Category: Legal Operations

Contracts play an essential role in the success of any business but guiding them to execution can be an uphill battle for many internal functions. Fortunately, the era of technology birthed solutions built for contract management – and implementing the right solution can cut spend, reduce review time, and positively impact material growth across the enterprise.

From the Magna Carta establishing control of royal power to a young America’s Louisiana Purchase from France to superstar athlete Lionel Messi’s colossal deals, contracts are everywhere in business.

In fact, the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report* disclosed that nearly half (43%) of legal departments globally handle up to 1,000 contracts each year — a towering number that leaps even higher in the United Kingdom, where one in four (25%) legal professionals process at least 2,000 contracts yearly.

The main source of friction in contract lifecycles comes from balancing speed and control. Sales and procurement professionals get paid to close deals — and the faster, the better, so they can close more deals — whereas Legal must assess every deal for compliance and to mitigate risk. While legal professionals in the United Kingdom have the fastest contract execution with nearly two in five (38%) reporting an average of less than three months, the highest percentage of contracts (35%) in the United States are finalized in four to six months, and in Germany (49%) and France (45%), execution generally takes seven months or more.

It may be the norm, but slowly executed contracts can impact business adversely, negatively affecting everything from deal closure and revenue generation (44%) to mergers and acquisitions (23%). Contract lifecycle management (CLM) provides a major opportunity for every internal department to work together better and more expeditiously, to grow their influence on revenue generation and operational and cost efficiency, and to achieve greater material success for the business. 

Time is money… and too much of both are spent on contract review

According to the ELR Report, two in five legal respondents (40%) spend four to five hours — at least half of every business day — reviewing and managing contracts. That means half of their work weeks, quarters, and fiscal years are spent manually reviewing contracts. In Germany, as many as one in five (19%) spends six to eight hours daily. And in France, one in 10 (10%) spends more than eight hours each day reviewing and managing contracts leaving them with little time to dedicate to higher-value work.

Let’s take a moment to calculate this. Say a legal professional earns an annual salary of $150,000 USD. If half their hours are unavailable for anything but reviewing contracts, that equates to $75,000 each year going to contract management. If there are 10 members of the legal team, that’s three-quarters of a million dollars every year processing contracts.

The ELR Report also revealed that as many as one in 10 respondents (and as many as one in five in the United States and United Kingdom) is concerned that Legal lengthens the time to close and win deals. Now imagine if this study was a corporation of 4,000 employees, in which most engage Legal at some juncture — whether for hiring an employee, signing a partnership, or finalizing a deal. If 500 of those employees are salespeople, 10% equates to 50 salespeople experiencing delayed deal cycles. Consider that impact on the company’s forecast, stock ratings, and even its ability to retain salespeople and prevent churn.  

Automated contract management means more time for higher-value work

What’s more, throughout what tends to be a labor-intensive and non-cost-effective process for Legal, other functions — such as sales, procurement, HR, and IT — may be left wondering what stage their contracts are in, what the next steps are, and when they can expect to move forward.

The process of contracting doesn’t have to feel overwhelming and seemingly endless, however. Implementing state-of-the-art CLM technology can eliminate contracting roadblocks and skyrocket the efficiency and productivity of contract management by:

1. Facilitating collaboration. Every department creates and manages contracts. But not every internal function uses the same system for contract management. Global enterprises deal with the added challenges locations, time zones, and languages. CLM technology can automate workflows and unify processes, providing the same data on all web browsers and devices for every department. This can help Sales, Procurement, and other departments manage their contract tasks as well as hasten the process for Legal by breaking down silos, significantly shortening contact execution times across the enterprise.

2. Advancing visibility. Despite the benefits of CLM, only 54% of legal respondents globally acknowledge their contract processes are automated. But with CLM solutions, every function can have a comprehensive view of the entire contracting cycle. Legal will have a library of up-to-date contract-generation clauses that can lessen risk and ensure consistency, and Sales, Procurement, HR, and IT can be aware of the status of their contracts with full transparency. CLM tools have also been shown to boost productivity by more than 51%, so every team can spend less time working on contracts and focus more on higher-value work.

3. Accelerating revenue recognition. When it comes to contracts, artificial intelligence (AI) takes things to the next level. On average, 51% of legal professionals use AI in managing contract lifecycles. Germany (60%) and the United States (57%) are most likely to have integrated AI, whereas only 43% in France and 34% in the United Kingdom have. But CLM powered by AI can identify and escalate potential issues for every enterprise function. By extracting necessary data for commercial and regulatory changes and allowing Legal to redline in less than two minutes, Sales, Procurement, and other customer-facing roles can close cycles up to 24% faster — which also has been proven to save most companies at least nine percent annual revenue.

