Category: Enterprise Legal Management

Three Examples of In-House Legal Operations Excellence

Posted on May 4, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

It’s no secret that in-house legal operations faced a 2020 that was anything but business as usual. As the pandemic stretched on for far longer than anyone expected, companies found new ways to do business, accommodating employees who were now working from home and implementing technology solutions that would streamline processes and replace manual tasks and in-person activities.

In-house legal operations professionals took the lead at many companies to figure out how to see organizations through the pandemic. In some cases, this meant overhauling processes and procedures that had been in place for years or even decades. Simply put, legal operations teams became the masters of the new normal.

Following are three examples of how legal operations flipped conversations from uncertainty to success during challenging times.

1. Building a Technology Roadmap for Legal Success

Even the world’s most well-established corporations faced unprecedented challenges and found new ways to surpass them.

When the pandemic hit, fast-food giant McDonald’s made responding to it and helping employees adapt top priorities. The McDonald’s in-house legal operations department placed other company goals aside if they didn’t immediately contribute to its crisis response. Their first step was to survey the organization’s various business and legal teams to identify their technology needs and wish lists. From there, legal operations created an aspirational roadmap for getting the most effective technology into the hands of the company’s global teams.

Three overriding needs emerged from the survey:

  1. A rebalancing of workloads
  2. A reduction in workloads
  3. A means for self-service

Using sophisticated platform technology, the legal operations team created systems to address each of these needs – ones that were flexible enough to quickly respond if needs shifted or changed. At the end of the day, a platform approach allowed McDonald’s to build the workflow and collaboration solutions needed to respond to the COVID crisis and keep the company moving forward.

To listen to the McDonald’s story, visit here.

2. Embracing Enterprise Legal Management

Handling domestic business was hard enough for most companies during the pandemic. But corporations with an international presence faced additional unique challenges – especially if they didn’t have the right technologies.

Jaguar Land Rover North America (JLRNA) is a perfect example. As a multinational corporation, JLRNA routinely has to respond to international legal service requests. Unfortunately, though, they lacked the technology to do it efficiently during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis.

JLRNA’s in-house legal operations team acted quickly to implement a sophisticated enterprise legal management solution that was customizable, allowing them to track and manage all the different areas of the company in the ways they needed to. Within the enterprise legal management system, they also created a document repository for storing contracts and capturing contract data and a system for submitting legal service requests. By replacing rudimentary matter management processes with an ELM solution, JLRNA legal operations provided the company with a seamless transition to a new way of doing business that could adapt.

You can hear JLRNA share their journey in this podcast.

3. Adapting Existing Solutions to Meet New Problems

Much of the focus in discussing how organizations navigated recent challenges has been on the adoption of new technologies. For some in-house legal operations, though, the answer was to leverage tools and solutions that had already been implemented. That was the case for publishing company Pearson.

Pearson had already implemented a comprehensive contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution to help contain costs. In 2020, that CLM solution served as the foundation for Pearson’s legal department to create the Transaction Services Center (TSC), an effective means for handling high-volume, low-risk standard agreements. This freed up internal counsel to focus on more complex agreements and activities that helped support the business. Having a comprehensive CLM solution enabled Pearson to better handle legal service requests, review and approve contracts, and respond to legal advisory requests, at the same time achieving savings, increasing efficiency and gaining unprecedented visibility into contract portfolios and internal workloads. The results were so impressive, Pearson won the Association of Corporate Counsel’s Value Champions Award.

You can hear Pearson’s story here.

No one can predict for sure when the pandemic and its effects on business will end. Until it does, in-house legal operations professionals will continue to play a crucial role in guiding their organizations to success. The stories above are just a few perfect examples of how ingenuity and technology make that possible.

You can read more about corporate legal departments transformations in this eBook:

Lean Into LegalOps: The Ultimate Guide to Legal Operations in the New Normal and Advice from Transformative Corporate Legal Departments.

Meet the New Onit User Interface: A Quicker Way to Tackle Automation and Workflow for Corporate Legal

Posted on April 29, 2021 by - Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The technology demands for most corporate legal departments have become increasingly more complex in the past decade – especially for automation and workflow. With corporate legal prioritizing efficiency, cost control and collaboration across the enterprise, technology must be flexible enough to meet ever-evolving needs and easy enough to use to encourage widespread adoption.

Onit understands, which is why we’re excited to announce our new user interface. The enhanced design allows corporate legal professionals, Onit App builders and business collaborators in departments such as compliance, sales and IT to create, collaborate and get more done in fewer clicks.

The new UI provides a cleaner visual language, enhanced indicators and status effects and a more straightforward way to identify and act on pertinent data and deadlines. Powered by Onit’s no-code platforms for workflow automation (Apptitude) and AI-based business intelligence (Precedent), the even more intuitive experience maximizes productivity for enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, legal service requests, legal holds and more.

No Automation and Workflow Challenge Too Big or Too Small to Solve with Onit

Our new UI joins a variety of Onit innovations that make it simpler to streamline and automate critical processes. Thanks to our no-code platforms and intuitive UIs, legal operations professionals and in-house counsel can create time-saving, automated Apps that simplify automation and workflow.

Our Process Builder provides a visually oriented, drag-and-drop interface that allows users of all levels of technical proficiency to build workflows. It removes learning hurdles by making it easy for users to understand how to build applications, allowing corporate legal to create Apps in minutes.

To see this in motion, check out our Hack the House competition.  Corporate legal professionals from companies including Colgate-Palmolive, Corteva Agriscience and McDonald’s identified business needs for areas such as diversity, IP and HR and created Apps and solutions to meet them in three weeks. In the end, Team IP won by creating Apps and a solution that automated the trademark renewal process.

Onit’s AI also provides a valuable edge for automation and workflow. ReviewAI uses artificial intelligence to quickly review, redline and edit all types of contracts, increasing productivity by more than 51%. ExtractAI leverages AI-based software to extract and obtain usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.

To learn more about Onit, our new UI and our platforms and products, reach out to [email protected] or schedule a demonstration.

