Category: Enterprise Legal Management

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

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

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

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

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

Onit Matter Management + BusyLamp eBilling.space Integration

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

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

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

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

The Key to Better Timekeeper Rate Reviews? Comprehensive Benchmark Data

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using Comprehensive Benchmark Data to Drive Timekeeper Rate Reviews

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

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

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

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

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

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

Getting Started with Efficient Timekeeper Rate Reviews

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

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

DATENGESTEUERTE ENTSCHEIDUNGEN IM RECHTSWESEN: 5 USE CASES IM FOKUS

Posted on February 28, 2023 by - Enterprise Legal Management

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

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

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

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

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

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

USE CASE: TRANSPARENZ DER AUSGABEN NACH TÄTIGKEITSKATEGORIE 

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

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

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

USE CASE: ENTSCHEIDUNG, WELCHE KANZLEI BEAUFTRAGT WERDEN SOLL 

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

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

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

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

USE CASE: ERREICHEN VON MENGENRABTT-MEILENSTEINEN 

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

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

USE CASE: BUSINESS CASE FÜR MEHR PERSONELLE RESSOURCEN 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diversity as a team sport

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

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

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

DenOuden concurred.

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

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

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

Courage is the key

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

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

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

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

What success looks like

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Using Data-Driven Solutions to Empower DEI in Legal: A Conversation

Posted on January 10, 2023 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Recently, Morae’s Managing Director Bret Baccus and Onit’s Senior VP of Strategy and Growth Brad Rogers sat down for a wide-ranging discussion (view the full webinar here). As part of the conversation, they spoke about DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) efforts in the legal industry and how data-driven tools can help these efforts. Hear their thoughts on this issue in this edited excerpt.

DEI and Legal

BRAD: On the idea of DEI and the importance of its strategic alignment to the legal department and the company as a whole: How have you seen this strategy play out? How have you seen DEI, as a priority, be driven by legal departments?

BRET: I think DEI has always been an important initiative for a legal department, and that legal — as a whole — has been a key driver within corporations around DEI. I think something shifted in the vernacular in the dialogue around DEI after the George Floyd situation. That focus and resurgence in DEI efforts remains significant in all departments, with an even bigger shift in law firms around it.Best practices and opportunities

BRAD: What are the best practices and opportunities for others to leverage data to have an impact on DEI efforts?

BRET: Several things come to mind regarding data collection to drive DEI efforts, even beyond vendor management. First, are you collecting important data from your law firms? There are different applications to do it; having it and using it with your ELM is critical, but there are different third-party applications on the market to consider. Those can aggregate that data so it can get reported to you based on matters and your law firms without exposing some of the more confidential information to individuals working on cases.

The other thing more departments are putting into place now is Mansfield Tracking. This covers your internal processes — what are you doing with candidate tracking overall? What are you doing internally with candidate tracking, and are you looking at appropriately diverse candidates and profiles as you go through the interview process? Some clients of Onit’s use the IT application to help set up and manage the Mansfield process for organizations; that’s just an area where Onit’s application works very well with DEI.

Making an immediate impact

BRAD: An observation: there are certainly law firms out there challenged with the diversity issue and are certainly aware of it. I believe their heart is in the right place, and they’re taking concrete things to have an impact — but that impact is slow. The numbers don’t change much, year-over-year. That’s just kind of the reality of the situation; you’re looking at the numbers, and that’s not very fast-moving.

However, if you look at the teams you source at the matter level, that your law firm partner is sourcing for you and your lawyers, you can use that data to look at the team and make some immediate steps towards choosing diverse options. That’s an immediate impact.

BRET: I couldn’t agree with you more. I mentioned that a variety of applications out there have a great tracking option to deliver that insight. One of my favorites, for example, is the SimpleLegal product from the Onit family; it has a fantastic DEI interface that makes it so easy to do what you were talking about with managing and examining various law firms.

This sort of data-driven look allows you to get a fundamental understanding of what’s happening with diversity efforts on a matter-by-matter basis at different law firms. I head up our organization’s DEI council, and when you start looking, you begin to understand and know what firms are committed to these efforts. Reed Smith, for example, is one law firm at the forefront of DEI efforts, trying to shift what they’re doing and how they’re impacting communities.

A lot of organizations and firms are looking at the DEI topic, but — as you said — the meter is moving slowly. It’s very much a long-term effort, but the good news is that we’re seeing more and more organizations start to make a real commitment to this work.

Click here to view the entire conversation between Bret and Brad.

4 Benefits of Modern Legal Spend Management Software

Posted on December 15, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In today’s economic climate, companies are increasingly focused on optimizing both internal and external resources; Legal is no exception. From simple spend visibility to cost control and efficiency, modern legal spend management solutions are helping forward-thinking General Counsels make more strategic, data-driven decisions about how they invest their outside counsel spend.

But what benefits can you expect from your legal spend management system? Let’s break them down here:

1. Better Strategic Decisions Driven By Data

When it comes to managing your outside counsel spend, everything (and we mean everything) starts with your data.

