Year: 2017

It is with great pleasure that we announce one of our major clients, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) was selected as a 2017 American Corporate Counsel (ACC) Value Champion. They are being honored for making a difference, not only in their organization through creativity and value-based legal management skills, but also for affecting change within the legal industry.

ADM is an American global food processing and commodities trading corporation, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ADM’s legal department shared some problems that are all too common among legal departments across the country. For example:

• They were using an existing “traditional system” for e-billing/ matter management
• Implementation was limited to the United States and parts of Europe
• Data entry was fragmented and was inconstant across business units (South America, and most of EMEA did not open matters in the system)
• They had no automated and auditable process to ensure settlements were strategically evaluated and properly authorized

Typically, these issues leave other processes in the legal department fractured, work migrates to email and spreadsheets, processes are encapsulated in “forms” and flowcharts, and Excel is used for tracking and reporting. And to make matters worse, these tools were simply breaking down at scale. ADM is a global, complex organization and it needed a platform that is flexible enough to “make the complex simple.”

ADM partnered with Onit, a leading provider of enterprise spend management software, to design and implement a solution. Both companies have an impressive pedigree of experience and together they collaborated innovatively to find the best technology solutions to optimize these processes:

• A multi-lingual Conflict of Interest Disclosure
• 10Q – 302/404 questionnaires and certification
• Data Privacy review process for new vendor selection
• Government Hosting & Gifting Request and Approval
• Tariff Classification Intake Form
• Service of Process integration with CT Corporation
• A significant matter update process
• Reserve Review and Approval
• Claims management integration with an external system
• Confidentiality Agreements

Results

ADM leveraged technology and their new platform solution to reach all corners of the law department beyond legal and spend management. The astounding results that ADM achieved from this major makeover speak for themselves. Their reduction of legal costs alone is enough to make one catch their breath. The legal department has reduced its outside legal spend by more than one-third and now relies increasingly on fixed-fee and other AFAs for matters ranging from transactions to litigation.

As if remarkable reduction of legal spend weren’t enough, ADM also implemented an extraordinary series of predictive metrics and reporting to give better insight and guidance to lawyers and business folks who manage risk for the company.

Everything ADM did on this project served as a foundation to drive and optimize the law department function. The project was focused enterprise-wide, creating consistent and repeatable tools for improving and managing the law department. Insight and analytics worked in tandem to create not only sound and repeatable processes, but also highly sustainable results.

ADM achieved these enviable results through a combination of innovation, process re-engineering and a robust and nimble technology platform to aggressively meet their challenges head-on, and come out on top.

The ACC Value Champions, a component of the ACC Value Challenge, is a unique recognition program that identifies, celebrates and publicizes successful law department value initiatives and collaborations between clients and their legal service providers. Each year ACC identifies and highlights individuals who have utilized value-focused management practices to cut spending, improve predictability and achieve better outcomes. The Champions come from varied industries and departments/firms of many sizes, and have utilized an array of value levers.

Onit is the industry leader when it comes to Enterprise Legal Management (ELM). Our solutions are flexible, lightweight and easy-to-use. Click here to schedule a demo with one of our ELM experts.

Onit was honored to be a key player in a recent Legaltech News article titled, “Management that Pays: A Look Inside PayPal’s ELM System Implementation.” The genesis of the article was at the 2017 CLOC Annual Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas, where Onit and PayPal presented a session titled. “Next Generation Enterprise Legal Management (ELM): People. Process. Automation.” The speakers were Lauren Giammona, Director of Operations, Business Affairs & Legal at PayPal, and Eric M. Elfman, founder and CEO of Onit. It was Onit that ultimately provided the legal spend management solution for PayPal.