Every department hires people, negotiates with clients, and makes agreements that ultimately lead to contracts. By taking control of the contract management process with end-to-end automated CLM, your business will catapult its cost and operational efficiency as well as topline revenue generation and evolve into a truly connected, materially impactive, future-proof enterprise.

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.

*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.

Legal operations already has a strong foothold as Sales’ hidden advantage. But there is even more the department can do to shorten sales cycles, close deals faster, and positively influence revenue generation and material growth. Here’s how.

Collaboration — the collision of diverse talents and instilled trust that inspires shared-goal achievement as a team — can elevate innovation and lead to immense success. When the legal department and sales teams are on the same, the outcome is more deals secured and quickly won.

Chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, reveals Legal has a remarkable foundation for supporting the sales team and the overall revenue acquisition process. Nearly three in four (74%) legal respondents believe they share positive collaborations with their sales team, and seven in 10 (68%) are confident they help effectively close deals; in Germany, those jump to an impressive 82% and 84%, respectively.

These are substantive figures when validating Legal as a meaningful contributor to leading topline revenue and business growth. But is being effective the same as being efficient?

Why the need for speed

Accelerating deal cycles carries a multitude of wins: uncovering best-in-class sales processes, enabling faster evaluation of new sales candidates’ performances, and hastening roadmap feedback for ongoing product improvement.

Sales velocity speaks most to establishing momentum for financial forecasting, better bookings, and a greater impact on materiality and revenue expansion across the enterprise. And to excel in today’s ever-evolving, increasingly competitive landscape, it is essential that a business moves quickly.

A look back at ELR chapter one shows that almost half (48%) of enterprise employees acknowledge Legal plays a part in accelerating deal cycles. To further drive that urgency, here are three ways Legal can work with and support Sales to speed up sales cycles:

1. Revving up the time to sign “on the dotted line”

Contracts are at the nucleus of any business. In fact, according to the ELR report, reviewing and signing contracts is the number-one interaction internal clients have with Legal. But the process of contracting can frequently create a division between legal and sales teams: 44% of global respondents – and 75% in Germany — say deal closures and revenue generation is the top area impacted by inefficient contract lifecycle management.

Sales wants to close deals ASAP to meet targets and generate revenue, while it is Legal’s inherent responsibility to carefully ensure every line in a contact is accurate. Determining exactly when and how Legal will join the “mission” and optimizing consistent workflows for both standardized and personalized contracts can cut back on bottlenecks while also improving Legal control, visibility, and markedly shortening the time necessary for contract drafting and delivery.

2. Encouraging clear, lightning-fast communication 

Although enterprise employees fully believe that Legal is a rockstar when it comes to the power of negotiation, that skill can lengthen sales cycles. Still, more than half of legal professionals feel they positively impact sales negotiations (58%), a sentiment that is similarly echoed by enterprise employees (56%).

Legal can up those numbers and closing times by conducting pipeline reviews with the sales team at regular intervals. Introducing a contract playbook with straightforward language outlining contracting terms, non-negotiable matters, and potential workarounds can also take the guesswork out of the process and lessen the need for Legal to get deeply detailed with every deal, significantly decreasing the length of the overall sales cycle.

3. Making tracks to drive CLM integration

By now it’s been thoroughly established: There can be no revenue recognition until contracts are signed. And the more time it takes for contracts to be reviewed and approved, the more time it takes to close a deal.

Two in five legal respondents (40%) say they spend four to five hours reviewing and managing contracts. And one in 10 (10%) in France spends more than eight hours daily reviewing and managing contracts!

However, automated contract lifecycle management (CLM) software has the ability to speed up every contracting phase end-to-end, from capture to document creation through redlining, e-signature, and execution. This can not only reduce Legal’s workload, giving the department back more time to focus on other matters, but pilot faster decision-making through review cycles, renewals, and negotiation; cut back on manual errors and overall risk; and shorten the average sales cycle by as much as 24%.

A surefire accelerant

What it ultimately comes down to is one simple truth: The fastest key to unlocking the “secret” of shorter sales cycles is collaboration.

When legal and sales teams view each other as partners and utilize effective and efficient contract management processes and tools, the time between initial lead and closing handshake will drop and sales velocity — and both your business’ top and bottom-lines — will have the opportunity to grow.

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.

*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.

Although certain perceptions between Legal and enterprise employees may seem fathoms apart, that only speaks to the remarkable opportunities to deeply connect, materially grow, and further protect your business.