Legal billing — from getting rate visibility to discount clarity — is complicated. For example, your rate card and the effective rates you actually pay may be very different. Understanding that (and many other aspects of your bills) is critical to effective budgeting, forecasting, and strong outside counsel vendor management.

Knowing your numbers like the back of your hand won’t only help with budgeting or operational efficiency. Data will also help you make better, faster decisions. For example, which firm in a panel is most efficient for certain matter types? Are you overpaying because of inappropriate staffing decisions (e.g., partners executing associate level tasks or consistent meeting overstaffing)?

Fast access to trustworthy data that can be sliced and diced to support your business’ specific needs and your specific questions will not only save you and your team time and money, but it will also give you the fuel you need to make truly informed decisions fast.

2. Clear “Should Cost” Understanding

What should that big matter you have coming up actually cost? It’s a question GCs and finance departments ask themselves all the time, with little success. RFPs are often wildly off when it comes to predicting costs. It’s common for a matter to cost 150-200% of the firm’s original bid. So, what’s the best way to anticipate what a big upcoming matter will cost?

True, market-driven benchmarking is the only way to not only anticipate more accurate costs for upcoming matters, but also to obtain the most competitive rates or AFAs.

However, benchmarking can be tricky. Make sure your benchmarking solution considers practice area, matter type, and tier of firm. For example, you can’t compare complex real estate litigation with standard insurance claims litigation. You also can’t compare insurance claims litigation costs for one cause of loss with another, or from one jurisdiction to another. So, make sure your benchmarks allow you to get granular; anything less can leave you holding the bag on a very big and unexpected bill!

3. Better Governance

Managing your outside counsel firms can be challenging. Just enforcing guidelines accountability is not only time consuming but can also be like finding a needle in an intentionally large haystack. Even getting visibility on their staffing practices can be tough.

Modern legal spend management software can remove the headaches of guidelines compliance and provide much-needed visibility on staffing and billing practices for both you and your firms. Some solutions provide easy-to-use firm report cards that show trends over time on everything — average hours per matter, timekeeper breakdowns, rates, and more. When shared with your firms, report cards provide a fantastic basis for effective management; many forward-thinking GCs use them to drive quarterly or biannual reviews.

4. Clean, Structured, Usable Data

Data can provide a window into performance, highlighting meaningful opportunities for improvement. Most successful businesses have leveraged data for years to inform strategic decisions as well as operational efficiency – but not so much in legal departments.

Legal billing data is a necessity to understand all aspects of success. However, historically, legal billing data has been a mess (to put it mildly). With no standard taxonomy (way of organizing data), copious human error, and unique domain challenges led to a web of tangled data that in most cases just didn’t line up. With no apples-to-apples comparison possible, data often led to misleading takeaways and potentially poor decisions.

But, never fear. Advanced legal billing software can help you make sense of your data. By leveraging new technologies like machine learning and AI, cutting edge legal billing solutions can not only structure the data you have but also correct errors and enhance the data to allow for deeper insights.

Get in touch with our team of legal billing and data experts to find out how Onit can transform your legal department.

What is Legal Document Management?

Posted on December 6, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

As the name suggests, legal document management involves storing and handling documents related to legal matters. Lawyers deal in vast numbers of documents and files every day, from contracts, licenses, and letters to emails, notices, and reports. For this reason, they need access to systems that not only help store documents but also track, manage and search them. In fact, document management should not be confused with document storage, which is merely the saving and ordering of documents within folders either stored locally or in a file server.

Document management is so much more. While there are numerous digital document management tools, document management practices for legal often differ significantly compared to standards in other industries. As a result, dedicated legal document management software emerged in the 1990s to support law firms and in-house legal teams. Since then, the legal document management market has matured dramatically, and the solutions have moved into the cloud and become collaborative.

ESSENTIAL FEATURES OF A LEGAL DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (DMS)

There are now many legal document management tools that can help legal teams to manage all their documents and correspondence; it can sometimes take time to know where to start and what functionality to look for. Before we get to some more interesting features, let’s start with the basic functionality essential for an excellent legal document management system.

STORE, ORGANIZE, AND SEARCH

A legal DMS should enable legal teams to store, organize and search their legal documents. This involves being able to move and copy documents where needed. Users should be able to record metadata about each document (e.g., matter number, team, location, etc.), and that metadata should be searchable along with the file name and document contents.

VERSION CONTROL

A legal DMS should also have version control functionality – allowing different versions of the same document to be saved (and in some cases restored), with the ability to check out documents to prevent version conflict. Auditing is also critical; there should be a record of every interaction between a user and a document version to clarify who did what and when.

NATIVE COMPATIBILITY

Documents should be able to be opened in their native applications directly from the legal DMS. It’s also vital that documents (both a copy and a link to the underlying document) can be shared via the legal DMS. With so many documents exchanged over email, integration with MS Outlook and other email clients is essential so that documents can be sent via email and emails and their attachments can be saved to the system. For this reason, it’s also crucial that legal document management systems support the storage of both emails and their metadata.

NUMBERING

Finally, a numbering convention is necessary with many documents and versions handled. Look for systems that automatically number documents, including matter and version numbers.

IMPORTANT LEGAL DMS FUNCTIONALITY

As well as the core features, there is another key functionality you should look for in a legal document management system.

SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE

A legal professional must adhere to industry compliance and security standards. When choosing a legal DMS, ensure it has top-grade and industry-recognized security certifications (ISO, HIPAA, and SOC) and excellent infrastructure security, including firewalls, application-level filtering, antivirus scanning, and intrusion detection. Also, ensure that data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. Application security is also vital – for example, password expiry and IP restrictions for cloud-based solutions. Any legal DMS vendor should be backing up data to multiple secure locations to ensure data integrity, and robust disaster recovery procedures should be in place.

Look for products that are thoroughly and regularly audited by third-party security experts who provide penetration testing and more. If you opt for a cloud solution, ensure you know where your data will be stored and that the data centers have state-of-the-art physical security.

RECORDS MANAGEMENT

Records management involves managing the creation, use, management, and disposal of records, including certain documents. It’s a critical component of most organizations’ risk and compliance activities. Therefore, any legal document management system should be able to allocate unique identifiers to documents, prevent unauthorized changes to documents, lock documents to avoid modification, and create audit trails of the document lifecycle. The system should also support retention scheduling and rules for how long different documents should be kept. These rules should be assigned based on the type of document. Finally, the legal DMS should allow for the disposition of documents that no longer need to be retained.

PERMISSIONS MANAGEMENT

Look for systems that provide role-based permissioning to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to sensitive information. With this functionality, documents and folders can be restricted for access by certain users or groups only. However, sometimes more than this level of permissioning is needed when specific matters and associated data need to be completely hidden from all but a small group of people. Just because you can’t see a particular document doesn’t mean metadata (e.g., matter name) will also be hidden in other system areas, such as lookups, which could be a problem for highly sensitive matters. Look for legal DMS that lock down the whole matter by hiding the matter and its data and documents from appearing anywhere in the system for non-authorized users.

INTEGRATIONS

Documents, and contracts, in particular, are part of a broader lifecycle encompassing drafting, review, negotiation, execution, and management. While legal document management systems help with storage and versioning, many legal teams rely on other tools to support the different elements of the document lifecycle. For this reason, when looking at legal DMS, you should make sure it has the integrations you need right now and the future integrations you may need. At a minimum, ensure the system integrates well with Microsoft Office and Outlook.

Given we are now a remote workforce following the pandemic, look for tools that integrate with collaboration and instant messaging tools like MS Teams and Slack. You can also look at integrations with document assembly tools for drafting documents and eSignature tools for document execution. You may also favor legal DMS platforms that integrate with artificial intelligence (AI) tools so that you can intelligently sort, categorize and review your documents and extract meaningful data. AI integrations can significantly improve the search quality within your legal DMS.

Legal documents go hand-in-hand with legal matters and projects. There needs to be a very close alignment between a legal DMS and a matter management system. This enables matter data to be associated with documents and invoices in the legal DMS, and the matter management system pulls in relevant documents for a particular matter. For legal teams to operate efficiently, they need to consolidate and align their data across multiple systems. This also offers the best user experience, so users are not always “context switching” into different software tools. All your systems need to communicate so counsel can navigate easily across matters and their documents. Legal teams should be looking to start building their “legal operations space” – consisting of a legal document management system alongside matter management, eBilling, and contract management software.

DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS

When purchasing a legal DMS, you will likely have two primary deployment options: on-premise, which means the application and documents will be hosted and stored in your organization’s own IT infrastructure, and cloud, where they are hosted and stored on secure remote servers within one or more data centers. There is a third option – hybrid storage, where the application is cloud-hosted, but documents and data are stored on-premise.

Cloud has its benefits in terms of speed of deployment, scalability, and reduced cost of operation and maintenance; however, on-premise and hybrid solutions are suitable for organizations that want more control over their data and have higher security requirements. Organizations such as financial institutions need very high levels of security. While some cloud providers can meet these standards, some organizations will always insist on on-premise deployments. Make sure you know what your organization expects by deployment and document hosting and that the legal DMS will support this.

COLLABORATION AND PRODUCTIVITY

A good legal document management system will help you and your team get work done. Document collaboration is increasingly moving online with document co-authoring tools, including those with MS Office online. This offers a better drafting experience where colleagues can work in real-time to amend and refine documents. Legal DMS systems should offer collaboration tools and integrations to help users not only store and locate documents but also work on them. Look for legal DMS platforms that offer a range of collaboration functionality – from co-authoring and annotations to commenting and approvals. With a growing remote workforce, see if the legal DMS has tools supporting asynchronous working across remotely dispersed teams. Also, consider exploring AI tools to deliver intelligent search capability so users have better access to legal knowledge in context.

TRANSFORM CHAOS INTO ORDER WITH A LEGAL DMS

A legal DMS can transform the way your legal team works, collaborates, and accesses knowledge. It will bring order to the chaos of legal documents and will create a secure and searchable repository that gives your team quick and straightforward access to the documents they need when they need them. The right integrations and functionality will help manage entire document lifecycles and make your legal team more productive with collaboration tools.