With the Rising Use of AI In Legal Services, What Should In-House Counsel Look For?

Posted on April 28, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The increased use of AI in legal services is indisputable. Analysts predict that corporate legal departments will see technology budget increases as significant as three times by 2025 and an ongoing push to automate legal work for productivity. With its ability to bring immediate results out-of-the-box and learn and improve over time, AI offers the ideal technological solution to boost efficiency and save time for high-performing legal departments. In fact, this study found that AI for contract review can increase productivity by 51.5%.

However, not everything that claims to be AI these days is actually AI, and not all AI solutions are created equal. AI can significantly boost efficiency, streamline workflows, and save costs – if you invest in the right AI solutions.

Given the tremendous benefits of AI technologies, it’s helpful to understand the features that set the best AI tools apart from the competition. When you’re looking to purchase AI solutions and transform your legal department, you should consider whether they offer the following characteristics and features.

Time to Value

When you invest in new technology like AI, you want to start reaping the benefits as soon as possible. Therefore, when looking at AI options, you want to find solutions that allow you to quickly begin realizing value after you implement them.

Several factors can decrease the amount of time it takes to realize value from an AI solution. The software should be quick and easy to implement and roll out across all your users. Your AI should also ideally be pre-trained, meaning it’s ready to go straight out of the box, rather than requiring additional time to train it. The faster your users can capitalize on all the benefits of your AI solution, the faster it will translate into value for your organization.

Pricing Structure

Technology vendors take a wide range of approaches to pricing their products, and how they price them can significantly impact their value and usability for your enterprise. As the use of AI in legal services increases, the last thing you want to do is agree to a pricing structure based on the number of users.

When the price of your AI solution is not based on user numbers, you have the option of using the technology to work across all business units in your organization without having to worry about incurring extra costs when additional collaboration would be valuable. The ideal solution will have no limit on the number of users who can interact with the system for the initial price of your investment.

User Experience

Like any technology, AI is only valuable if your users can use it effectively. Any solution you choose should be easy to understand and execute without excessive training or a steep learning curve. Look into whether the product you’re considering has a proven implementation department.

The right tools will also have a good track record in the customer satisfaction department. It’s worthwhile to look into the vendor or product’s Net Promoter Score (NPS). An NPS is based on customers’ ratings of their likelihood of recommending a company, product, or service on a scale of 0 to 10 – so the higher the NPS, the better.

Underlying Platform

Any AI solution you purchase will have to operate on some underlying platform to function. At a minimum, that platform should be a trusted product that has the capacity necessary to meet all your needs and the ability to scale as those needs change.

Even better is not having to rely on external platforms for your chosen AI solution to work. The ideal tools will run on a reliable platform supplied and maintained by the same vendor as the AI solutions themselves. This will allow you to deploy products and updates quickly. Also, look for no-code platforms that will enable you to build your own apps with little or no technical experience.

Immediate Usability

A solution is only helpful if your users actually use it. It’s also most helpful if they can start using it right away. Long implementation delays or the need to invest significant time in learning to use a product can outweigh the benefits that product might eventually offer.

You should look for out-of-the-box products that require minimal configuration before they can be used in order to get the full use of AI in legal services. Such products are ready to go almost immediately, meaning you can quickly start using them to address the problems that drove you to seek out AI in the first place. At the same time, however, they can also be customized to meet the most simple or customized workflows within your organization.

Partner Network

While the vendor of your chosen AI solution certainly matters, so do your vendor’s partnerships. You want a technology provider that partners with other top-notch providers and professionals who can address your needs outside of those related to the specific AI technology you’re buying.

You want your AI product vendor to have alliances with experienced implementation service providers to ensure that your chosen solution succeeds across your entire enterprise. Beyond implementation, your provider should also be part of a robust ecosystem of partners who can address your needs as they arise, from the most routine business needs to the most novel demands that might arise. Having the right partnerships also means that your vendor can leverage those partnerships to design the most optimal solutions to address a particular problem.

The Use of AI in Legal Services – Investing in the Right AI

The excitement about AI is understandable – today’s technologies can accomplish tasks that seemed impossible even just a few years ago. Wanting to incorporate those advancements into your organization to improve the ways you do business is a great impulse.

You need to be sure, however, that you’re getting products that are effective and not just hype. Even more importantly, they must be tailored to your organization’s needs if you want to see actual benefits from them. Not every AI solution is suitable for every organization, and not every AI provider will give you the support you need for your products to succeed.

By considering the factors outlined above before you purchase any solution, you’ll put your organization on the right path to genuinely benefiting from AI. It’s worth the time to do your research and think before you buy.

LSM LESSONS: Associated British Foods and EDF

Posted on April 20, 2021 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Legal spend management software solves several different challenges depending on the organization. During the pandemic specifically, this could be as fundamental as no longer being able to review and pay paper-based invoices in the office. For Associated British Foods (ABF), who were already using e-billing before lockdown, usage of the system increased because remote working meant e-billing was the only option! However, legal spend management software really comes into its own when applied strategically.

For ABF, this meant maximizing volume discounts with firms. Daniel Wate, their Legal Technology Analyst, says, “Legal isn’t revenue generating, so we implemented legal spend management software to ensure we were spending responsibly and give us accountability. With last year being challenging, for example, the temporary closure of our Primark stores, we’ve been more likely to maximize volume discounts with firms, something we couldn’t do unless we knew what we were spending.” This has been achieved by consolidating the number of firms and reaching volume thresholds faster. Another savings area is through using spend data to make the case for hiring internally, “we’ve noticed that sometimes it’s cheaper if we hire someone else rather than using a law firm,” Dan explains.

As Managing Legal Counsel, Lynne Kellett says that EDF UK NNB (EDF) uses the tool for a similar purpose, “We leverage local firms as an extension of the in-house team, so we need spend data to encourage our firms to deliver additional services and value add in line with our panel arrangements.”