Tucked within an 18th-century ode to transformation penned by historian and scholar Thomas Gray is a familiar saying: “Ignorance is bliss.”

Many of us, however, are not aware of how that famous poem ends: “ …where ignorance is bliss / ‘tis folly to be wise.” Read in its entirety, this line is not so much an excuse to avoid the truth for the sake of happiness, but rather a reflection on embracing the unexpected. Because ready or not, change will come knocking.

Recently released, chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, revealed that while 73% of Legal cites positive relationships with its internal clients, only 60% of enterprise employees feel the same. Similarly, Legal reported greater connections with every department than employees did: IT (78%), Procurement (76%), Sales (74%), and Marketing (73%) for Legal as opposed to just 38% for IT, 37% for Procurement, 43% for Sales and 37% for Marketing for employee respondents. And though nearly every legal professional (95%) considered their department efficient in managing service requests, three in five employee respondents (59%) characterize Legal as “inefficient.”

What accounts for these incongruities? This perception predicament — where what one sees does not necessarily match what exists — presents an undeniable Iceberg Effect.

Sometimes, what we don’t know can hurt us. But while Legal may only be seeing part of the equation, the ELR report also uncovered untapped potential and opportunities glittering below the surface for legal operations to shine a beacon on everything from topline revenue and innovation to competitive differentiation, brand image, and corporate culture.

Here are three ways Legal can melt the Iceberg Effect and connect more deeply across the enterprise:

1. Spark faster sales cycles.

Nearly seven in 10 (68%) legal professionals feel they excel at helping Sales effectively close urgent deals, and more than half (56%) of enterprise employees acknowledge that Legal jumpstarts sales and revenue operations.

Legal, by its very nature and trade, is directed by precedents. Its main purpose is to provide risk mitigation and enterprise stability. However, as an authority figure and natural business protector, Legal also has the power to be an extraordinary change agent. Time, as they say, is money. And by examining processes and developing optimized, forward-thinking policies, Legal can accelerate business growth and revenue generation by securing deals faster so that more can be made.

2. Ignite an inclusive culture.

People are the heartbeat and lifeblood of an enterprise. Innovation and intelligent solutions require creativity, communication, and the collaboration that comes from clever and varied voices.

The right competencies on a team are also required for true and lasting accomplishment, but in this era of “the Great Resignation,” employee retention is proving a major issue. Half of all legal professionals (49%) believe recruitment and talent retention require improvement (49%), and more than one in three (35%) respondents point to a need for better workload planning for the sake of operational efficiency.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives have consistently been linked to stronger work quality and competitive differentiation, and three in 10 legal professionals (29%) believe their companies are making DEI a priority in 2022. More than half (52%) also say they are increasing diversity via vendor partnerships, and in the United Kingdom especially, hiring practices are beginning to show incredible diversity. A more connected, values-driven culture can thaw the Iceberg Effect in a truly meaningful way.

3. Navigate the latest in tech.

In addition to hiring and retaining talented people, another necessary transformation for Legal to melt the Iceberg Effect and achieve material success is the integration of innovative technology, including contract lifecycle management (CLM), eBilling, and matter management tools that embrace automation, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI).

However, half of all legal teams globally deem their current technology insufficient (47%) and outdated (46%) – despite the desire to streamline inefficiencies and boost productivity.

So, what’s holding up Legal’s tech revolution? Nearly half (44%) of legal professionals admit their department is averse to change, 39% blame a lack of budget, and 25% say they simply do not have time to learn new technology. Perhaps most surprising, and simultaneously concerning, two-thirds (67%) feel executives are unsupportive of Legal’s modernization, even if it means providing better client service and customer experience.

Although finding and incorporating the right tech can be a challenge, identifying recurring pain points and wish lists, devising an enterprise-wide implementation plan, and working with an experienced partner — as well as ensuring data security, privacy compliance, and a best-practices cybersecurity response plan — can provide tremendous operational cost savings and efficiency.

Steering your enterprise towards greater success

Ignorance is rarely bliss. In the end, it is knowledge that is power.

By banking on collaborative partnerships and insights to accelerate sales cycles and generate topline revenue, procuring diverse service providers and vendors to build an inclusive culture, and dissipating the gap between “old school” legal practices with the introduction of modern digitalization, Legal can demonstrate a distinct impact on materiality and efficiency and further protect, promote, and elevate its brand.

Even more, Legal will melt the Iceberg Effect once and for all, extracting new opportunities to connect more deeply throughout the enterprise, delivering exceptional business acumen and innovation, and evolving into a true leader to support and inspire the next generation of 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.

