions such as a temporary moratorium on market-rate increases, budgeting, leveraging technology to reduce costs and an emphasis on working effectively and efficiently. As a result, cost savings could measure up to $1.75 million with information security mitigating against higher costs on items such as class action litigation and increased insurance premiums.

After a round of questions from GC judges Stasha Jain of Onit and Michael Flanagan of Consilio, debate attendees selected the winning team.

We won’t spoil the results here, but we do invite you to watch the recorded debate to learn about the strategy and tactics recommended by each team. Congratulations to all the teams on their insightful work.

This debate is part of  Lean Into LegalOps, a virtual learning and networking program for legal operations professionals worldwide. For notices of future educational events, sign up here.

Building a Future on Artificial Intelligence in Contracts: Onit Acquires McCarthyFinch

Posted on November 17, 2020 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management

Hear Onit’s CEO and the GM of the Onit AI Center of Excellence Discuss the Acquisition of McCarthyFinch and the Evolution of the Company in Our Latest Podcast

Today, we launched the next generation of Onit – one powered by artificial intelligence in contracts and a plaftorm.

Onit has acquired McCarthyFinch, a New Zealand-based company with an artificial intelligence platform. With this technology, legal professionals can accelerate contract reviews and approvals by up to 70% and increase productivity by more than 50%.

According to Onit’s CEO and co-founder, Eric M. Elfman, “AI is a natural extension of our evolution. Our vision is to build AI into our workflow platform and every product across the Onit and SimpleLegal product portfolios. In addition to acquiring award-winning technology, we have gained some of the brightest minds in the AI space.”

The Next Generation of Onit

McCarthyFinch is now the Onit AI Center of Excellence dedicated to AI innovation for contract lifecycle management, enterprise legal management and more.

Nick Whitehouse, CEO and co-founder of McCarthyFinch, will serve as General Manager of the Onit AI Center of Excellence. For more than 15 years, he has consistently delivered technological innovation with extensive experience in artificial intelligence and digital transformation. He is joined by Jean Yang, who is now Vice President of the Onit AI Center of Excellence.

Introducing Precedent and ReviewAI

The technology from the McCarthyFinch acquisition powers two new AI-based products from Onit.

Precedent is Onit’s intelligence platform that reads, writes and reasons like a lawyer. It joins Onit’s workflow automation platform Apptitude, making Onit the first in its space with two platforms.

ReviewAI is the first release on Precedent. It brings AI to pre-signature contract review, streamlining intelligent activities like contract creation, redlining, complex negotiations and risk rating contracts.

“Drafting contracts and redlining documents shouldn’t take up 70% of a lawyer’s time, as statistics suggest. There’s a better way to work,” says Whitehouse. “With AI, we’ve dramatically changed the contract management lifecycle and enabled businesses to move faster, provide higher-quality services and lower the cost of legal services. We are excited to join the Onit team and apply AI to Onit’s contract lifecycle management solution and expansive product offerings.”

Listen to the Podcast

In this podcast, Elfman and Whitehouse discuss the acquisition, the new platform and products and their vision for Onit and artificial intelligence in contracts.

Register for the Webinar and Find More Information

If you would like additional ways to learn more about the acquisition, consider these options:

  1. View the launch video.
  2. Read more about Precedent and ReviewAI.
  3. Read the press release.
  4. Register for the webinar on December 10 to see a demo of the AI Precedent platform and ReviewAI.

Ahead of the 2020 CLOC Global Institute, Here Are Our Favorite CLOC Resources

Posted on November 4, 2020 by - Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

The annual Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) Global Institute is just around the corner, meaning hundreds – if not thousands – of innovative professionals devoted to legal ops will (virtually) gather to talk trends, benchmarks, structures and best practices. Attendees will hear from significant changemakers like EY, Harvard and VMWare as well as general counsels from Coca-Cola, Easy Jet and Microsoft.

The goal of the CLOC Institute is to disseminate actionable steps that can be taken to drive specific changes – things many can get excited about, get involved in and make happen, rather than talking about a tipping point and change. With educational sessions provided by practicing industry leaders, the 2002 CLOC Global Institute offers unrivaled opportunities to stay on the cutting edge of today’s legal operations trends and technologies.

Top-Three CLOC Resources

Onit is proud to be a sponsor of the event because what CLOC does is genuinely empowering.  CLOC unites a global community of experts focused on redefining the business of law. By helping legal operations professionals and industry players collaborate, including law firms, technology providers, and law schools, CLOC works to set industry standards and practices for the profession. As part of this process, it also provides legal ops professionals with tools and insight.

If you haven’t had a chance to explore their website or join, we highly recommend both. As a start, we’ve highlighted some of our favorite CLOC resources.

  1. The 2020 CLOC State of the Industry Survey – How does your corporate legal department compare to others? Take a deep dive into this annual report to discover average staffing, preferred technologies, law firm review criteria and priorities for the year. For example, did you know that 61 cents of every dollar spent on legal costs goes to external legal costs? You can read our analysis of the report’s most interesting points here.
  2. What is Legal Ops? – Successful legal operations professionals master numerous skill sets. As one legal industry expert described it, “Not only are they juggling 20 balls, all the balls are different sizes.” Their work sows operational excellence across disciplines such as financial management, firm and vendor management, service delivery models and strategic planning. CLOC created this one-stop guide to dive into precisely what legal operations does and why – as well as results – in this document.
  3. Legal Ops Tech Roadmap – Whether your corporate legal department is two or 200, this how-to guide proves useful. IT contains pointers on everything from defining key value propositions to developing a budget and presenting to stakeholders. For those corporate legal departments transitioning to more modern operations, it is a blueprint. For larger ones, it serves as a reminder of valuable basics to keep your legal ops tech roadmap on target.

Visit Onit at CLOC 

We will have some big news to share very soon. Visit us in the exhibit hall and you’ll find out how to be the first to know. Plus, if you sign up for a demo or schedule one, you’ll get lunch on us in the form of a DoorDash gift card.

See you at the CLOC Global Institute.

Meet the Hackers Who Are Reengineering Legal Operations Technology

Posted on October 26, 2020 by - Company News and Events

Are you ready for a friendly legal operations technology competition? These legal leaders raised their hands and said, “Hack, yeah!”

Two weeks ago, we announced our new hackathon: Hack the House.

The competition unites Onit customers, partners and staff to re-imagine legal operations technology. With the no-code Onit Apptitude platform, they’re creating Apps to address real challenges faced by corporate legal departments.

The competition, held in conjunction with Cosmonauts, welcomes five teams, including Team IP, Team HR, Team Europe, Team Diversity and Team Pro Bono. Each team has three weeks to identify a problem, define requirements and build the solution.

Winners will be determined by public voting (sign up here to get the notices) and a judging panel of in-house legal leaders that features:

  • Kristi Anne Gedid, Sr. Director Global Legal Operations, Mylan
  • Mary Shirley, Head of Culture of Integrity and Compliance Education, Fresenius
  • Maria Anassutzi, Legal IP Counsel EMEA, Canon Europe
  • William Hayes, Senior Lawyer, BBC
  • Jonathan Powers, Director of Learning and Development, Onit

Voting opens in December, with winners announced before the end of the year.

Ready to meet the legal and business experts, certified App Builders and project managers blazing a new trail for legal operations technology? Let’s do it.