Stop hunting down documents across email, local folders, and shared drives, and make the leap to a modern legal DMS. Hopefully, our tips for what to consider will set you and your team on course for an efficient and productive future where working with documents is a pleasure — and not a chore.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

WAS IST LEGAL DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT? 

Posted on December 6, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Wie der Begriff schon sagt, umfasst das Legal Document Management das Speichern und Verwalten von Dokumenten, die sich auf rechtliche Angelegenheiten beziehen. Anwälte arbeiten täglich mit einer hohen Anzahl an Dokumenten und Dateien; von Verträgen, Lizenzen und Briefen bis hin zu E-Mails, Bescheiden und Berichten. Aus diesem Grund benötigen sie Zugang zu Systemen, die nicht nur das Speichern von Dokumenten ermöglichen, sondern auch das Verfolgen, Verwalten und Suchen erleichtern. Tatsächlich sollte das Dokumentenmanagement nicht mit der Dokumentenablage verwechselt werden, bei der es sich lediglich um das Speichern und Sortieren von Dokumenten in Ordnern handelt, die entweder lokal oder auf einem Dateiserver gespeichert sind. Das Dokumentenmanagement geht weit darüber hinaus. 

Es gibt zwar zahlreiche Tools für das digitale Dokumentenmanagement, jedoch unterscheiden sich die Praktiken des Dokumentenmanagements im juristischen Bereich oft stark von den Standards in anderen Branchen. Daher entstand in den 1990er Jahren eine spezielle Software, die Kanzleien und interne Rechtsteams bei der Verwaltung juristischer Dokumente unterstützt. Seitdem ist der Markt für juristisches Dokumentenmanagement stark gereift – Cloud-Lösungen wurden entwickelt und fokussieren sich auf die Kollaboration von Legal Teams.  

WESENTLICHE MERKMALE EINES DOKUMENTENMANAGEMENTSYSTEMS (DMS) 

Wie bereits erwähnt existieren mittlerweile zahlreiche Legal Document Management Softwareanbieter, die Rechtsteams beim Verwalten aller Dokumente und der Korrespondenz unterstützen. Die Anzahl ist so überwältigend, dass die Herausforderung eher darin liegt, das geeignete System auszuwählen und die benötigten Funktionen richtig zu definieren. Bevor wir zu den relevantesten Funktionen kommen, möchten wir uns einigen grundlegenden Funktionen widmen, die für ein gutes Legal Dokumentenmanagement-System unerlässlich sind: 

SPEICHERN, ORGANISIEREN UND SUCHEN 

Ein juristisches DMS sollte es Rechtsteams ermöglichen, ihre Dokumente zu speichern, zu organisieren und zu durchsuchen. Dazu gehört die Möglichkeit, Dokumente bei Bedarf zu verschieben und zu kopieren. Benutzer:innen sollten in der Lage sein, Metadaten zu jedem Dokument zu erfassen (z. B. Aktenzeichen, Team, Standort) und diese Metadaten sollten zusammen mit dem Dateinamen und dem Dokumentinhalt durchsuchbar sein. 

VERSIONSKONTROLLE 

Ein Legal DMS sollte auch über Versionskontrollfunktionen verfügen – so können verschiedene Versionen desselben Dokuments gespeichert (und in manchen Fällen wiederhergestellt) werden. So wird die Möglichkeit gegeben, Dokumente zu kontrollieren, um Versionskonflikte zu vermeiden. Auditing ist ebenfalls wichtig – es sollte eine Aufzeichnung jeder Interaktion zwischen Benutzer:innen und einer Dokumentversion geben, damit klar ist, wer wann welche Änderung vorgenommen hat. 

KOMPATIBILITÄT MIT DER VORHANDENEN IT-LANDSCHAFT 

Dokumente sollten in ihren nativen Anwendungen direkt aus dem Legal DMS geöffnet werden können. Außerdem ist es wichtig, dass Dokumente (sowohl eine Kopie als auch ein Link zum zugrunde liegenden Dokument) über das juristische DMS geteilt werden können. 

Da in der Regel eine hohe Anzahl an Dokumenten per E-Mail ausgetauscht werden, ist eine Integration mit MS Outlook und anderen E-Mail-Clients unerlässlich. So können Dokumente per E-Mail versendet werden und E-Mails und deren Anhänge lassen sich im System speichern. Aus diesem Grund ist es auch wichtig, dass Legal Document Management-Systeme das Speichern sowohl von E-Mails als auch von deren Metadaten unterstützen. 

NUMBERING 

Bei vielen Dokumenten und Versionen ist eine Nummerierungskonzept notwendig. Achten Sie daher auf Systeme, die Dokumente automatisch nummerieren, einschließlich Sach- und Versionsnummern. 