Now is the perfect time to evolve Legal’s role and brand image for the path ahead. Here’s how to boldly do so, for the future of Legal and the growth of your business. 

When it comes to the relationship dynamic between Legal and the enterprise as a whole, an irrefutable Perception Paradox exists: While nearly four in five (78%) enterprise employees around the world* view Legal as stellar business protectors and good advisors, only one in four (27%) view Legal as a good business partner.

Corporate employees understand that Legal is just doing its job — and they believe Legal is doing it quite well. In the end, however, true success cannot be attained without inclusivity and collaboration.

Here are five opportunities for Legal to bridge gaps, improve alliances within the enterprise, and jumpstart greater overall impact on material growth, topline revenue generation, and bottom-line efficiency:

1. Evolve the Department of “No”: Although 22% ELR Report respondents consider Legal the “no” police, 48% believe that the department is actively trying to cut red tape, minimize bureaucracy, and help accelerate deal cycles. Legal can capitalize on this perception by making the conscious effort to modernize processes in ways that cultivate further flexibility and adaptation. By challenging legacy paradigms and replacing them with new structures and optimized processes, Legal can find itself asking “How can we help?” far more often than having to say no.
2. Spark Efficiency with Tech: The mainspring and linchpin of a modern legal department is its state-of-the-art technology. By working with corporate IT to drive the implementation and adoption of comprehensive enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions, Legal will not only maximize savings, increase operational efficiency, and enhance collaboration, but also introduce and leverage forward-thinking tools that can serve the entire enterprise.
3. Solve the Need for Speed: Artificial intelligence (AI) can provide this impact Legal needs to work both smarter and faster. With automation, Legal can help streamline workflows and integrate data-driven decision making into standard processes, distilling complex and lengthy tasks and enhancing speed by at least 25%. A bonus: When combined with ELM solutions, process automation was found to cut business operating costs by as much as 90%!
4. Bear the Torch for DEI: Most CEOs will tell you that diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is of utmost importance to their organization. However, the perception among employee respondents is that much of what is said may not be translating to what is done as only 50% believe DEI is treated as a priority, and barely 25% believe that vendor diversity matters to the enterprise. But if Legal is a protector —and there is no greater purpose in the role of protector than sheltering the heartbeat of an enterprise, its people— this is a distinct advantage to embolden the department with new initiatives of respect, communication, and cooperation. That way, Legal becomes an advocate for empowering the outlooks and opinions of many divergent others, both in the workplace and world at large.
5. Bring the Insight: More than three out of four (76%) enterprise employees feel that Legal manages data security governance well. However, when it comes to security, there is no such thing as half secure or almost secure. Security needs to be 100%, or it simply isn’t secure. With Legal’s involvement in countless confidential and sensitive matters, and with most legal professionals being inherently strategic thinkers, it is a natural leap that this an opportunity for Legal to become more contributory to the company’s data analytics and protection. In doing so, Legal will become a more visible and even more valued business partner, ensuring both the physical protection and cybersecurity of its constituents.

Become the Hero Your Enterprise Needs

As poet Langston Hughes once remarked, “The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it.” By aligning and partnering with corporate functions and anticipating how to meet ever-evolving needs, Legal will pivot the Perception Paradox. By championing open communication, resetting expectations, and holding the enterprise to forward-facing standards, Legal can transform its brand and perception on the way to creating a better future, having greater material impact for its businesses, and standing out not for the old reasons but the right ones.

Spark your revolution of evolution today by downloading ELR Report Chapter 1.

*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.

Bodhala is excited to announce the launch of Envision — a series of exclusive events in collaboration with our parent company Onit.

Starting with the first event June 21st in Chicago, Envision is an opportunity to meet the rest of the Onit family of companies, hear from product experts, and get a front-row seat to the next generation of innovation in legal tech.

Envision events are free to attend. Click here to register and learn more.

Attendees will also have the chance to network with peers in the Chicago area, and learn how they are working with Onit companies to achieve operational efficiency and build stronger connections between Legal and the rest of the business. 

By the end of the event, attendees will have a clear understanding of how to cost-efficiently and cost-effectively execute legal workflows, with help from Onit’s solutions purpose-built for contract lifecycle management, matter management, e-billing, spend management, analytics, and more.