Even in BAU times, spend management is an essential strategic tool. ABF started its e-billing journey in 2012. Daniel reflects, “It was a very manual process. We spent a lot of money but didn’t know with which firms, how many firms, where in the world, who was instructing the firms, or how much we were spending!” They also suspected that the rule, “notify legal must before engaging law firms,” was not being followed. Using BusyLamp eBilling.Space has allowed them to control this more effectively.

This cost visibility is also essential for EDF. Lynne remarks, “the General Counsel wanted to “press a button” to find out how much was being spent, when, and where, without using spreadsheets.” Legal spend management tools today go beyond the process of e-billing, with RFP, WIP, vendor management, and complex analysis and prediction capabilities now commonplace. EDF looked for such a tool after identifying that the end-to-end process for engaging firms was just as important as tracking the costs. Freeing the team from admin and reporting was also critical.

INVOLVING STAKEHOLDERS IN THE LEGAL SPEND MANAGEMENT PROJECT

Although the primary users of legal spend management software, the legal team is not the only stakeholder, and it’s crucial to involve other departments in the project journey. Sourcing, finance, tax, and IT are typical functions that need to be involved. They can help you draft RFP requirements, offer a different perspective, ensure legal processes integrate with other departmental processes, and help solidify the business case if the tool benefits more than just the legal team.

Involving finance was key for EDF since reporting to finance was a heavy administration burden before they implemented Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp e-billing.Space. Lynne remembers, “part of the streamlining of the process was to remove some of those manual steps, so we wanted to make sure the output would still meet finance’s requirements.” Lynne also recommends getting help from IT as they have experience rolling out tech projects but cautions it may take longer than you expect, “legal is not profit-generating like other departments, so you need to make your case early and strongly!” Daniel echoes this sentiment, “while IT is a useful resource because they do rollouts all the time, they are busy, and you will have to join a queue. So, get them involved as soon as possible and communicate often.”

FUTURE LEGAL SPEND MANAGEMENT PLANS

As referenced earlier, legal spend management is more than just e-billing. In the near future, EDF plan to use the RFP tool in e-billing.Space and also wants to report objectively on how law firms deliver additional value. Lynne explains, “The longer we use the software, the more data, and more consistent data, we are getting about our firms. This will help us drive not only the best price but the best value – especially for larger projects. This is win/win – it’s not free for law firms to give us these value-adds, so tracking it means we can recognize it.” Being able to do this in one single system means avoiding yet another spreadsheet.

Next on ABF’s agenda is billing guidelines, which are already in place for the company’s USA law firms, but they plan to implement them throughout the rest of the world. Using BusyLamp for driving value is also important, though. Daniel says, “we pull a lot of reports but don’t get the maximum benefit from them; we need to think how we can use them to drive discussions with and leverage usage of law firms.”

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

What to Look For in Enterprise Legal Management Software

Posted on April 8, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Enterprise legal management software turboboosts legal operations and brings new levels of operational efficiency to corporate legal departments. A comprehensive solution that combines e-billing, matter management and legal service request intake into a single, streamlined platform provides a game-changing way to analyze legal spend, minimize company risk and drive process efficiency.

All these benefits are only possible, though, if you find the enterprise legal management software (ELM) that can support your corporate legal department and its unique needs. Finding ELM software that meets the following criteria will put you on the path to success.

  • Future-Proof Functionality: You don’t want your enterprise legal management software to run on a platform with limited capabilities. Look for an ELM that runs on its own business process automation and business intelligence platforms that can accommodate the department’s future technology needs for AI, contract lifecycle management and legal holds. The workflow integration between products will be native and much more robust this way, compared to multiple systems on different, poorly integrated platforms.
  • Good User Experience: You want your ELM solution to be easy to use, with a modern interface and experience that gets users up and going quickly. You also want it to be something people enjoy using. Look into your product or vendor’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a rating of how likely customers are to recommend a company, product or service on a scale of 0 to 10. The higher the NPS, the better.
  • Enhanced collaboration: Prioritize no-code platforms for your enterprise legal management software, as they allow you to build whatever apps you need for your corporate legal department – even if you have little or no technical expertise. For example, the Onit Nation (our customers, partners, business analysts and developers who use Onit platforms) has developed more than 5,500 Apps. These Apps do everything from automating government regulation reporting to managing trade association approval to streamlining the trademark renewal process and beyond.
  • Flat Pricing: Speaking of collaboration, consider the pricing structure for ELM solutions. You want to avoid ELM solutions that are priced based on how many people use the software. Per-user pricing limits how you can use your solution, forcing the choice between cost and collaboration. When that choice is no longer needed, you can work across business units, automate requests and increase transparency and trust.
  • System of Engagement: Traditional ELM vendors take a data collection-minded approach to managing matters and legal operations. Their technology platforms act as a system of record but are rarely used by lawyers and legal operations managers to deliver any real strategic value. Look for a vendor that offers an ELM system of engagement. This process-driven solution integrates workflow and collaboration and allows you to define the legal business processes that are critical to your organization.
  • Partner Implementation Network: While your vendor is key to a smooth implementation, so is their partner network. Your ELM provider should have an experienced and professional partner implementation network made up of strategic alliances that will ensure success across your entire enterprise.

Interested in learning more about enterprise legal management software, platforms and optimizing technologies? Check out our guide to platforms or our breakdown on driving efficiency in a post-pandemic environment.

To learn more about how ELM from Onit can transform your law department operations, contact us or schedule a demo today.

How to Prepare Your Team for an Enterprise Legal Management Software Implementation

Posted on March 16, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

An enterprise legal management software implementation brings all-new operational efficiency levels to corporate legal departments. By combining e-billing, legal spend management, matter management and legal service request intake into a single, streamlined platform, corporate legal departments can gain visibility into legal operations, cut costs and automate manual processes. In fact, some estimate that enterprise legal management (ELM) helps save up to 10% on outside counsel spend.

While it’s critical to focus on the technologies and processes involved in the implementation, often the people component lacks the same level of attention and planning. We asked ELM implementation experts from Onit about best practices to manage the people side of implementation and here are the four actions they recommend.