Neben den Kernfunktionen gibt es weitere wichtige Funktionen, die es bei Legal Document Management-Systemen zu beachten gilt: 

SICHERHEIT UND COMPLIANCE 

Jurist:innen müssen sicherstellen, dass das System die Compliance- und Sicherheitsstandards der Branche einhält. Achten Sie bei der Auswahl eines Legal DMS darauf, dass es über erstklassige und branchenweit anerkannte Sicherheitszertifizierungen verfügt, wie beispielsweise ISO, HIPAA und SOC. Zusätzlich sollte es über eine ausgezeichnete Infrastruktursicherheit verfügen, einschließlich Firewalls, Application-Level-Filterung, Antiviren-Scanning und Intrusion Detection, um wertvolle Informationen zu schützen. Stellen Sie außerdem sicher, dass die Daten sowohl bei der Übertragung als auch im Ruhezustand verschlüsselt sind. Auch die Anwendungssicherheit ist von entscheidender Bedeutung – wie der Passwort-Ablauf und IP-Beschränkungen für Cloud-basierte Lösungen. Jeder Legal DMS-Anbieter sollte seine Daten an mehreren Standorten sichern, um die Integrität der Daten zu gewährleisten, und zusätzlich großen Wert auf robuste Disaster-Recovery-Verfahren legen. Achten Sie auf Systeme, die gründlich und regelmäßig von externen Sicherheitsexpert:innen geprüft werden, die unter anderem Penetrationstests anbieten. Wenn Sie sich für eine Cloud-Lösung entscheiden, erfragen Sie, wo Ihre Daten gespeichert werden und vergewissern sie sich, dass die Rechenzentren über die modernsten physischen Sicherheiten verfügen. Mehr zum Thema Datensicherheit rund um unsere Softwarelösungen erfahren Sie hier. 

RECORDS MANAGEMENT 

Der Begriff “Records Management” umfasst das Verwalten, Erstellen, Verwenden und Entsorgen von Daten und Dokumenten. Es ist somit ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Risiko- und Compliance-Aktivitäten der meisten Organisationen. Daher sollte jedes Legal Document Management-System in der Lage dazu sein, Dokumenten eindeutige Identifikatoren zuzuweisen und unbefugte Änderungen an Dokumenten zu verhindern. Außerdem sollte das System das Sperren von Dokumenten erlauben, um unbefugte Änderungen zu verhindern sowie Prüfpfade für den Lebenszyklus von Dokumenten anbieten. Das System sollte auch eine Aufbewahrungsplanung unterstützen und entsprechende Regeln dafür anbieten, wie lange verschiedene Dokumente gespeichert werden sollten. Diese Regeln sollten auf Grundlage der Dokumentenart automatisch zugewiesen werden. Schließlich sollte das Legal DMS die Disposition von Dokumenten ermöglichen, welche nicht mehr aufbewahrt werden müssen. 

BERECHTIGUNGSMANAGEMENT 

Achten Sie auf Systeme, die eine rollenbasierte Rechtevergabe ermöglichen, um das Risiko eines unbefugten Zugriffs auf sensible Informationen zu reduzieren. Mit dieser Funktionalität kann der Zugriff auf Dokumente und Ordner nur für bestimmte Benutzer:innen oder Gruppen eingeschränkt werden. Manchmal reicht diese Berechtigungsstufe jedoch nicht aus, wenn bestimmte Matter und die damit verbundenen Daten nur für eine kleine Gruppe von Personen vollständig verborgen werden sollen. Nur weil man ein bestimmtes Dokument nicht sehen kann, heißt das nicht, dass die Metadaten (z.B. der Name der Matter) auch in anderen Bereichen des Systems, wie z.B. den Nachschlagewerken, verborgen bleiben. Dieser Umstand kann bei hochsensiblen Matter ein Problem darstellen. Sie sollten daher nach einem Legal DMS Ausschau halten, welches tatsächlich die gesamte Matter sperrt. Neben der Matter werden somit auch die zugehörigen Daten und Dokumente für nicht autorisierte Benutzer:innen im System ausgeblendet. 

INTEGRATIONEN 

Dokumente, insbesondere Verträge, sind Teil eines umfassenderen Lebenszyklus. Sie werden erstellt, verhandelt, überprüft, ausgeführt und verwaltet. Während Legal Document Management-Systeme beim Speichern und Versionieren helfen, verlassen sich viele Rechtsteams darüber hinaus noch auf andere Tools, um die verschiedenen Elemente des Dokumentenlebenszyklus zu unterstützen. Aus diesem Grund sollten Sie bei der Auswahl eines Legal DMS auf die Verfügbarkeit von verschiedenen Integrationen achten – sowohl auf solche die zum jetzigen Zeitpunkt zwingend erforderlich sind als auch auf solche die in Zukunft relevant werden könnten. Mindestens mit Microsoft Office und Outlook muss das System gut integrierbar sein. Die Corona-Pandemie hat auch einige Veränderungen im Arbeitsumfeld mit sich gebracht – die meisten Teams arbeiten fortan dezentral. Deshalb sollte das Legal DMS sich ebenfalls mit Tools für Zusammenarbeit und Instant Messaging wie MS Teams und Slack integrieren lassen. Ebenfalls sinnvoll ist unter diesem Aspekt auch eine Integration mit Tools für die Dokumentenerstellung sowie mit eSignatur-Tools. Vielleicht möchten Sie auch Legal DMS-Plattformen bevorzugen, die mit Tools für künstliche Intelligenz (KI) integriert sind, damit Sie Ihre Dokumente intelligent sortieren, kategorisieren und überprüfen und wichtige Daten extrahieren können. KI-Integrationen können erheblich dazu beitragen, die Qualität der Suche innerhalb Ihres Legal DMS zu verbessern.  