Envision Chicago Details

Date: June 21, 2022

Location: Union League Club of Chicago – 65 W Jackson Blvd, Chicago, IL 60604

Agenda (All times CDT) 

11:00 AM – 1:00 PM

• Lunch & Demos

1:10 – 3:30 PM (Keynotes)

• Corporate Legal’s Reputation in the Eyes of Internal Clients and Its Opportunity to Materially Impact Enterprise Growth, Topline Revenue, and Bottom Line Efficiency
• Evolving Expectations About Legal’s Business Impact: New Approaches That Connect Legal to the Enterprise Through Better Partnering and Workflows That Matter
• The Roadmap That Makes Legal Work Flow Faster and Smarter: The Next Generation of Automated, AI-driven ELM And CLM Solutions

3:30 – 4:05 PM (Roundtables)

• Session A — Connecting the Enterprise Through Data
• Session B — Top Challenges Solved by SimpleLegal’s Enhanced Reporting

4:15 – 4:55 PM (Roundtables)

• Session A —Rightsizing Contract Management
• Session B — Using Market Intelligence to Improve Business Outcomes

5:00 – 6:30 PM

• Evening Reception

Click here to register for Envision Chicago.

If you can’t make it to Chicago, you can meet us at a future Envision event later this year!

• Envision Los Angeles, CA — August 24, 2022
• Envision London, United Kingdom — September 20, 2022
• Envision Stuttgart, Germany — September 22, 2022
• Envision New York, NY — October 20, 2022

Stay tuned for updates and agendas for future Envision events!

To make the best decision on where to send your next big matter, you need the right data. That’s why we’ve added a brand new offering to Bodhala’s growing arsenal of benchmarking products: Matter Benchmarking. 

Bodhala’s Matter Benchmarking is the first of its kind, providing unparalleled insights into what a matter costs, how many hours were worked, and a deep analysis of staffing and rates — down to the individual task or document. 

Rates will always play a critical role in understanding your costs. But when you peel back a few more layers of the onion, you will find there’s almost always more to the picture than meets the eye. Now with a single click, you can find out not just how many hours it took to create an important document — but also how many hours it should have taken, and how it should be staffed.  

Backed by Bodhala’s proprietary machine learning and AI, this first-to-market solution is truly groundbreaking. Let’s break it down (see what we did there?): 

Bodhala’s New Matter Similarity Model

To make this work, we built a completely new way of comparing matters. Our proprietary matter similarity model uses machine learning and natural language processing to identify similar matters from similar firms. Each pairing is given a similarity score of 1 to 100, indicating the strength of the match. 

The model uses over 10,000 different factors to identify similar matters. Plus, it’s smart – as more matters enter the system, it is constantly improving, identifying new pairings and rescoring old pairings. This ensures matters are always compared to the most relevant set of matters. 

Get Both Internal & Market Benchmarks

Bodhala’s Matter Benchmarking compares your matters not just against similar matters from similar firms across the market, but also to your own internal panel. You may find that certain firms are much more efficient than others across your panel, but that the entire panel is far less efficient than the overall market for similar matters. 

Having both internal and market benchmarks provides you with a unique perspective on your current panel of firms. You can not only improve matter allocation on future matters but also make smarter decisions about how you manage your entire panel. 

Detailed Look at Rates & Hours

Every report breaks down both rates and hours by timekeeper level, comparing those rates and hours to both the market and your panel. Rates are only part of the picture so understanding how the matter was staffed, in addition to your rates, delivers true cost analysis. 

Drill Down Into Tasks & Documents 

Perhaps most exciting — and completely new — is Bodhala’s deep dive benchmarking on individual tasks and documents. Bodhala analyzes every matter, identifying key tasks and documents, and benchmarks those tasks against the market and your panel. 

Stop wondering how many hours that document should take to make — or if it should be handled by partners or associates. Bodhala’s Matter Benchmarking gives you the answers.

By combining rate and staffing analysis with market and panel benchmarks, Matter Benchmarking helps you understand the true “should cost” of upcoming matters while also supporting better matter allocation and panel management. 

Start simplifying your budgeting and counsel selection process today and sign up for a demo. 

Rates for legal services are a black box. Are you getting a good rate? Are you overpaying for partners but getting a deal on associates?  

Historically it has been nearly impossible to know if your rates were market-appropriate. Available benchmarking reports were less-than-accurate, they often didn’t compare apples-to-apples, and they didn’t allow clients to understand the impact of their rates on their spend. 

We’ve got good news. Those days are GONE. 

Introducing Bodhala’s Rate Benchmarking 2.0 – a transparent comparison of your effective outside counsel rates against both the market and your panel – all the way down to the named timekeeper level. 

This new and improved solution delivers what legal departments have been waiting for — accurate benchmarks and usable insights on rates. We enhanced our proprietary rate benchmarks by analyzing cost impact, including estimated rate increases, historical analysis, and much more. 