1.   Get the right hands on deck for your enterprise legal management implementation.

To start, you want to establish internal governance over your ELM implementation. You should determine crucial involvement from the beginning, such as who will have a vote on decisions, who will have input into decisions, who will be involved in reviewing implementation progress and how often, and more.

At many corporate legal departments, this involves creating an internal steering committee responsible for overseeing the implementation and an internal project sponsor who is usually the business unit leader who’s receiving the implementation. You might also involve the PMO and someone from finance who can monitor whether you’re getting what you expect out of your investment. The software provider should also provide a steering committee on their side, but your essential players should still be involved in your internal governance.

Because you’re likely making a pretty significant investment in your ELM solution, you’ll want to establish a consistent cadence for reviewing the implementation progress. For example, set a weekly or monthly schedule for monitoring whether you’re on track to hit milestones and whether progress is dependent on anything else within your organization that needs to be addressed.

2.    Get your internal business partners on board.

Implementation will look different for every legal department depending on who is spearheading the effort. If your legal team is contracting with a provider, have you lined up the support of IT or other departments in your company? Many departments try to move forward without any internal consultation. Because implementing ELM will require integrations with other systems and migration of data from your old system, you’ll need to get all your internal partners on board and determine what agreements and resources need to be set up before your implementation.

You’ll also want to assess the impact of your implementation on the rest of the business. Who do you need to inform? Will you need to notify an internal change in the control board that your company’s data will be hosted in another system? Will your internal audit team or information security need to check project documents before going live?

To get the engagement you need, you should start working within your internal channels as early in the process as possible. That groundwork needs to be paved by your team before implementation starts.

3.    Get your users ready and excited for the enterprise legal management software implementation.

As with any change, it’s important to prepare your users. The more you can get buy-in across the organization, the more successful the implementation will be.

Determine who needs to know when the solution is going live and how you’re going to tell them. Getting them excited about the change will be easier if you can proactively address any concerns they might have about new processes or systems. Whether it’s a company-wide email, a newsletter, a town hall meeting, or something else, you want to generate buzz about your new enterprise legal management software implementation.

Also critical to overall implementation success is a well-defined user training program. The proper training will allow end-users to be comfortable with both the system and your change management efforts. The means they feel empowered and confident to complete their daily tasks with minimal interruption after the ELM system becomes part of their workflows. You can tailor the training program to be as formal or casual as you need. There are endless options to deliver the right information in the right way for your end-users.

4.   Help your ELM provider deliver the system you need.

Preparation and testing are key components that your department can provide to help your ELM provider deliver the best implementation possible. Invest some time analyzing your department’s current state before implementation kicks off, documenting your processes end to end. Process maps and use cases are valuable for requirements and design and can save a lot of time and minimize distraction during the ELM design phase.

After all, you know your business better than anyone. As you work with your provider to design your system, think about how you’ll test the system via User Acceptance Testing before it goes live.

If you take the proper steps in advance, you can make sure you’ll get the best enterprise legal management software implementation for your corporate legal department and the business units that work with you.

Contact Onit today to learn more about how Onit offerings can help you provide better service to your business while improving operational efficiency.

Free Yourself from Legal Invoice Review with InvoiceAI

Posted on March 3, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

What’s the best part of the day for in-house counsel? Probably not legal invoice review.

While it’s often necessary to ensure adherence to outside counsel billing guidelines, it still consumes valuable time on highly manual work.

That’s why we are introducing InvoiceAI to our enterprise legal management – to free in-house lawyers from the manual labor of tedious legal invoice review.

Onit announced this next significant phase of innovation at Legalweek(year) with our first InvoiceAI video. Launching in May for both Onit and SimpleLegal, InvoiceAI harnesses AI’s power to increase the efficiency of the invoice review process. It handles the first-pass review of incoming bills and sets up a framework that will continuously learn as invoice corrections are refined in the system. The result: General counsel and in-house counsel can transfer rediscovered bandwidth and energy to higher-value work for their companies.

This second InvoiceAI video shares more about the InvoiceAI.

To learn more about InvoiceAI from Onit and how AI can streamline your legal invoice review, contact your Onit account manager today or email [email protected].

Legal Invoice AI Joins Our Contract AI

AI-enabled invoice review from InvoiceAI modernizes the legal operations function and automates the review of law firm billing for corporations. It perfectly illustrates our founding principle: To help lawyers more effectively practice law.

When InvoiceAI launches in May, it will join an impressive roster of AI solutions already on offer from Onit, including:

  • Precedent, Onit’s AI-powered business intelligence platform that automates and improves both legal and business processes for corporate legal departments, law firms, contract professionals and procurement teams.
  • ReviewAI, contract AI for pre-signature contract review that reviews, redlines and edits all types of contracts in minutes, increasing contract review speed by 60-70%.
  • ExtractAI, contract AI for post-signature contract management that extracts usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.

You can schedule a demonstration of any of Onit’s AI solutions here.

A Legal AI Refresher

The field of AI is continually evolving, and it’s essential for today’s legal professionals to stay ahead of the curve. If you’re looking to bone up on AI, here are some great places to start:

Remember: AI won’t replace lawyers. But lawyers using AI will replace those that don’t.

Thanks for your time and stay tuned to our blog. We’ll have more InvoiceAI and contract AI announcements coming soon.

Six Features of the Best Matter Management Software

Posted on February 25, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

Matter management software puts critical matter, financial and performance data at the fingertips of corporate counsel and legal operations. But what features should a corporate legal department prioritize to gain the best return on investment? In the first blog post on this series, we explored essential legal spend management technology features for enterprise legal management. Now, we follow up with an exploration of the critical components of matter management.

According to Deloitte’s 2020 Legal Operations Survey, 74% of the corporate legal professionals surveyed felt they did not have clear or accurate metrics on work performed internally or externally. Additionally, 71% said that manual tasks take up a “significant amount” of their teams’ time.

Yet, technology – specifically matter management software – is designed to address challenges such as these.