Juristische Dokumente gehen Hand in Hand mit Matter und Projekten. Deshalb ist eine sehr enge Abstimmung zwischen einem Legal DMS und einem Matter-Management-System unabdingbar. So können Vorgangsdaten mit Dokumenten und Rechnungen im DMS verknüpft werden und das Matter Management-System kann relevante Dokumente für einen bestimmten Vorgang heranziehen. Damit Rechtsteams effizient arbeiten können, müssen sie ihre Daten über mehrere Systeme hinweg konsolidieren und abgleichen. Eine optimale User Experience wird erzielt, wenn die Benutzer:innen nicht ständig zwischen verschiedenen Software-Tools hin- und herwechseln müssen. Alle Ihre Systeme müssen deshalb miteinander kommunizieren, damit die Anwälte einfach durch Matter und Dokumente navigieren können. Rechtsteams sollten mit dem Aufbau ihres „Legal Operations Space“ beginnen – bestehend aus einem Legal Document Management- und/ oder einem vollumfänglichen Matter Management-System, einem eBilling-System und einem Vertragsmanagement-System. 

BEREITSTELLUNGSOPTIONEN 

Beim Kauf eines Legal DMS können Sie meist zwischen zwei Hosting-Optionen wählen: On-Premise, was bedeutet, dass das System und die Dokumente in der IT-Infrastruktur Ihres Unternehmens gehostet und gespeichert werden, und Cloud, wo sie auf sicheren Remote-Servern in einem oder mehreren Rechenzentren gehostet und gespeichert werden. Mittlerweile ist eine dritte Option denkbar – die hybride Speicherung – bei der die Anwendung in der Cloud gehostet wird, die Dokumente und Daten aber vor Ort gespeichert werden. 

Die Vorteile der Cloud liegen in der schnellen Bereitstellung, der Skalierbarkeit und den geringeren Betriebs- und Wartungskosten. On-Premise- und Hybrid-Lösungen eignen sich jedoch für Organisationen, die mehr Kontrolle über ihre Daten wünschen und höhere Sicherheitsanforderungen haben. Organisationen wie Finanzinstitute benötigen ein sehr hohes Maß an Sicherheit. Während einige Cloud-Anbieter diese Standards erfüllen können, werden andere Organisationen immer auf On-Premise-Implementierungen bestehen. Stellen Sie sicher, dass Sie Ihre Bereitstellung und Dokumenten-Hosting Anforderungen kennen und ihr Legal DMS diese erfüllt. 

KOLLABORATION UND PRODUKTIVITÄT 

Ein gutes Legal Document Management-System erleichtert Ihnen und Ihrem Team die alltägliche Arbeit enorm. Die Zusammenarbeit an Dokumenten verlagert sich zunehmend ins Internet mit Tools zum gemeinsamen Erstellen von Dokumenten – einschließlich der Dokumente, die in MS Office Online enthalten sind. Das Team kann in Echtzeit gemeinsam an Dokumenten arbeiten. Deshalb sollte das Legal DMS Kollaborationstools und Integrationen anbieten, die den Benutzer:innen helfen, Dokumente nicht nur zu speichern und zu finden, sondern auch gemeinsam an ihnen zu arbeiten. Achten Sie auf Legal DMS-Plattformen, die eine Reihe von Kollaborationsfunktionen bieten – von Co-Authoring bis hin zu Kommentaren und Genehmigungen. Da immer mehr Mitarbeiter:innen an entfernten Standorten arbeiten, sollten Sie auch prüfen, ob das Legal DMS über Tools verfügt, die asynchrones Arbeiten in räumlich verteilten Teams ermöglichen und unterstützen. KI-basierte Tools stellen intelligente Suchfunktionen bereit, somit haben Benutzer:innen besseren Zugriff auf juristisches Know-How – ein erheblicher Vorteil in der Nutzung von Kollaborationstools. 

Ein Legal DMS kann die Arbeitsweise Ihres gesamten Rechtsteams nachhaltig verändern – sowohl in Bezug auf die Zusammenarbeit als auch in Bezug auf Wissen. Es bringt Ordnung in das Chaos der juristischen Dokumente und schafft ein sicheres und durchsuchbares Repository, mit dem Ihr Team schnell und einfach auf die benötigten Dokumente zugreifen kann. Mit den richtigen Integrationen und Funktionen ermöglicht es, den gesamten Lebenszyklus von Dokumenten zu verwalten, und macht Ihr Rechtsteam mit verschiedenen Kollaborations-Tools produktiver. 

Beenden Sie die endlose Dokumenten-Suche in E-Mails, lokalen Ordnern und freigegebenen Laufwerken und machen Sie den Sprung zu einem modernen DMS für die Rechtsabteilung. Wir hoffen, dass unsere Tipps Sie und Ihr Team auf den Weg in eine effiziente und produktive Zukunft bringen, in der die Arbeit mit Dokumenten ein Vergnügen und keine lästige Pflicht ist. 

Embracing the Paradigm Shift: Enterprise Legal Management and AI

Posted on November 30, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

This article was first published on LegalDive. 