Budgeting, rate negotiation, and internal reporting just got a whole lot easier! 

Let’s dive into what’s new and improved!

Compare Your Benchmarks from Firm to Firm 

Comparing each firm to the market is important — but understanding how all of your firms compare to each other is also critical. This comprehensive view of your firms’ benchmarks gives you a high-level overview of how your firms stack up against each other and the market, providing health scores for each firm. 

Historical Impact Analysis

Customers often ask us, “If I had paid market-appropriate rates, how would that have impacted my overall spend?” Great question — and now we include the answer front and center. 

We analyze your whole spend across your selected practice area, calculating how much you would have saved overall had your rates been closer to market standards. Then we break it down by timekeeper level, giving you a clear line of sight into the highest impact opportunities at your next rate negotiation.

Named Timekeeper Benchmarks & Cost Analysis

Breaking down benchmarks by timekeeper level is important. But we all know that not all timekeepers are created equal. Every team has its key players — their “Lebrons” — and they usually come at considerable cost. More often than not, superstars are worth the money. But are you being charged superstar prices for utility players? 

With granular benchmarking data about individual timekeepers, you can ensure you’re paying appropriate rates for every timekeeper. 

White-Glove Service & Expert Advisory

What if you don’t have internal resources to focus on benchmarking? Or you want expert advice on how to leverage your benchmarks to drive better outcomes at your next rate negotiation? 

No problem!

Bodhala’s Client Success Team offers white-glove services, including everything from highlighting key savings opportunities and creating sizzle-worthy decks to share with your internal stakeholders, to consulting on tactical strategies for rate negotiation and staffing recommendations. 

Whatever kind of support your team needs to meet your goals, we’ve got you covered.  

Ready to start running legal like a business?

When it comes to your law firm rates, you have more leverage than you realize. You just don’t have the data yet. Fortunately, with new Bodhala’s Rate Benchmarking, it’s now easy to budget smarter, negotiate harder, and get more value from our outside counsel.  

Test drive Rate Benchmarking for FREE!

Not ready to commit? Want to see it in action for free? 

Check out our FREE Rate Benchmarking Report to benchmark any firm in the AmLaw 200 across 10 top practice areas. No commitment, no need to give us a call — just a couple of clicks and you’ll have your benchmark.

GET MY FREE BENCHMARK

Are you overpaying your law firms? What should your upcoming matter cost? Are your law firms delivering the value their rates warrant?

Historically, in-house teams have lacked the transparency and insights needed to answer these questions.

Until now.

Meet Bodhala’s new Benchmarking Solutions — the easiest way to compare your rates and matters against your panel and the market at large. 

With significant improvements to Rate Benchmarking and our brand new Matter Benchmarking solution, corporate legal teams can finally access the market insights necessary to budget smarter, negotiate harder, and save money on outside legal counsel.

Let’s take a look at what’s new!

Rate Benchmarking

Our new and improved Rate Benchmarking delivers what corporate legal leaders have been waiting for – accurate benchmarks coupled with usable insights. Get ready legal ops folks — budgeting, rate negotiation, and internal reporting just got a whole lot easier! 

We enhanced our rate benchmarks by adding named timekeeper benchmarks, cost impact analysis, projected ROI on increase mitigation, and more. 

Compare Your Benchmarks from Firm to Firm

We added an overview of all of your benchmarks, enabling you to easily find and compare your firm benchmarks. This comprehensive view highlights how each firm stacks up against one another and the rest of the market — plus, it makes all of your benchmarks easier to access.

Ratings in red, yellow, and green make it simple to identify where you’re getting a good deal and where you may want to focus your negotiation efforts. 

Historical Impact Analysis

Ever asked yourself, “How much could we have saved if we paid more market-appropriate rates?” 

We thought so. Well, it’s time to stop wondering because Bodhala’s new Rate Benchmarking crunches those numbers for you. 

We analyze your spend with a firm across practice areas, calculating how much you would have saved if your rates were closer to market standards. Seeing those numbers in black and white (or red…) really puts things in perspective, helping you decide if any rate mitigation effort is worth your time.

Named Timekeeper Benchmarks

All timekeepers are not created equal. Sure, you’re willing to pay the big bucks for those star players, but does every partner deserve that “star treatment”? 

Just think of how easy rate review will be when you can simply pull up the benchmarks for all of your individual timekeepers. And when it comes time to select counsel for that big upcoming matter? Break out those named timekeeper benchmarks and quickly identify the highest value player on your roster. 

Matter Benchmarking

With Bodhala’s Matter Benchmarking you’ll get unparalleled insights into what a matter costs, how many hours were worked, and a deep analysis of staffing and rates – down to the individual task or document. 

Matter benchmarks will simplify your budgeting process and help you refine your outside counsel guidelines to ensure you’re never paying more than you should for your matters.  

Get Market and Panel Benchmarks

Matter Benchmarking compares your matters not just against similar matters from similar firms across the market, but also to your own internal panel. 

Having both internal panel and market benchmarks provides you with a unique perspective on your current panel of firms. You can not only improve matter allocation on future matters but also make smarter decisions about how you manage your entire panel. 

Detailed Look at Rates & Hours

Every report breaks down both rates and hours by timekeeper level, comparing those rates and hours to both the market and your panel. Rates are only part of the picture so understanding how the matter was staffed, in addition to your rates, delivers true cost analysis. 

Drill Down Into Tasks & Documents 

Say you’re doing a fund formation and you’re curious how many hours a subscription agreement should really take. Look no further. 

You can stop wondering how many hours that document or task should take – Matter Benchmarking gives you the answers. With benchmarks for hours and staffing ratios, you can keep current matters on track, and budget more effectively for the next one. 

We’re here to help

Bodhala’s Client Success Team offers full white-glove service, from highlighting key savings opportunities to consulting on tactical strategies for rate negotiation or matter staffing — and everything in between.

Ready to start running legal like a business?

When it comes to managing your outside counsel spend, you have more leverage than you realize. You just don’t have the data yet. 

Bodhala’s Benchmarking Solutions put insights at your fingertips, enabling you to make strategic decisions across your legal department – from rates to matters and everything in between.

Ready to give it a spin?

TRY RATE BENCHMARKING FOR FREE!

2021…where do we begin?! This was a monumental year for our business. Awards were won, bigger and bigger deals were closed, new products were released — and we were acquired by a company that you may have heard of (more on all that later!).

While we’re still working remotely, we did get to come together in person on several occasions for meetings, workshops, and dinners — plus one rooftop party for the books. We got to physically meet the faces we see on Zoom every day, reconnect with colleagues we haven’t seen since our office shut down, and finally find out how tall some people really are.

Our people are the foundation of our business. Having all of our brilliant minds together has been nothing short of invigorating.

Now, let’s dive into some of the highlights from the last twelve months!

Acquired by Onit!

It’s no surprise that our biggest news of the year was being acquired by Onit. We officially joined the Onit family of companies as an independent subsidiary in September. 

Onit is the indisputable market leader in enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, and business process automation solutions — and we’re looking forward to continuing to usher in a new exciting phase of legaltech together in the years ahead.

With this exciting culmination of many years of hard work, we had to celebrate appropriately. We gathered with nearly all Bodhala employees, as well as many new teammates from Onit, in New York City for an amazing rooftop celebration. It was a great feeling to not only get our team back together after 18 months, but also to meet many of our new Onit family members. It was an apt celebration of success, as well as a strong kick-off to our next chapter!  

We Iterated & Improved

We continued to invest in our product, iterating where necessary and building where we saw the need. Our platform is the lifeblood of our business and we remain devoted to making our user experience better by the day. We’re proud to serve some of the largest companies in the world, helping them achieve their strategic spend priorities.

Thanks to the remote nature of our current work environment, we’ve expanded our talent pool, hiring new Bodhalians from not just around the country but around the world. We’ve grown our Client Success and Product/Data teams this past year, understanding the critical role these two functions play in serving our clients. 

Bodhala was founded to transform the legal industry and be the single source of truth for actionable insights on outside counsel spend. We’re proud to not only be a category creator but be the indisputable leader in this space. 

Released New QBR Program 

Corporate legal departments are increasingly acknowledging the importance of data but don’t exactly know how to get started — and we wanted to help.

We launched our Quarterly Business Review Program in October as an easy way for corporate legal departments to get their feet wet in legal data analytics. Our QBR program gives in-house teams the clarity on their legal spend that’s necessary to make more strategic decisions, impacting both their outside counsel spend and management.

All We Do is Win, Win, Win…

We’re both honored and humbled to see our hard work recognized. In 2021, Bodhala was named:

Overall Legal Analytics Solution of the Year by LegalTech Breakthrough Awards

101 Most Innovative New York Based Machine Learning Companies by Futurology

A New York City Company to Watch in 2021 by Built in NYC

Hot Off the Press

We can’t lie — we love the limelight. 

We’re proud to be a consistent thought leader for the industry, being featured in many mainstream and industry publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Business Insider, Nasdaq’s World Reimagined Podcast, Reuters, VC News Daily Podcast, PE Hub, and many more. You can check out all our press here.

Looking Back

2021 was a transformational year not only for our business but also for the entire legal tech industry. We could not be more excited to carry our momentum into 2022 and continue to drive this major wave of legal tech innovation. But we’re not finished yet! Big goals lie ahead in 2022 but we’re fortunate to have the best and the brightest on our side to help tackle our mission. 

We look forward to bringing you more exciting news in 2022!

Wishing you and yours a happy & healthy holiday season!

– Your friends at Bodhala

It’s no secret that until recently, the word “technology” — or even worse, “AI” — could make in-house teams shudder, perpetuating the industry’s reputation as laggards in terms of technology innovation and adoption. But doing more with less means optimization of daily tasks is no longer a nice-to-have — it’s critical.

So what exactly can we expect to see from the legaltech industry in 2022? Here are some of our predictions:

A Rising Tide Lifts All Ships

Demand for solutions that automate frequent, repetitive tasks and enable workflow and process efficiency continues to fuel significant growth across the sector. 

And because of this growth, 2021 was a monumental year for legaltech. 2021 saw three legaltech unicorns go public, with many others reaching or coming dangerously close to unicorn status. Couple that with growing investment across the industry topping $1B and you’ve got all the makings of a major industry breakout. 

Just a decade ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find any private equity firm with a legaltech company on their balance sheet. Now? They not only have them on their balance sheets, but many have specialized verticals focused on legaltech. If that’s not a harbinger of growth, then what is? 

“The Business of Legal”

2021 was a transformative year for businesses across the board. With some companies still reeling from the economic effects of 2020, many corporate legal departments set out to do more with less in 2021 — with new technologies playing a key role in enabling their success. 

That theme — doing more with less — will drive a bigger trend across the industry: operationalizing and optimizing “the business of legal”. 

What will that mean? Sure, it will definitely lead to software adoption and increased use of analytics, but it will also be the driver of many other trends. 

“The Great Unbundling” 

2021 will continue to accelerate new approaches to getting things done. From ALSPs to other types of providers, alternative solutions for accomplishing tasks will continue to emerge and grow — and there’s an increasing focus on what corporate legal departments can do to allow lawyers to be lawyers. This will be true for both in-house and law firms.

We’re still in the early innings of the legaltech revolution, but the current notion of how certain types of work are executed is under increasing scrutiny. Does an in-house attorney really need to spend their time on discovery work when there are great alternative solutions for that? Nope. 

From states like Utah softening the rules on legal services ownership to the proliferation of ALSPs — both independent and captive — you can expect the “great unbundling” to continue in 2022.

Solution Platformification & Verticalization 

Corporate legal departments know they need to start leaning on technology but the plethora of solutions out there can be overwhelming. Buyer fatigue is real, and organizations don’t want to devote countless hours or resources to onboarding a multitude of vendors.

Leading legaltech organizations are taking note of this and leading the charge on platformification — and acquisitions are playing a major part in that. Just look at our parent company, Onit, who acquired five companies within the past few years — four of them in the past two years alone! Being a “one-stop-shop” for a buyer will continue to be incredibly valuable in 2022.

Aside from platformification, you can expect to see some verticalization in the legaltech space as well. Birds of a feather flock together and organizations want to follow in suit of their peers when it comes to the technology they use. Expect to see legaltech providers honing in on specific verticals as they find their niche market — especially in PE as high finance continues to boom.

The Rise of Legal Ops

So what do all the trends we just mentioned have in common? They create a distinct, and undeniable need for legal operations. 2021 presented corporate legal departments with the need to determine what’s a “nice-to-have” versus what’s a “need-to-have” — and a legal operations function has fallen into the latter. 2022 will solidify that, as more companies bring on legal operations in-house, or outsource it to consultancies or other white-glove services. 

Whether it be to improve the efficiency of the legal department, manage process automation and onboarding, or rein in inflated legal spend — legal operations teams will continue to be an invaluable asset to organizations across the globe. And as businesses continue to be tasked to do more with less, we can expect to see more legal ops professions, departments, and solutions in 2022.   

Here’s to 2022!

Legal services — both in-house and at law firms — is changing rapidly. 2020 presented many new challenges, accelerating the adoption of technology and changing the way the industry works. Innovation is disrupting the status quo, pushing legal departments and firms to take a hard look at how they operate. 2022 will double down on that trend, pushing teams to new heights of operational excellence. 

2021 was a turning point – and 2022? It will solidify legal operations — and the technology behind it — as a driving force of innovation across the industry. And we are extremely excited to help drive the industry into a bright new future!