Catherine Moynihan, associate vice president of legal management services with the Association of Corporate Counsel, told Legaltech News that GCs have seen growing interest from corporate leadership for technology investments. As she explains:

“While budget restraints have constrained the implementation of technology, I think we’re now approaching a tipping point where it’s budget challenges that will help make the case to make that short-term investment because the ROI is there.”

Fortunately, there are advanced enterprise legal management (ELM) solutions available, including matter management tools specifically designed to address issues such as the ones mentioned above.

What to Look For in Matter Management Software

From a high-level perspective, corporate legal departments need data that can show how their internal or external resources are leveraged. This is where matter management technology comes in. With this technology, corporate legal departments gain visibility into an overall matter portfolio and real-time data and dashboards to monitor and track all matters throughout their lifecycle. Legal team members should have immediate access to critical matter metrics, including performance data, through simple information collection, management and workflow.

Here are six features you should look for in a matter management solution:

  1. Custom Intake and Matter Forms

Most businesses require some custom forms for matter management, including custom intake and data forms for multiple matter types such as litigation, employment, intellectual property and claims.

  1. Flexible Workflow

Organization is mandatory, especially when dealing with matters that can substantially impact a business. Corporate legal professionals need configurable workflows relative to the matter type, dollar amount or specific business rules. No-code workflow and business process automation platforms powering ELM, matter management and legal spend management tools enable legal professionals of all technical proficiencies to create, automate and edit necessary workflows easily. To learn more about a platform approach, view this CLOC presentation by Colgate-Palmolive and Baker & McKenzie.

  1. Data Management and Robust Search

One of the necessary conveniences of matter management is that you can easily find the data you need at all times. A solution with full-text search capabilities for all information—including documents, transaction details, emails and notes – makes that happen. This benefit is further enhanced by searching capabilities that put critical matter information, including tasks, documents and notes, in front of you in a click.

  1. Outlook Integration

Those who proclaimed the death of email need to retract their statements. In 2020, more than 306 billion emails were sent and received. Email remains a critical component of communications and information exchange for businesses and many companies use Microsoft Outlook. If Outlook isn’t syncing with a matter management solution, a corporate legal team will ultimately face more manual processes and the potential for inaccurate or missing data.

  1. Email Notifications

To easily share information with corporate legal team members involved with matters, matter management technology should provide automated notifications that replace manual processes. This includes matter-unique emails within the system that keep team members up-to-date on matters.

  1. Reporting and Analytics

As mentioned above, metrics and analytics help legal professionals better understand their matters’ statuses, finances and performance. A matter management solution should have the ability to create dashboards to manage matters by type, location or geography as an essential part of reporting and analytics.

For more enterprise legal management and matter management inspiration, we invite you to check out the following resources:

  • Learn more about InvoiceAI, an AI-enabled legal invoice review offering for enterprise legal management.
  • Access this webinar replay for “Legal Operations Reporting Done Right,” where the global healthcare company Viatris (formerly Mylan) discusses its approach to identifying and collecting the right data and creating reports that are meaningful to different audiences across the organization.
  • Hear how McDonald’s formulated a cohesive, long-term strategy to achieve the right balance of people, process and technology here.

Five Legal Tech Trends That Will Emerge From the Pandemic

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Enterprise Legal Management

The COVID era has been exceedingly difficult and distressing for people worldwide. We needed to quickly adapt to a new way of living and working that has mostly deprived us of the comfort and familiarity we took for granted. Almost overnight, we had a “new normal” thrust upon us, and we had no choice but to embrace it to save lives.

Our way of life has never been such a rapid global shift. One of the most striking changes has been in how we work. Long commutes and distracting office work are now distant memories. We are now a remote-first workforce. Research has shown that we quite like our new working arrangement, with more than half of workers saying they want to continue working from home after the pandemic has eventually eased.

COVID-19 has not only led to people working from home, but it has also led to them working at different times and in different locations. With schools and support provisions shut, many people needed help to juggle work and home-schooling, caring for family members, volunteering, or other commitments. This led to an unavoidable rearranging of the working day, starting earlier or working in the evenings and weekends to keep up. But with this flexibility came an advantage to work to patterns that maximize individuals’ productivity, rather than being forced to work traditional business hours. When not in lockdown, workers are also choosing to work elsewhere. Between lockdowns, we have had colleagues working remotely from Cornwall, Poland, and Dubai. This all means much of the workforce is working on a different time, different place basis.

This new work-from-home revolution will have enormous impacts on many industries, but what does it mean for legal, and more specifically, how will technology play a role? We are not clairvoyant, but here are five legal tech trends we think we will see over the coming months and years because of the pandemic.

1) ASYNCHRONOUS WORKING

Lawyers must embrace asynchronous collaboration and communication tools to facilitate productive working across teams. While many lawyers have quickly adopted synchronous tools to support remote working in lockdown (e.g., video calls and instant messaging), many have not yet adopted asynchronous platforms for genuine project management. We will see more lawyers experimenting with team collaboration tools like Confluence or Notion and project management tools like Jira, Trello, Asana, and Monday. We may even see lawyers adopting Agile ceremonies like sprint planning and daily stand-ups.

This trend will also accelerate the creation of next-generation matter management tools, evolving from systems of record to full systems of engagement and collaboration. It will not just be productivity tools; there will also be a rise in the use of asynchronous learning platforms to ensure remote workers have access to learning and development at a time that best suits their working pattern.

2) KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT, SHARING AND ACCESS

Quick and timely access to legal know-how is critical to a remote team’s mutual knowledge and everyone’s performance. Remote workers can no longer walk across the office to ask a colleague for help and guidance. Calls and instant messaging do not necessarily help since people are already fighting digital distractions and may not be online when guidance is required. Asynchronous collaboration tools help by enabling know-how to be captured and shared – but we will see greater adoption of knowledge management solutions that allow team members to easily access knowledge whenever and wherever they are.