PayPal and Onit discussed how legal departments can provide “continuous” value to the company, drive operational improvements and allow employees to work in the systems they prefer. The session highlighted:

• The importance of process, workflow and collaboration
• How a business automation tool solves needs beyond e-billing and matter management
• Key benchmarks and metrics that drive innovation and transformation in legal operations

At the end of her portion of the presentation, Giammona left the CLOC attendees with seven key lessons to take away:

1. You are choosing a vendor, not just a tool. Seek a true partner. As Giammona said, “Where we are on the technology curve, I would say we’re fairly high, but there’s a ton more that we could be doing” with the help of a partner.
2. “Configuration” and “customization” are not interchangeable terms. The former is needed, but customization likely means not using the tool as it is meant to be used.
3. Know your tipping point, particularly “must have” versus “nice to have” technologies. “Everything starts with a must have, and we constantly find ourselves dialing back to what we need to do today.”
4. For a new technology, do a full-blown, hands-on Proof-of-Concept (POC), she said. PayPal requires hands on access for two weeks with a new tool, which Giammona said “so far exceeds what you learn in an RFP or demo.”
5. Opt for a tool that can grow with you. “You may not need to iterate more in document management… but in other areas you might. So leave yourself the runway.”
6. Don’t let the system define your metrics. She cautioned to spend the time up front to identify key metrics, reports and design to achieve goals before implementing a system, as it will allow the company to configure the tool to its needs from the start.
7. And finally, she said to always remember that legal operations is always a journey—keep learning: “It was certainly easier when I was starting out in legal operations; the expectations were lower. … Now it seems like the expectation is so high that you’re going to implement the perfect system each time.

To learn more about our legal e-billing and matter management solution or to schedule a demo, let us know when you are available for a quick conversation.

Onit is privileged to be exhibiting at iManage ConnectLive 2017 this year. This pivotal event is scheduled for May 24-25 and will be held at the Marriot Magnificent Mile in downtown Chicago. This year will include more non-law firm tracks, such as corporate legal, deeper-dive technical tracks, and a larger exhibit area.

The iManage user conference is all about creating connections. Between customers and partners. Between those that are working with advanced technology – using it every day in the service of their clients – and others that are still searching for solutions to important issues in their businesses.

Across four days and two continents, iManage will bring together CIOs and IT professionals, attorneys, legal administrators and more. Companies will share the latest technology advancements and celebrate their successes and work together.

Please stop by our booth in the exhibit hall next week to see us.

Onit is pleased to announce that one of our major clients, Archer Daniels Midland, is a finalist in the prestigious Transatlantic Legal Awards 2017. With assistance from Onit, ADM designed and implemented sustainable processes and systems to “make the complex simple.” ADM’s global rollout allowed real-time access to legal spend and offered predictive metrics and reporting dashboards. Overall, the company reduced its outside legal spend by more than one-third and reduced volatility by using fixed fees and other alternative fee arrangements.

The Transatlantic Legal awards recognize excellence in handling transatlantic matters across the key areas of corporate, finance and disputes, as well as highlighting law firm and legal department innovation, commitment to pro bono, outstanding transatlantic strategy, and in-house leaders. The judging panel is made up of senior ALM journalists, Chris Johnson, chief global correspondent, business of law at The American Lawyer and Law.com; and Georgina Stanley and Gina Passarella, editors of Legal Week and The American Lawyer respectively.

The awards gala will take place on Thursday, June 8, 2017 at One Whitehall Place, London SW1, United Kingdom.

Join us for our discussion, “Next Generation Enterprise Legal Management (ELM): People. Process. Automation” at the CLOC Annual Legal Operations Institute on May 9 from 3:15 – 4:15 p.m. in Las Vegas.

For nearly two decades, enterprise legal management (ELM) has focused on transactional solutions, like matter management and spend management. Many legal departments find themselves struggling under the weight of legacy technologies that simply do not work or are expensive to upgrade.

The 21^st century, version 3.0, of ELM is about business process automation. ELM should not simply be data capture but a true system of engagement that underlies and supports all the key processes of the law department such as legal spend management, contract management, legal service requests, NDAs, legal holds and much more.