The history of enterprise legal management (ELM) is a study of slow-moving but immensely consequential shifts in purpose, mission and access. For several years, ELM was limited to matter management and spend management. After that, the first paradigm shift occurred when the best ELM platforms began to facilitate engagement, focus on process, offer a user-friendly environment, empower organizations and enable management of many other legal methods.

The second paradigm shift is happening now, taking advantage of the advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology. Today, the top ELM tools combine the powers of artificial intelligence with existing ELM rules to offer a game-changing solution for legal teams. This combination enables legal to operate faster, more accurately, and more efficiently — in everything from invoice processing and contract management to vendor management and many other tasks.

Just as critical to legal departments are the data insights that this new combination provides. ELM’s embrace of AI empowers organizations to look between the rules to find missed savings, provide real-time invoice error detection and analyze how vendors and bill reviewers perform.

So, with all the insights and efficiency this combination of AI and ELM can provide, why are some still hesitant to embrace the change? The embrace of this paradigm shift is not universal – and their arguments deserve examination.

Let’s look at the three most common arguments against AI:

It’s not worth the hype.

The most common blowback against this is simple: AI-enabled technology isn’t worth the hype.

“We have yet to see AI tools in this industry that fully replace people or processes,” one e-discovery specialist says in a LegalTech News piece. “They are better marketed as augmenting a procedure, improving the performance of a team or workstream, or adding automation and precision to workflows.”

True, AI is not sufficiently advanced to replace lawyers or remove critical thinking from processes, but this does not mean there isn’t a huge amount of value in what AI can do now. Where AI excels is in augmenting the work of legal professionals (typically the stuff they don’t want to do), providing insight from large, unstructured, unseen data and automation of simple, highly repetitive tasks. So, while AI is not a “magic bullet,” it offers genuine benefits, not just the reduction of “time spent in the process” but improvements to consistency, transparency, and mitigation of risk, all of which directly impact the top and bottom lines of your business.

To unlock these benefits, look for vendors that have a clear roadmap and will work with your organization to develop a successful rollout plan and deploy their AI+ELM solution to augment and enhance your capabilities.

It doesn’t solve our specific problems.

Transparency in the selection process will go a long way toward choosing a product that does solve those specific issues. Legal technology vendors should clearly lay out the purpose of their AI solution. What problems will it solve? What is the implementation process? What kind of support and training will they provide? What does the return on investment (ROI) look like? On the user side, legal departments must do their homework with stakeholders before they rush into buying a tech solution. Legal should have a clear picture of success and should come prepared with use cases to illustrate the desired outcome.

“Technology for technology’s sake” isn’t a solution. As much as AI can be used, there remains a bigger challenge of whether it will be used. Understanding the use case, implementation, and return on investment are especially important; bringing in nascent technology means you must have a strong change management process. Understanding how the organization will adopt the technology and including all key individuals — from the influencers to the naysayers — are critical to the successful rollout of AI.

With that type of transparency and communication, organizations can find the right vendor for their project needs. Remember this quote from business leader Andrew Shimek when embarking on the search:

“You shouldn’t chase AI in a vacuum,” one industry expert said in an Iltacon panel. “You should think about what are the problems that we have that need to be solved. And if AI is a critical tool that can help solve that faster and better, not at the expense of quality, let’s adopt it. But I think it’s use-case first and AI second—not AI in a vacuum.”

It doesn’t provide the data for success.

Nowadays, many AI solutions are trained out of the box, eliminating the need to collect enormous amounts of data to get started. Of course, to create a highly custom solution, you will need to spend time collecting data, training, and validating. This can be difficult and risky.

Like any digital transformation, you should ask yourself whether you are innovating to sustain the existing approach (by making it faster, more efficient, cheaper, etc.) or disrupting the existing one. Most innovation is centered around sustaining innovation — of which success comes through iteration, not giant leaps. “Don’t let best get in the way of better” is a great motto to remember.

Starting with out-of-the-box solutions that might not be an exact fit BUT offer a faster pathway to value and building internal support for such a transformation is a secure way of creating success, helping you learn, measure and prepare for more customized solutions in the future.

Embracing the paradigm shift

McKinsey’s State of AI survey in 2021 shows that AI adoption continues to grow with significant benefits; most respondents say that adopting AI has resulted in a demonstrable positive impact. In fact, a report from the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) that adoption of AI by legal teams doubled from 2020 to 2021 – from one in 10 teams to one in five.

Legal professionals everywhere are embracing the AI+ELM paradigm shift. On its most basic level, AI platforms can augment and improve both legal and business processes for corporate legal departments, law firms, contract professionals, and procurement teams. With the focused mission of helping business professionals get more work done faster, an AI engine can automate the existing repetitive, manual, and costly legal processes, enabling continuous learning and workflow improvements. The best intelligence platforms combine advanced AI techniques with workflow management to empower organizations with AI that not only finds and reports on things but does things for you.

The bottom line? While AI is not coming for lawyers’ jobs — and won’t be any time soon — the most innovative, forward-thinking legal departments recognize this paradigm shift and are acting to bolster their arsenal with AI-enabled workflow management solutions.

Learn how Onit’s ELM solutions can help your enterprise embrace this paradigm shift.

Technology as a Catalyst for Evolution: 4 Steps to Right-Sizing Legal Ops Solutions

Posted on September 27, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

State-of-the-art tech is a game-changing enabler for businesses that wish to differentiate, grow, and succeed. Here’s how departments can be sure they are embracing the features they need – and not overspending on ones they don’t – to elevate efficiency, ignite revenue, and evolve for the future.

No word on exactly what career he grew up to have, but as the iconic Ferris Bueller once said: “Life moves pretty fast.” These days, the speed of business moves faster than ever – seemingly at the speed of light when fused with modern technology.

In the newly released third and final chapter of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, the multinational study* spotlights the unlimited potential of legal operations to be a transformative agent in driving meaningful business results by positively influencing revenue generation and operational and cost efficiencies with technology.

A “by the book” department dependent on precedents, Legal has, admittedly, never been exactly a trailblazer when it comes to tech: Nearly half of legal professionals (44%) call their department “averse to change.” But businesses that invest in technology surpass others in the best of times and remain a step ahead during times of disruption – and those who adapt to the latest solutions are bound to surpass and replace those who do not.

A need for modernization

To function in a modern and efficient capacity, Legal requires its own systems of record and engagement, just as every other function has. However, the ELR Report revealed that many legal teams lack the automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to advance both machine learning (ML) and human decision-making. In fact, almost half (46%) of legal respondents acknowledge they do not utilize automated systems for managing contracts.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital modernization, of course. But here are four essential steps every department must consider when adopting new tech to right-size its solutions:

1. Look at the big picture.

Whether your business has a technology roadmap in place or not, it is crucial to audit your current offerings. Gauge the functionality of legacy systems and vendors, pinpoint which are outdated, and ask: What do we have that we don’t need? What do we need that we don’t have? 

Another criterion to consider in a post-pandemic landscape where both cultural flexibility and remote work are paramount is: Is a tangible version of this required, or can this be streamlined and moved to the cloud?

2. Choose a single collaborative system.

No single technology can be all things to all people, but platforms that integrate workflows and offer communication skyrocket efficiency – which is highly necessary when nearly two-thirds of enterprise employees (59%) feel legal departments can sometimes be inefficient and 44% believe Legal can improve its effect on deal closures and revenue generation.

Enter enterprise legal management (ELM) to provide workflow clarity, track spend, and reinforce collaboration. Although less than half (48%) of respondents currently utilize e-billing and spend optimization solutions powered by AI, introducing a single source of truth that “speaks the same language” as it captures transactions, matters, and projects will help every function work smarter, not harder.

3. Don’t get distracted by bells and whistles.

Although most departments do want to get up to speed – 46% agree Legal must do better at accepting technological innovation – there is no tech Fairy that can provide the perfect “glass slipper” transformation. So it’s especially important to avoid “shiny object syndrome,” or the tendency to choose flashy features with the promise of an instantaneous tech happily-ever-after.

To prevent shiny object syndrome, compose a features list with two columns: “Must-Have” and “Nice-to-Have.” Keep in mind that overall capability, resources, and fit are critical, as is corporate culture – less than three in 10 ELR respondents (28%) describe themselves as early adopters by nature, and one in four (25%) says they lack the time to learn a new system. Selecting a dedicated team to oversee the rollout and set aside designated training periods can orchestrate a smooth deployment.

4. Focus on what automation can (and cannot) do.

When workloads increase but headcounts do not, the only typical answers used to be longer in-house hours or hiring outside counsel – and either one can be costly, taxing talented teams, budget, or both. Advances in intelligent automation, ML, and natural language processing (NLP) now offer a novel alternative.

While the concept of automation is rife with the stereotype it will replace real employees, this could not be further from the truth. The newest contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions automate contract review and administer data required to identify revenue recognition and acceleration opportunities, giving attorneys up to 30% of their time back for decidedly human pursuits: delivering in-depth, personal client device; focusing on the innovation and negotiations that impact and protect research and development (R&D), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and intellectual property; and devising new cultural initiatives that bring meaningful change. And when it comes CLM, return on investment (ROI) is real: sales cycles are reduced by 24% and overall legal spend slashed by 50%.

What lies ahead

Technology takes the vision, insight, and knowledge of a business and shuttles it through the enterprise so that it lands where it will produce the greatest effect. But investing in tech is merely step one: Ensuring it is embraced is the real key to elevating operational and cost efficiency.

By deploying new technology, Legal has the uniquely positive chance to cash in on its influence as a trusted advisor, authority figure, and true business partner. And with right-sized solutions, every department can evolve into a more materially impactful, future-proof function for the ever-transforming worlds of business and law.

Read the ELR Report to learn more about how legal professionals view their relationships with internal clients in comparison to the image enterprise employees have of their legal departments and how Legal can evolve to prove material impact and improve efficiencies across the business.

*The ELR Report is a third-party, multinational study of 4,000 enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals across the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Germany intended to showcase relationship dynamics and perceived image between corporate legal teams and enterprise organizations.