This is where we see AI tools developed to simplify knowledge discovery, connect, and structure know-how from different sources, keep knowledge up-to-date, and deliver it in context within workflows. Search functionality (not always seen as that exciting) will also become one of the most important tools in a remote worker’s arsenal. For this reason, we will also see the growth of solutions that help to centralize data to streamline and optimize the search experience. However, while the search returns results, it only sometimes delivers specific answers. We are also likely to see the maturing and broader adoption of chatbots and decision automation tools that help provide direct answers alongside the underlying sources.

3) LEGAL GIG ECONOMY

Flexible resourcing isn’t necessarily new in legal – LOD (Lawyers on Demand), Axiom, Peerpoint, and Vario have been doing it for some time. However, large numbers of employees “going remote” during the pandemic have given organizations a better idea of what a remote workforce can achieve.

Surveys have consistently shown employee productivity is high during the pandemic. Organizations are therefore accelerating their move towards a leaner operating model, bringing in temporary, freelance resources for specific legal tasks or projects as and when needed. This delivers a much more cost-efficient approach and enables businesses to tap into a dispersed talent pool. While demand will grow, so will supply as lawyers and paralegals look to capitalize on the flexibility of remote working to build portfolio careers or find a better work-life balance.

We will see significant growth in online flexible resourcing platforms that help connect organizations to an army of remote lawyers and paralegals looking to take advantage of the new normal. These platforms will either be “catch-all” – covering all legal resources – or niche, focusing on connecting businesses with legal experts in particular fields.

4) EMPLOYEE MONITORING TO SUPPORT LEGAL OPERATIONS

One benefit of office work is that managers can see what their teams are doing, how they are working, and whether team members are struggling. This is more difficult when managing remote teams. Therefore, organizations need to find ways to measure employees’ productivity and working patterns and highlight any potential issues.

However, it is about ensuring performance meets standards and providing employee well-being. “Technostress” has been highlighted as a significant problem for many people working remotely, and managers must look for the warning signs. They will also need to ensure they are still identifying training and support needs and calling out inappropriate behavior (bullying, discrimination, sexual harassment, etc.), which can increase in remote environments.

While many lawyers are familiar with recording and accounting for their time, not having to do this is one of the main reasons they enjoy working in-house over private practice! Nevertheless, we expect to see more law firms and corporate legal teams invest in digital, online employee-monitoring systems to help maintain productivity, ensure well-being, and increase transparency, essential metrics for effective legal operations. We may also see existing legal tech platforms add employee-monitoring tools as an option so that employers can track team behavior, e.g., tracking active/inactive status, monitoring page activity within the tool, etc. One way to avoid replicating law firm time recording or overly authoritarian monitoring is to track behavior for limited periods at intervals rather than an “always-on” approach.

We may also see a different kind of monitoring, one focused less on the output and more on outcomes. As teams shift to project management software, they will likely begin to track performance against OKRs and KPIs. This is a good way of ensuring performance without being too overbearing. Ultimately, we’ll see organizations and teams adopt a mixture of tools to help them maintain performance and deliver desired outcomes when working remotely.

5) FROM LEGAL PLATFORM TO ENTERPRISE INTEROPERABILITY

The most striking workplace effect of the pandemic is the accelerated and standardized adoption of digital productivity and collaboration tools. While many in-house legal teams and their firms were using video conferencing and instant messaging tools like Zoom, Google Meet, and Slack, many were still in the stone age regarding remote collaboration and communication tools. But that all changed when COVID-19 struck. Microsoft Teams saw its active users skyrocket 160% from 44 million in March 2020 to 115 million in November of the same year. Slack and Zoom have seen similar explosions in adoption. These tools have become the common language of remote working.

Legal technology vendors of all sizes will need to re-evaluate their strategy and move away from trying to drive users to their unique platforms and ecosystems. Instead, they will need to find ways to offer value in the systems where users prefer to work. This means a greater focus on plug-ins, integrations, and open APIs. It may even mean deconstructing existing products to embed functionality and extend tools such as Microsoft Teams.

HAS LEGAL TRANSFORMATION FINALLY ARRIVED?

The obvious theme that ties all the above is that technology will be essential to facilitate workers and their organizations transitioning to the new remote, distributed model (both inside and outside the legal domain). Technology is pushing at an open door for once – employees and employers cannot adopt digital productivity, collaboration, and communication tools quickly enough.

We are still in the infancy of the remote working tech revolution, so only time will tell whether the above predictions happen. Whatever happens, COVID-19 has changed the game for remote working. Remote-first will be the trend of the 2020s, and legal technology vendors should be making this a core component of their product and customer success strategies if they do not want to be left behind.

Request a demo of eBilling.space today. 

FÜNF LEGAL TECH TRENDS, DIE AUS DER PANDEMIE HERVORGEHEN WERDEN 

Posted on February 23, 2021 by - Enterprise Legal Management

DAS NEUE „NORMAL“ DES RECHTSWESENS 

Zweifelsohne waren die letzten 12 Monate hart. Tatsächlich sogar extrem schwierig und stressig. Wir mussten uns schnell anpassen – an eine neue Lebens- und Arbeitsweise, die längst nicht so familiär und angenehm ist wie die, die wir zuvor als selbstverständlich erachtet haben. Das alles geschah mehr oder minder über Nacht und wir mussten es akzeptieren, denn es galt Leben zu retten. 

Noch nie gab es eine so schnelle und globale Änderung der Lebensweise. Insbesondere die Art, wie wir arbeiten, erfuhr drastische Einschnitte. Langes Pendeln und ablenkende Büroarbeitsplätze gehören nun der Vergangenheit an. Untersuchungen haben ergeben, dass wir unsere neue Arbeitsweise sogar eigentlich ziemlich mögen: Mehr als 50% der Arbeitnehmer gaben an, auch nach der Pandemie von daheim arbeiten zu wollen. 