PayPal and Onit will discuss how legal departments can provide “continuous” value to the company, drive operational improvements and allow employees to work in the systems they prefer. The session will highlight:

• The importance of process, workflow and collaboration
• How a business automation tool solves needs beyond e-billing and matter management
• Key benchmarks and metrics that drive innovation and transformation in legal operations

Speakers

• Lauren Giammona, Director of Operations, Business Affairs & Legal, PayPal 
• Cole Morgan, VP, Enterprise Legal Management Solutions, Onit

About Lauren Giammona:

Lauren Giammona is Director of Operations, Business Affairs & Legal at PayPal, Inc.  In this role, she oversees operations for PayPal’s Business Affairs function, which includes Legal, Government Relations, Human Resources, Corporate Communications, Social Innovation, and Aviation.  Her areas of responsibility include budgeting/financial planning, outside counsel/vendor management, tools and technology, knowledge management, strategic planning and cross-functional support for the broader organization reporting into Louise Pentland, EVP, Business Affairs & Chief Legal Officer. Ms. Giammona focuses on providing critical infrastructure which enables the organization to meet its business priorities effectively and efficiently.

About Cole Morgan: 

Cole Morgan has more than 20 years of management experience in the legal technology and legal operations sectors. In his current role with Onit, he works with corporate legal department clients to optimize service delivery and develop strategies that define the value of legal services within the corporation.

We’re looking forward to hosting this engaging session and hope you’re able to attend. Click here for a complete list of planned sessions for the May 2017 Institute. Check out our Events Page for more information about upcoming tradeshows we’ll be attending near you.

York brings a wealth of software industry finance and accounting experience to Onit and his background will be instrumental in the company’s growth. York is a seasoned executive with extensive experience managing finance organizations for high-growth companies, most recently serving as CFO at Riversand Technologies, Inc. where he was responsible for overall financial operations and reporting.

He brings remarkable skills to our finance and accounting team and will be instrumental in providing the finance vision, strategy and leadership to help the company get to the next level.

As CFO, York will be responsible for ensuring the finance organization can enable the company to drive growth, capitalizing on the accelerating demand for software solutions that drive greater efficiency and process automation across a spectrum of global businesses.

York comes to us with more than 15 years of finance and operations experience and has held CFO positions at several privately held companies in the Internet and technology industries. During his career, he has built large, multi-national finance organizations, completed many strategic acquisitions and divestitures, raised capital in debt and equity markets and managed multiple shareholder exits.

His background includes serving as the CFO of Idera, Inc. where he designed and implemented back office operations including accounting, finance, tax, human resources, legal, IT and maintenance renewals. In addition, York managed the development and execution of the Sarbanes-Oxley compliance program for BMC Software. During his career, he held a number of senior financial positions and served as director of finance of NetIQ Corporation, controller at PentaSafe Security Technologies and senior auditor of Price Waterhouse Coopers.

York holds a master’s degree in science and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Texas A&M University.

We’re thrilled to have York join the executive management team. Click here to view the full press release.

Onit’s CEO and President Eric M. Elfman will serve as a judge for the 2017 Rice University Business Plan Competition. Scheduled for April 6-8, the program is known as the world’s richest and largest graduate-level business plan competition.

This will be the 16th year that Elfman has judged the competition, which is hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. The competition has grown from nine teams competing for $10,000 in prize money in 2001 to 42 teams from around the world competing for more than $1.5 million in cash and prizes. More than 130 past competitors have gone on to successfully launch their businesses, raising in excess of $600 million in funding.

During the competition, the entrepreneurial teams “pitch” both their business plans and visions to the judges. Each presentation is graded by the judges as if they were venture capital investors themselves. The winner of the competition is the business that the judges would most likely invest in based on the quality of the idea, the strength of the management team and the clarity and persuasiveness of the written plan and oral presentation.

To learn more about the competition, visit http://www.rbpc.rice.edu/