Team Europe

Our team overseas is packed with talent. Led by Robert Johnson, Onit’s managing director (you may have seen his spirited series on Legaltech101), the team also has:

  • Ed (Eduardo) Rastelli, Legal Consultant at Standard Chartered Bank
  • Lee Harrison, Senior Developer – Legal Systems at BT Group
  • Alyssa Kokilah, Legal Consultant at Cognia Law
  • Claire Banham, Associate Director Sales Engineer at Onit
  • Tyler Reno, Sales Engineer at Onit

Team IP

Team IP brings some real heavy hitters together to combat legal operations inefficiencies for intellectual property. It includes:

  • Matt (Matthew) Burdman, Global Legal Organization and finance manager at Colgate-Palmolive
  • Ken Capece, Manager, Patent and GLO Operations at Colgate-Palmolive
  • Larry (Lawrence) Gianneschi, Director, Legal Technology at Colgate-Palmolive
  • Nadine Stuttle, Managing Director at Duff & Phelps
  • Rebecca Cotton, Analyst at Duff & Phelps
  • Atlantis Langowski, Account Manager at Onit
  • Josie Johnson, Marketing Director at Onit

Team HR

HR and legal go together like Jobs and Wozniak (well, in the early days). This team of pros will identify a critical HR/legal challenge and take it down with technology. Members include:

  • Curtis Batterton, Legal Operations & Global Technology Manager at McDonald’s Corporation
  • Chris Hultgren, Business Analyst – Global IT HR at Deere & Company
  • Weston Wicks, Director of Legal Technology Implementations at Morae Global
  • Brett Baccus, Managing Director at Morae Global
  • Dipesh Parmar, Sr. Associate at Morae Global
  • David Duffey, Account Manager at Onit

Team Diversity

From CEOs to GC, businesses are prioritizing diversity. This team of legal ops leaders will streamline and automate a critical diversity-related process to further this initiative. Working on this team are:

  • Eric Kabot, Director, Senior Associate Counsel at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.
  • Michele Compasso, Legal Ops Consultant at Corteva Agriscience™
  • Gregg McConnell, Legal Operations Leader at Corteva Agriscience™
  • Sam Lu Consilio, Lisa Morris and Debby Young for Consilio
  • Jesse Viani, Regional Sales Director and Senior Account Manager at Onit
  • Rhonda Oliver, Account Manager at Onit

Team Pro Bono

And finally, our final team includes these talented individuals working on a solution to track an organization’s pro bono legal efforts:

  • Nick Panagoplos, Manager at Chubb
  • Kim Takacs, VP of Corporate Real Estate at Chubb
  • Massimo Penzo, Sr. Consultant at Morae
  • Paige Edwards, Director of Customer Experience at Onit

We’ll have more updates as Hack the House continues. Sign up for the latest news on these teams’ progress. Good luck to everyone!

Advice from Travel and Hospitality Legal Operations Leaders on How to Address Pandemic Challenges

Posted on October 22, 2020 by - Company News and Events

The U.S. Travel Industry estimates that travel spending is now 41% lower than last year at this time, representing a $9.1 billion loss. These losses are not a surprise, considering the rise of social distancing and stay-at-home orders. People have canceled vacation plans, including flights, hotels, cruises and more – resulting in $415 billion in cumulative losses for the U.S. travel economy. Restrictions resulting from the pandemic will have an even larger impact globally, with one study claiming that worldwide tourism revenues may take a $3.4 trillion hit.

Travel and hospitality legal departments face challenging times as their companies react, rethink and reset. Now more than ever is a time for legal operations professionals to connect and compare strategies and experiences.

On October 7, Onit and HBR Consulting held a virtual discussion with corporate legal department leaders in these industries to hear how they have been impacted by COVID-19, what changes they are planning for the short and long term and how lessons from this crisis will inform their approach to legal issues in the future.

The panelists, moderated by Kevin Clem, Chief Commercial Officer for HBR Consulting , included:

  • Fred Headon, Assistant General Counsel – Labour and Employment Law for Air Canada
  • Eric Kabot, Senior Associate Counsel of Royal Caribbean
  • Saumil Mehta, Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel of Gogo Air

The webinar, titled Checking in on Travel & Hospitality Legal Departments, is now available for on-demand viewing. It is one in a series of Onit’s online learning program for legal operations professionals called Lean Into LegalOps.

Pivots, Cross-Collaboration and More

No matter what impact the pandemic has on your company, the discussion offers valuable insight into navigating through unexpected changes.

Eric Kabot shared how Royal Caribbean’s corporate legal department has undergone staff reductions and now accomplishes more with fewer resources. As a result, the team has shifted from focusing on their respective functional areas prior to the pandemic to a cross-collaborative environment. Fred Headon of Air Canada described how they pivoted their business model on several fronts and how this change has affected the company and its legal operations. Saumil Mehta also said his company, Gogo Air, has changed course as well and emphasized the importance of partnerships and creativity in trying times. According to him, products from Onit helped when the pandemic hit – especially since they had to start working from home.

To hear more from the speakers, you can watch the recorded webinar here.

More Learning Opportunities for Corporate Legal Operations

Onit’s fall series for Lean Into LegalOps continues with more timely learning exchanges, including:

  • Virtual Legal Resourcing Debate with Buying Legal Council, where three debate teams present scenarios to their hypothetical general counsel, who has asked for options to reduce expenses related to outside counsel. (Wednesday, November 18 | 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. CST).
  • The GC’s Guide to Contracts and a Single Point of Truth, as Prosus explains its digitalization initiative and platform technology strategy to improve legal operations. (Thursday, December 10 |  2:00 p.m. BST / 8:00 a.m. CST)

You can register for these events and hear past ones here.

Are Legal Operations Professionals Ready to Hack the House? Hack, Yeah!

Posted on October 13, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The next time you’re tapping your iPhone or reviewing a contract on your MacBook Pro, you might want to thank hackathons.

In 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club met for the first time in Menlo Park, California. The group of technology enthusiasts – a group credited as the originator of hackathons – united to talk shop and Altair 8800, swap parts and share information on how to DIY computers. Members influenced by the club included … wait for it … Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who credited the organization with inspiring Apple’s founding.

Hackathons organized more concretely in 1999, with groups collaborating on cryptographic software and a program for Palm Vs. Throughout the years, hackathons have grown in size and frequency, creating companies including GroupMe and Zapier and finding new ways to solve problems. For example, one hackathon focused on discovering how digital technologies can support the epilepsy community. There’s even a company that operates a league for student hackathons.

What’s a Hackathon?

We hear the word a lot. While some may be quite familiar with it, others may not. So let’s define it. Hackathon is a meshing of “hack” and “marathon.” In a general sense, it’s a collaborative group that works together to solve problems using technology.  For example, Onit united with Consilio and Adobe earlier this year to create the Evergreen Donation Emergency Network (EDEN) for a hackathon to solve complex COVID-19 problems. The app, built on Onit Apptitude (a workflow and business process automation platform), connects donors with excess supplies to organizations in need. You can view the EDEN demo here.

Who can Participate?

Hackathons aren’t just for coders. The best results come when people with different strengths and backgrounds are involved. They bring their perspective to the project, which creates stronger results. For example, coders can build a workflow to solve a problem. Still, you need people with intimate knowledge of (for example) the corporate legal operations or process experts to ensure you get the best outcome.

Hack the House

Now, Onit continues to foster innovation with the launch of a new hackathon: Hack the House.

Sign up for Hack the House updatesHack the House, a collaboration with Cosmonauts, is a friendly competition between Onit customers, partners and staff to see who can build the most useful and compelling workflow and collaboration solution using Onit Apptitude.

Each team consists of legal and business experts, certified App Builders and project managers. The teams will have three weeks of virtual hackathon time to identify a challenge to solve, define requirements and build the solution.

Hack the House has of five teams, with each one focused on a particular challenge theme: Team IP, Team HR, Team Europe, Team Diversity and Team Pro Bono.

Once each team builds its solution, the Onit sales engineering team will help them put together a demo story and short video to highlight the solution’s strengths. A judging panel of in-house legal leaders and a public vote open to everyone will determine the winner.

That’s right – you can vote on which team should win. To keep tabs on the hackathon’s project, sign up for updates here. You’ll want to sign up soon because the team members will be released next week.

We’ll announce the winner in early December. Good luck to all the teams!

Workflow and Business Process Automation for Corporate Legal Operations

Corporate legal departments have used Onit Apptitude for years to build innovative solutions to solve enterprise challenges. More than 5,500 apps and 130 solutions have been built on Apptitude, with varying uses such as enterprise legal management, automating the TREAD reporting process and managing the necessary business processes, reviews and approvals for the transfer of assets between portfolio companies. You can read about all the different ways corporate legal has leaned on Apptitude here.

Remember, sign up for Hack the House updates. You’ll be hearing more soon!

The Women, Influence & Power Summit: Furthering Diversity in the Legal Community

Posted on October 9, 2020 by - Company News and Events

General counsel want diversity from their law firms – and they’ll prioritize business based on that.

More than 170 general counsel and corporate legal executives from companies such as Google Fiber, Lyft and Heineken USA signed an open letter stating this in 2019. An excerpt reads:

“We expect the outside law firms we retain to reflect the diversity of the legal community and the companies and the customers we serve.” 

The statement validated the work of law firms focused on providing actionable results in support of diversity. It also served as a warning to those law firms slow to respond.

In December of 2019, the Vault/Minority Corporate Counsel Association Law Firm Diversity Survey results found that:

“Law firm populations are slowly becoming more diverse, although demographic changes have been slow to trickle upward, and firms continue to struggle with retention of diverse attorneys, particularly people of color. More women serve as partners and law firm leaders than in the past, although they have yet to achieve gender parity, and women of color enjoy fewer of these successes than their white colleagues.”

Diversity is a top priority for corporate legal, both for their departments and their outside counsel. The commitment started well before 2019 and will continue going forward as the legal community collaborates to build more diverse law firms and corporate legal departments.

Women, Influence & Power in Law

The annual summit Women, Influence & Power in Law (WIPL) has continually propelled awareness, interest and action to support diversity. For more than a decade, the conference has united prominent women in law to drive meaningful conversations and actionable solutions surrounding diversity, equality, and inclusion within the legal community. This year’s virtual gathering, scheduled for October 26-30, will be no exception, with keynotes from luminaries Tina Chen, President and CEO of the “Time’s Up” Legal Defense Fund and former chief of staff to Michelle Obama and Paula Boggs, founder of Boggs Media, LLC and executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, law and corporate affairs at Starbucks Corporation from 2002 to 2012.

Onit is proud to sponsor and participate in this year’s event.

Stasha Jain, vice president of legal and compliance for Onit, will host a roundtable session titled “Beyond Artificial Intelligence: The Future Of In House Legal Teams” on October 27 from 1:00-2:00 p.m. EST. Stasha has practiced law for more than 15 years, with in-house counsel experience at Onit, ZS Associates, Inc. and Hewitt Associates. The session will take a candid look at how in-house teams will transform in the near future and how technology can influence that change.

WIPL is free for in-house counsel and open to legal professionals who support diversity in the legal community. Visit here to register.

While you’re at the event, be sure to “stop by” to say hello to Onit via the Exhibitor Directory. If you join us for a demo, we’ll buy you lunch – or rather, a DoorDash gift card that you can use to treat yourself at your favorite restaurant. Even better: In addition to the gift card, those that watch a demo will have a chance to win a unique virtual foodie experience. We’re waiting until the conference to share more details. But trust us – this is worth it!

Continue the Diversity Discussion

Onit’s Lean Into LegalOps program hosts roundtable discussions every other week for legal operations professionals. One recurring topic will be diversity. If you’d like to join these roundtable calls and continue the diversity discussion, sign up for Lean Into LegalOps and you’ll get notifications of new events.