COVID-19 hat nicht nur dazu geführt, dass Menschen von zu Hause aus arbeiten, sondern auch dazu, dass sie zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten und an unterschiedlichen Orten arbeiten. Da Schulen und Betreuungseinrichtungen geschlossen waren, hatten viele Menschen damit zu kämpfen, ihre Arbeit mit dem Homeschooling, der Pflege von Familienmitgliedern, ehrenamtlichen Tätigkeiten oder anderen Verpflichtungen zu vereinbaren. Dies führte zu einer unvermeidlichen Umstrukturierung des Arbeitstages.  Um mithalten zu können, starteten viele ihre Arbeit früher als üblich oder arbeiteten abends und am Wochenende. Durch diese Flexibilität konnten Einige ihre Produktivität maximieren, denn sie waren nicht länger gezwungen, zu traditionellen Geschäftszeiten zu arbeiten. Wenn nicht gerade ein Lockdown stattfindet, entscheiden sich die Mitarbeiter:innen auch dafür, anderorts zu arbeiten. Zwischen den Lockdowns gab es manche Kolleg:innen, die von Cornwall, Polen und Dubai aus gearbeitet haben. Das alles bedeutet, dass ein Großteil der Belegschaft zu anderen Zeiten und an anderen Orten arbeitet. 

Diese neue Work-from-Home-Revolution wird enorme Auswirkungen auf viele Branchen haben, aber was bedeutet das für die Rechtsbranche, und vor allem, welche Rolle wird Technologie dabei spielen? Hier sind fünf Legal Tech-Trends, die in den kommenden Monaten und Jahren als Ergebnis der Pandemie hervorgehen werden. 

1) ASYNCHRONES ARBEITEN 

Anwält:innen müssen asynchrone Kollaborations- und Kommunikationstools einführen, um produktives Arbeiten in Teams zu ermöglichen. Während viele von ihnen schnell synchrone Tools (z.B. Videoanrufe und Instant Messaging) eingeführt haben, wurde der Sprung zu asynchronen Plattformen für echtes Projektmanagement meist nicht gewagt. Immer mehr Anwält:innen werden mit Team-Collaboration-Tools wie Confluence oder Notion sowie mit Projektmanagement-Tools wie Jira, Trello, Asana und Monday experimentieren. Wer weiß – vielleicht sehen wir sogar, dass Teile von agilen Projektvorgehensmodellen, wie tägliche Sprints und Stand-ups, eingeführt werden! 

Es ist auch wahrscheinlich, dass dieser Trend das Entwickeln von modernen Matter Management-Tools beschleunigen wird, die sich von Aufzeichnungssystemen zu vollwertigen Engagement- und Collaboration-Systemen entwickeln. Dies wird nicht nur Tools zur Produktivitätssteigerung betreffen: Es wird auch einen Anstieg bei der Nutzung von asynchronen Lernplattformen geben. So kann sichergestellt werden, dass Remote-Mitarbeiter:innen zu einer für sie passenden Zeit Zugang zu Schulungen und Fortbildungen haben. 

2) KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT: DER AUSTAUSCH UND ZUGANG ZU INFORMATIONEN 

Nur wer von überall und zu jederzeit auf (juristisches) Know-how zugreifen kann, wird als Remote-Mitarbeiter:in auf dem aktuellen Stand bleiben. Ein asynchroner Informationsaustausch ist also entscheidend für die Leistung jedes Einzelnen. Anrufe und Instant Messaging helfen nicht immer; häufig haben Mitarbeiter:innen ohnehin schon mit digitalen Ablenkungen zu kämpfen. Auch sind Kolleg:innen vielleicht nicht immer online, wenn Hilfe benötigt wird. Asynchrone Kollaborationstools helfen also bis zu einem gewissen Grad, denn sie ermöglichen das Erfassen und Teilen von Know-how. Es ist daher absehbar, dass in Zukunft die Akzeptanz von Wissensmanagementlösungen steigt, denn Teammitglieder:innen wird so geholfen, einfach auf Informationen zuzugreifen, wann und wo immer sie sind. 

Hier können auch KI-Tools zum Einsatz kommen, die das Auffinden von Informationen vereinfachen, Know-how aus verschiedenen Quellen verbinden, strukturieren und aktualisieren und im passenden Kontext innerhalb von Workflows bereitstellen. Eine Suchfunktion scheint zunächst zwar nicht als das spannendste Feature, wird in Zukunft aber zu einem der wichtigsten Werkzeuge des Remote Workers werden. Zusätzlich werden sich daraus weitere Softwarelösungen entwickeln, die das Zentralisieren von Daten ermöglichen und somit das Sucherlebnis vereinfachen und optimieren. Um nicht nur Suchergebnisse, sondern auch spezifische Antworten zu generieren, werden Chatbots und Tools zur Entscheidungsautomatisierung immer ausgereifter und häufiger eingesetzt werden. Diese bieten nämlich den Vorteil, dass sie neben den zugrundeliegenden Quellen auch direkte Antworten liefern. 

3) GIG ECONOMY IM RECHTSWESEN 

Flexibles Ressourcenmanagement ist in der Rechtsbranche nicht unbedingt neu – Unternehmen wie Lawyers on Demand (LOD), Axiom, Peerpoint und Vario praktizieren es bereits seit einiger Zeit. Aufgrund der großen Anzahl von Mitarbeiter:innen, die während der Pandemie von Zuhause aus arbeiteten, konnten sich die Unternehmen jedoch ein besseres Bild davon machen, was eine Remote-Belegschaft leisten kann. 

Umfragen haben durchweg gezeigt, dass die Produktivität der Mitarbeiter:innen während der Pandemie hoch ist. Die Unternehmen beschleunigen daher ihre Umstellung auf ein flexibleres Betriebsmodell, indem sie bei Bedarf temporäre, freiberufliche Ressourcen für bestimmte juristische Aufgaben oder Projekte hinzuziehen. Dies bietet einen wesentlich kosteneffizienteren Ansatz und ermöglicht es den Unternehmen, auf einen breit gestreuten Talentpool zurückzugreifen. Die Nachfrage wird folglich also steigen. Aber auch das Angebot wird steigen, da Anwält:innen und Paralegal die Flexibilität des remoten Arbeitens nutzen werden, um ihre Karrieren auszubauen oder eine bessere Work-Life-Balance zu schaffen. 

Es ist also wahrscheinlich, dass ein großes Wachstum von flexiblen Online-Resourcing-Plattformen entsteht. Unternehmen werden so mit vielen Remote-Anwält:innen und -Paralegals in Kontakt treten können, die wiederrum die Vorteile des neuen Normalzustands nutzen wollen. Die Plattformen werden entweder alle Arten von juristischen Ressourcen abdecken – oder sich auf Nischen konzentrieren und Unternehmen mit Rechtsexpert:innen in bestimmten Bereichen verbinden. 

Ein Vorteil der Büroarbeit ist, dass Manager sehen können, was ihre Teams tun. Sie wissen, wie das Team arbeitet und ob bestimmte Teammitglieder:innen Schwierigkeiten haben. Das ist natürlich bei Remote arbeitenden Teams schwieriger. Unternehmen müssen daher Wege finden, um die Produktivität und das Arbeitsverhalten der Mitarbeiter:innen zu messen. 

Es geht jedoch nicht nur darum, dass die Leistung den geforderten Standards entspricht, sondern auch darum, das Wohlbefinden der Mitarbeiter:innen zu gewährleisten. Remote zu arbeiten brachte für viele sogenannten „Technostress“ mit sich, auf dessen Warnzeichen Manager achten müssen. Gleichzeitig gilt es sicherzustellen, dass sie weiterhin Schulungs- und Unterstützungsbedarf erkennen und unangemessenes Verhalten (Mobbing, Diskriminierung, sexuelle Belästigung usw.) aufdecken, da dies in Remote-Umgebungen zunehmen kann. 

Einer der Hauptgründe, warum viele Anwält:innen eine Inhouse-Tätigkeit einer Kanzlei vorziehen, besteht darin, dass sie hier ihre Zeit nicht erfassen müssen. Doch auch in Unternehmen ist zu erwarten, dass immer mehr Rechtsabteilungen in digitale Aufzeichnungssysteme für Mitarbeiter:innen investieren werden. So kann die Produktivität aufrecht erhalten werden und das Wohlbefinden der Mitarbeiter:innen sichergestellt werden. Außerdem erhöht sich die Transparenz, sowohl nach innen wie auch nach außen. Diese drei Punkte bilden schließlich die wichtigsten Messgrößen für einen effizienten juristischen Betrieb. Möglicherweise werden auch bereits bestehende Legal-Tech-Plattformen Optionen zum Tracken der internen Produktivität integrieren, sodass Arbeitgeber KPIs messen und das Mitarbeiterverhalten besser verstehen können. Eine Möglichkeit, einer dauerhafte Zeiterfassung wie in Kanzleien zu vermeiden, besteht darin, die Arbeitsweise für begrenzte Zeiträume in Intervallen zu analysieren, anstatt einen „Always-on“-Ansatz zu verfolgen. 

Produktivität kann aber auch auf eine andere Weise gemessen werden, bei der man sich weniger auf den Output und mehr auf die Ergebnisse konzentriert. Wenn Teams auf eine Projektmanagement-Software umsteigen, werden sie wahrscheinlich damit beginnen, die Leistung anhand von OKRs und KPIs zu verfolgen. Dies ist ein guter Weg, um eine hohe Produktivität zu gewährleisten, ohne dabei zu anmaßend zu sein. Letztendlich werden Organisationen und Teams wahrscheinlich verschiedene Tools einsetzen, die ihnen helfen, die Leistung aufrechtzuerhalten und die gewünschten Ergebnisse zu liefern, wenn sie remote arbeiten. 

5) VON DER RECHTSPLATTFORM ZUR UNTERNEHMENSINTEROPERABILITÄT 

Der wohl bemerkenswerteste Effekt der Pandemie ist die beschleunigte und standardisierte Einführung von Tools zur Steigerung der digitalen Produktivität und Kollaboration. Zwar hatten viele Inhouse-Teams bereits Videokonferenzen und Instant-Messaging für sich entdeckt, hatten aber noch keine Erfahrungen mit Tools für die Remote-Zusammenarbeit und Kommunikation. Durch COVID-19 änderte sich das allerdings schlagartig. Die Nutzerzahlen von Microsoft-Teams stiegen zwischen März und November 2020 um 160% von 44 auf 115 Millionen Personen. Gleiches war bei Slack und Zoom zu sehen. Die Tools gehören mittlerweile also zur Standardausrüstung für das Arbeiten von zu Hause aus. 

Legal Tech-Anbieter müssen daher umdenken und ihre Strategien anpassen. Statt eigene Plattformen und IT-Systeme anzubieten, sollten sie den Nutzer:innen durch Plugins, Softwareintegrationen und APIs ermöglichen, weiterhin in ihrem bevorzugten System arbeiten zu können. Möglicherweise führt dies zu sogar zur Rekonstruktion bestehender Produkte, sodass sie in anderen Tools wie Microsoft Teams integriert werden können. 

IST DIE DIGITALE TRANSFORMATION DES RECHTSWESENS ENDLICH DA? 

Was alle oben genannten Punkte miteinander verbindet, ist die Tatsache, dass Technologie absolut unverzichtbar sein wird, um Arbeitnehmer:innen und ihren Organisationen den Übergang zum neuen dezentralen Arbeitsmodell zu erleichtern. Ausnahmsweise rennt die Technologie offene Türen ein – Arbeitnehmende und Arbeitgebende können digitale Produktivitäts-, Kollaborations- und Kommunikationstools gar nicht schnell genug einführen. 

Die Revolution des Remote-Arbeitens hat erst begonnen, die Zeit wird also zeigen, ob die oben genannten Vermutungen eintreffen. Wie es sich auch entwickeln mag, COVID-19 hat den Status Quo für Remote-Arbeiten verändert und der normale Dienst wird in der alten Form nicht wieder aufgenommen. Remote-first wird der Trend der 2020er Jahre sein, und Legal Tech-Anbieten sollten dies zu einem Kernbestandteil ihrer Produkt- und Kundenerfolgsstrategien machen, wenn sie wettbewerbsfähig bleiben wollen. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt.