Year: 2019

Smart Read of the Week: A New Direction for Legal Insourcing?

Posted on September 21, 2019 by - Legal Operations

Over at Law.com, Nicholas Bruch posits an interesting theory: the long term trends suggesting continued growth in corporate insourcing of legal work — that is, hiring internally versus offloading work to outside counsel — may not tell as complete a story as the trend lines suggest.

As the graph shows, and our data cited in The Wall Street Journal confirms, the cost of doing business with Big Law is going up. In fact, it’s now about 3x the cost to work with outside counsel versus hiring in-house at a legal department. But there may be more to consider for the future of corporate counsel beyond in-house or outside counsel.

Interestingly, Bruch suggests that while outside counsel ultimately will have to adjust its outlook to deal with the rise of insourcing, a viable new option has emerged for corporate legal departments, highly correlated with the rise of the advent of big data in the legal market: alternative legal service providers.

What’s driving this trend? Costs cut by efficiency.

The ALSP operational model, which tends to be less reliant on costly lawyers, will be able to deliver services more efficiently. All of this will change the way law departments approach pricing and sourcing. Notably, it will fundamentally change the math that led law departments to in-source.

As you probably know, ALSPs help give corporate legal departments a new way to manage high-demand matters like document review, electronic discovery, research, and more.

We’ll keep monitoring developments in this space so keep looking out for more. In the meantime, we’d love to talk more about how we can help continue the trend of bending the cost curve downward, while working with your inside and outside counsel, and any ALSPs you currently utilize. At Bodhala, our data scientists built our proprietary machine learning platform to help you understand, predict, and act with confidence on your legal spend.

Shoot us an email at [email protected] to learn more.

Legal Department 2025

Get It Right The First Time

BODHALA IQ WHITE PAPER

Driving Disruption in the Legal Department Part III: What’s Ahead for Legal Operations

Posted on September 11, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In part II of this blog series we discussed the joining of forces of legal operations and technology. Technology has been a key player in the unprecedented growth of legal operations in recent years, and this relationship will continue growing even faster. Now it’s time to reveal what some experts have to say about the future of legal ops.

To set the stage for what the future holds, it’s best to see the current lay of the land in legal operations. There have been some major disruptions in the legal sector in the past decade, one of which is advancements in technology. Some external and internal drivers of change have been the rising cost of legal services, the strategy of doing more with less, globalization, mergers and acquisitions, and advancements in cutting-edge technologies1.

Onit’s CEO Eric M. Elfman and Nathan Wenzel, General Manager and Co-founder of SimpleLegal have each spent almost three decades in disciplines that are now known as legal operations. Based on their experiences, these thought leaders foresee continued growth in legal ops, with legal operations professionals moving well past matter management, spend management, and the selection of counsel and evolving into more strategic roles. Here are their seven predictions for the future of legal operations:

  1. Legal operations professionals will continue to take on administrative burdens – in far more areas than spend management – in order to let lawyers be lawyers.
  2. Law departments will work to untangle overcomplexity in their enterprise legal management systems and return to basics that allow work to be done more efficiently and effectively.
  3. The use of collaboration and workflow tools will continue to grow as the legal function becomes more global and complex.
  4. More will be expected of technology vendors, and law departments will less frequently integrate a variety of tools and instead build platforms that handle multiple functions seamlessly.
  5. Legal ops professionals will engage more closely and directly with their companies’ businesses units, with a heightened focus on turn time and customer satisfaction.
  6. Law departments will build expertise to match the pricing experts that have become commonplace in law firms. Firms currently have the advantage in negotiations and AFAs because they understand the data better; legal ops will look to even the playing field.
  7. Legal operations professionals – and in-house counsel – must get better at data and analytics in order to make better decisions to behave more like business units while also better serving their clients.

Advancements in technology, process-driven service delivery and evolving and segmented roles in operations will be spearheading the future of legal operations for many years to come. The most proactive legal departments have already recognized this and are taking control of their future by taking action now.

Click here to read the white paper, Driving Disruption in the Law Department.

1 The legal department of the future: How disruptive trends are creating a new business model for in-house counsel. Deloitte, 2018.

VORBEREITUNG AUF DEN ERFOLG IM BEREICH LEGAL OPERATIONS 

Posted on September 9, 2019 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Obwohl Legal Operations eine relativ etablierte Funktion ist (nur 2 % konzentrieren sich überhaupt nicht darauf), übertragen 44 % der Unternehmen die Aufgaben einem Unternehmensjuristen, anstatt eine dafür zuständige Fachkraft einzustellen. Der Trend geht jedoch dahin, spezielle Stellen für Legal Operations zu schaffen und Teams aufzubauen. Wie können Sie also Ihr bestehendes Rechtsteam auf den Erfolg im Bereich Legal Operations vorbereiten und schulen? 

Legal Operations ist wohl das neueste Modewort in der Rechtsbranche, aber die Funktion gibt es schon länger, als Sie vielleicht denken. Das Corporate Legal Operations Institute (CLOC), das in letzter Zeit immer mehr an Bedeutung gewinnt, wurde in den USA bereits 2010 gegründet. Wenn man sich anschaut, was Legal Operations ist – Effizienzsteigerung, Ausgabenkontrolle usw. -, dann haben viele Rechtsabteilungen dies schon seit Jahren getan, ohne es so zu nennen. 

Eine dieser Rechtsabteilungen ist die ECE Projektmanagement G.m.b.H. & Co. KG („ECE“). General Counsel Joachim Kämpf erklärt: „Wir beschäftigen uns schon länger mit Legal Operations“, haben es aber nicht so genannt. Der Schwerpunkt von Legal Operations lag bisher auf der Überwachung der externen Anwaltskosten und der Ableitung von KPIs. Jetzt verwenden wir „Legal Operations“, um weitere Themen wie Vertragsmanagement (von der Vorbereitung des Vertrags bis zum Abschluss, über die interne Bearbeitung bis zur Kündigung), Risikomanagement und unternehmensinternes Wissensmanagement zu umfassen.“ 

Legal Operations sind alle Funktionen der Rechtsabteilung, die nicht zum Recht selbst gehören. CLOC unterteilt diese Bereiche in 12 Kompetenzen auf drei Reifegraden, die Sie auf der Website von CLOC finden können. Zu den typischen Fähigkeiten und Verantwortlichkeiten von Legal Operations gehören: 

  • Definition und Förderung von Initiativen zur Verbesserung der Effizienz und der Prozessabläufe. 
  • Verwaltung der Richtlinien für externe Rechtsberater, der externen Kosten (Transparenz, Kontrolle und Reduzierung) und des Abteilungsbudgets. 
  • Optimierung der Kanzleileistung für ein optimales Preis-Leistungs-Verhältnis. 
  • Implementierung, Messung und Analyse von Metriken, die als Entscheidungsgrundlage dienen, und deren Umsetzung in Maßnahmen, die zu Verbesserungen führen. 
  • Implementierung von Technologien zur Erreichung von Abteilungs- und Geschäftszielen. 
  • Funktionsübergreifende Zusammenarbeit, um den Wert der Rechtsabteilung innerhalb der Organisation zu demonstrieren. 
  • Verstehen und Überwachen der Risiken, der Risikobereitschaft und des Risikoprofils der Rechtsabteilung im Rahmen der Organisation. 

Warum also der neue Fokus auf Legal Operations? Da die Unternehmen immer umfangreicher und komplexer werden, steigt auch der Umfang und die Breite des erforderlichen juristischen Fachwissens – und damit auch die Kosten. General Counsel stehen mehr denn je unter Druck, ihre Rechtskosten zu rechtfertigen, die Effizienz ihrer Abteilung zu verbessern und mit dem gesamten Unternehmen zusammenzuarbeiten. Joachim Kämpf, General Counsel der ECE, erklärt: „Legal Operations wird uns näher an das Geschäft und damit an die anderen Fachabteilungen heranführen und die Rechtsabteilung wird eine andere, wichtigere Rolle im Unternehmen einnehmen.“ Mit dieser Forderung, die Rechtsabteilung mehr „wie ein Unternehmen“ agieren zu lassen, geht ein Bedarf an Kostenkontrolle und Prozessverbesserung einher. Das Problem für ein traditionelles Rechtsteam ist dabei ein zweifaches. Erstens. Der vorrangige Zweck der Rechtsabteilung wird immer darin bestehen, in Rechtsangelegenheiten zu beraten. In Zeiten hoher Arbeitsbelastung oder bei unzureichender Personalausstattung des Teams werden die operativen Tätigkeiten in den Hintergrund treten. Zweitens. Das Erreichen von Betriebs- und Geschäftszielen erfordert Fähigkeiten, die nicht unbedingt zum Standardrepertoire eines Anwalts gehören.“ 

Legal Operations ist eine relativ etablierte Funktion, aber viele Unternehmen übertragen die Aufgaben einem Unternehmensjuristen, anstatt eine dafür zuständige Fachkraft einzustellen. Der Trend geht jedoch dahin, spezielle Stellen für Legal Operations zu schaffen und Teams aufzubauen. Unabhängig davon, ob Ihre Rechtsabteilung über einen speziellen Mitarbeiter für Legal Operations, ein ganzes Team oder einen Rechtsberater verfügt, der Legal Operations als Teil seines „Tagesgeschäfts“ betreibt, ist es jetzt an der Zeit, Ihr gesamtes Rechtsteam für die Zukunft zu rüsten und es dazu zu ermutigen, über die Ausübung des Rechts hinaus zu denken. Inhouse Juristen verfügen über viele Fähigkeiten, die sie für eine erfolgreiche Tätigkeit im Bereich Legal Operations benötigen – einschließlich Kanzleimanagement, Unternehmenskenntnisse und ein tiefes Verständnis für die täglichen Abläufe und Herausforderungen der Rechtsabteilung. Dies allein reicht jedoch nicht aus, und die Qualifikationsdefizite der Anwälte liegen in der Regel in den Bereichen Technologie und Software, Change Management, Budgetierung und Datenauswertung. 

Personen mit all diesen Fähigkeiten werden selten zu finden sein. Ob der Leiter der Legal Operations ein Jurist oder ein Nicht-Jurist sein sollte, ist umstritten, aber die meisten sind sich darin einig, dass das Ziel ein gemischtes Team aus Juristen, Nicht-Juristen und Fachleuten sein sollte, das zumindest über Grundkenntnisse in allen Funktionen der Legal Operations verfügt. Ben Eason, Legal Transformation, Barclays, drückt es treffend aus: „Legal Operations kann schief gehen, wenn es zwei Seiten des Legal Teams gibt: die Juristen und die Nicht-Juristen. Das gesamte Team sollte zusammenarbeiten.“ Amy McConnell, Head of Legal Operations, Vodafone Business, stimmt dem zu: „Wir sind der Meinung, dass alle Anwälte ein besseres Verständnis von Projektmanagement, agilen Methoden, der Durchführung von Experimenten und Versuchen sowie der Gestaltung und Verbesserung von Prozessen haben sollten. Wir führen Schulungsprogramme für alle durch, die lernen und sich weiterentwickeln wollen.“ 

Einige der Möglichkeiten, diese zusätzlichen Fähigkeiten in Ihr juristisches Team zu integrieren, sind: 

JOB SHARING/SHADOWING 

Ziehen Sie in Erwägung, Juristen im Finanzwesen, im Vertrieb, im Marketing, im operativen Geschäft, im Produktmanagement oder in der Datenanalyse einzusetzen – in jedem Bereich des Unternehmens, der ihre Fähigkeiten in einer Weise erweitert, die einer der Funktionen von Legal Operations entspricht. Die Herausforderung besteht darin, Kollegen aus diesen anderen Abteilungen zu finden, die qualifiziert genug sind, um einen echten „Jobtausch“ in die Rechtsabteilung vorzunehmen. Shadowing ist in solchen Fällen eine gute Alternative. Iain MacDonald, Legal Operations Consultant, ehemals bei der Lloyds Banking Group, rät den Führungskräften, auch die Nicht-Juristen im Legal Operations-Team weiterzubilden: „Wenn man den Nicht-Juristen die Möglichkeit gibt, Juristen zu hospitieren, können sie die unterschiedlichen Aufgaben, Verantwortlichkeiten und Herausforderungen, mit denen die Juristen konfrontiert sind, besser verstehen und hoffentlich engere Arbeitsbeziehungen innerhalb der Funktion aufbauen.“ 

PROJEKTLEITUNG 

Es ist mehr als wahrscheinlich, dass Mitglieder Ihres Teams bereits an großen Projekten wie M&A Projekte mitgewirkt haben, allerdings nur aus rechtlicher Sicht. Wenn sie das gesamte Projekt leiten, werden sie mit anderen Bereichen des Unternehmens und deren Auswirkungen auf die Gesamtempfehlung und das Ergebnis vertraut gemacht. Es muss nicht einmal ein so großes Projekt sein. Ein interner Markenwechsel, eine Produkteinführung oder eine HR-Initiative reichen völlig aus. Die Beteiligung an einer Software-Einführung wäre von Vorteil. Die Leitung von Projekten, an denen Interessengruppen aus mehreren Abteilungen beteiligt sind, unter Einhaltung von Fristen und des Budgets ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil von Legal Operations, so dass die Leitung eines funktionsübergreifenden Projekts diese Fähigkeiten fördert. 

TRAININGS, KONFERENZEN, NEWSLETTER 

Der offensichtlichste Weg, die benötigten Fähigkeiten in Ihrem Team aufzubauen, sind Schulungskurse, aber auch Konferenzen können Wissen vermitteln und inspirieren. Schulungen müssen keine externen Kosten verursachen, da ein Großteil der Fähigkeiten bereits im Unternehmen vorhanden ist und Kollegen aus anderen Abteilungen bei der Schulung helfen können. Dies ist eine Technik, die im Barclays Legal Transformation Team angewandt wird, sagt Ben Eason: „Wir nutzen Weiterbildungsinitiativen, um Anwälte zu Themen wie Datenanalyse, Cloud, Cyber Security, KI und Werbung zu schulen – und die Fachleute im geschäftlichen Hintergrund über die Praxis des Rechts und den Rechtsmarkt. Für uns ist es wichtig, dass das gesamte Team die Menschen, Abteilungen und Systeme im gesamten Unternehmen kennenlernt, damit sie den größtmöglichen Wert schaffen können.“ 

TECHNOLOGIE EINFÜHREN UND NUTZEN 

Ermutigen Sie Ihr Team, darüber nachzudenken, was sie bei der täglichen Arbeit bremst, und zu untersuchen, ob diese Probleme durch Technologie gelöst werden könnten. Ermutigen Sie sie, Software-Tools zu recherchieren und zu empfehlen, die ihnen und dem gesamten Team helfen könnten, und das Implementationsprojekt zu leiten. 

REGELMÄSSIGE PRÄSENTATIONEN UND Q&AS ZU UMSATZ, GEWINN UND ZIELEN DES UNTERNEHMENS 

Wenn in Ihrem Unternehmen regelmäßig „Town Halls“ stattfinden, bei denen aktuelle Finanzdaten und Unternehmensleitbilder vorgestellt werden, sollten Sie Ihr Team ermutigen, daran teilzunehmen, oder, falls dies nicht der Fall ist, solche Veranstaltungen nur für die Rechtsabteilung einrichten. Wecken Sie das Interesse Ihres Teams an der finanziellen Gesundheit des Unternehmens und daran, wie die Rechtsabteilung dazu beitragen kann. Ein modernes juristisches Team muss die Finanzterminologie fließend beherrschen und mit der Budgetierung und Berichterstattung vertraut sein. 

Möchten Sie mehr über das Thema erfahren? Laden Sie unser praktisches Whitepaper „Wie Sie ein erfolgreiches Legal Ops Team aufbauen“ herunter.  

Preparing Your Legal Team for Legal Operations Success

Posted on September 9, 2019 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Despite legal operations being a relatively established function (only 2% of organizations are not focusing on it), 44% of organizations assign legal ops responsibilities to a corporate lawyer rather than a dedicated person. However, the broader trend is toward creating dedicated legal operations positions and building teams. So how do you prepare and train your existing team for legal operations success?

WHAT IS LEGAL OPERATIONS?

“Legal operations” has been around longer than you might realize; for example, the Corporate Legal Operations Institute (CLOC) formed in 2010. Many legal operations functions have been around for years, just without the name attached. The focus is usually on driving efficiencies, controlling spend, monitoring external counsel fees, and deriving KPIs.

Generally, legal operations encompasses all the functions of the legal department that are not the law itself. CLOC breaks these areas into 12 competencies at three maturity levels; you can find this resource on their website. The typical skills and responsibilities of legal operations are to:

  • Define and drive initiatives to improve efficiency and process workflows.
  • Manage outside counsel guidelines, legal spend (visibility, control, and reduction), and department budget.
  • Optimize law firm performance for maximum value for money.
  • Implement, measure, and analyze metrics that inform decision-making, turning them into actions that deliver improvements.
  • Implement technology to achieve departmental and business goals.
  • Work cross-functionally to demonstrate the legal department’s value within the organization.
  • Understand and monitor the risks, risk appetite, and risk profile of the legal department within the organization’s framework.

So why the recent focus on legal operations? As businesses grow in scope and complexity, the volume and breadth of legal expertise required increases, and costs also go up. General Counsel are under more pressure than ever to justify their legal costs, improve the efficiency of their department, and collaborate with the broader business.

Legal operations will bring the legal department closer to the business and thus to the other specialist departments, resulting in Legal playing a different, more critical role in the company. With this demand to make the legal department act more “like a business” comes a need for cost control and process improvement. The problem with this for a traditional legal team is two-fold. First, the legal department’s priority will always be to advise on legal matters. Operations will take a back seat during busy periods or with an insufficiently staffed team. Second, achieving operational and business goals requires skills that are not necessarily part of a lawyer’s standard repertoire.

DEVELOPING LEGAL OPERATIONS SKILLS IN THE CORPORATE LEGAL TEAM

Whether your legal department has a dedicated legal operations resource, a whole team, or legal counsel doing legal operations as part of their “day job,” now is a vital time to future-proof your entire legal team and get them thinking beyond the practice of law. In-house lawyers have many skills that will enable them to succeed in legal operations, including law firm management, company knowledge, and a deep understanding of the legal department’s day-to-day operations and challenges. However, more is needed, and lawyers’ skills gaps tend to be in technology and software, change management, budgeting, and analytics.

Finding people with all these skills will be rare; whether your legal operations head should be a lawyer or non-lawyer is a matter for debate, but most agree that the end goal should be a diverse team of lawyers, non-lawyers, and specialist experts supported by the whole team having at least a basic knowledge of all the functions of legal operations.

Some of the ways to build these additional skills into your corporate legal team include:

JOB SHARING/SHADOWING

Consider placing lawyers with finance, sales, marketing, operations, product management, and data analysis – any area of the business that will broaden their skillset in a way that addresses one of the functions of legal operations. The challenge will be finding colleagues from these other departments qualified to do a genuine “job swap” into Legal. Shadowing is a desirable alternative in these scenarios. Also, try to upskill the non-lawyers in the legal operations team. Allowing them to shadow lawyers will enable them to better understand the different roles, responsibilities, and challenges facing the lawyers and hopefully build stronger working relationships within the function.

LEADING PROJECTS

It’s more than likely that your team members will have already been involved in large projects such as a merger or acquisition, but only from the legal perspective. If they lead the whole project, they will get exposed to other areas of the business and their impact on the overall recommendation and outcome. It doesn’t even have to be such a big project. An internal re-brand, product launch, or HR initiative will all work. Involvement in a software roll-out would be beneficial. Managing projects that involve stakeholders from multiple departments to deadlines and budget is a key part of legal operations, so leading any cross-functional project will build these skills.

TRAINING COURSES, CONFERENCES, NEWSLETTERS

The most obvious way to build the skills you need in your team is through training courses, but conferences can also impart knowledge and inspiration. Training doesn’t have to be an external cost as many of the skills will exist in the company already, and colleagues from other departments can help train. For example, lawyers should gain insights into data analysis, cloud, cyber security, AI, and commercials. Likewise, the business background professionals about the practice of law and the legal market so that they can provide the most value.

IMPLEMENT AND USE TECHNOLOGY

In today’s digitalized world, goals such as transparency, efficiency gains, and data analysis come through the combination of skilled personnel and software. The legal operations discipline is no exception to this; just look at the world’s leading legal operations teams. Each one relies on tailor-made legal operations tools in their daily work.

For this reason, empower your team to think about what slows them down at work daily and investigate if technology could solve these challenges. Encourage them to research and recommend software tools to help them and the wider team and lead the roll-out project.

REGULAR PRESENTATIONS AND OPEN Q&A ABOUT COMPANY REVENUE, PROFITS AND GOALS

If your company does regular “town halls” where they present financial updates and mission statements, encourage your team to attend these or start doing them just for your Legal team if they don’t exist on a company level. Get your team interested and educated in the organization’s financial health and how legal can contribute. A modern legal team must be fluent in financial terminology and confident with budgeting and reporting.

Request a demo of BusyLamp eBilling.Space today.

Four Consecutive Years on Inc.’s Fastest Growing Companies List! Onit Secures Spot on Inc.’s Fastest Growing List Four Years Running

Posted on August 29, 2019 by - Company News and Events

We already announced that Onit ranked #963 (growth rate of 441%) on Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. But we thought it may be a great idea to celebrate that we’ve received this honor for four consecutive years. In 2018, we ranked #1431 with a growth rate of 327%, and in 2017 we came in at #949 with a growth of 562%. Our greatest achievement, however, was in 2016 when we placed in the Inc. 500, with a rank of #387 and growth of 990%.

“It’s always exciting when I learn that Onit has ranked on the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list,” commented Eric M. Elfman, CEO and co-founder of Onit. “Even though we have been fortunate to receive this honor for the last four years, it never lessens the tremendous feeling of accomplishment I have for the company each time it happens. It takes the collective efforts and dedication of every Onit team member to drive our unprecedented growth in order to make the Inc. 5000 and Inc. 500 list of our nation’s fastest-growing companies.”

The Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing three-year growth. Companies must be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies.

To see the technology behind our phenomenal growth, request a demo!

How Can Law Firms Benefit From Legal E-Billing?

Posted on August 29, 2019 by - Enterprise Legal Management

E-billing and its parent discipline of legal spend management came from the desire to serve in-house teams. The process requires law firms to submit invoices in a consistent LEDES format, enabling automated invoice review by the corporate legal departments and consistent data for reporting. This saves the legal department time and money by improving productivity, reducing erroneous bills, and enabling rate comparisons and data-driven decision-making.

Learn more: What is Legal E-billing?

E-billing is now well understood and not only in large firms. Over 70% of US mid-sized firms’ revenue is e-billed, and 25% in the UK. Many firms now have dedicated e-billing teams. Despite this, some firms remain resistant, mainly smaller firms processing smaller revenue amounts or unfamiliar with e-billing and LEDES, as they will have a steeper learning curve and initial cost and resource impacts. These firms can be reluctant to use a tool they perceive comes forced on them, especially in the short term; it will also mean their revenue decreases if the software spots and rejects invoices that do not meet the client’s billing guidelines.

BENEFITS OF E-BILLING FOR LAW FIRMS

The lessons will come from larger law firms, some of whom have been e-billing their clients since the 90s. While some of these firms will have also initially met e-billing with hesitation, they accept it is a cost of doing business with in-house clients, have fully functioning billing teams, and are now reaping the benefits and realizing that it can be a strategic revenue driver for the firm.

CORPORATE LEGAL DEPARTMENTS DEMAND TRANSPARENT RELATIONSHIPS

The knee-jerk reaction to e-billing is that corporate clients want to crack down on billing errors and get the cheapest rates. Instead, legal departments are looking for transparency and consistency. They want to be sure they are paying the appropriate cost, not necessarily the lowest cost. For example, this means not paying a partner for work a junior could do. Law firms unwilling to be open about line entry information may get thought of as hiding things. With so many law firms happily sharing this information, those who refuse to may need more work. With corporate legal teams looking for transparent relationships, refusal is a big risk.

HAPPIER CLIENTS LEAD TO HIGHER REVENUE

Yes, automated billing guidelines will likely result in the exposure of erroneous billing practices by the firm and a reduction in short-term revenue as these invoices are corrected. The gain for the firm is longer-term. The purpose of e-billing is not to “name-and-shame” and then fire non-compliant law firms. Billing guidelines can be complicated, and we’ve yet to find a law firm that doesn’t bill some errors. Corporate legal departments understand that this is a combination of human error and learning curves, which comes as part of the implementation process.

The benefit comes when the billing guidelines get created, reviewed, and amended so they are win/win for the client and firm. Using guidelines means that any conversations about disputed charges are less aggressive. Data can set future fees and expectations. The relationship becomes more fact-based and strategic. Happy clients that trust their firms will stick around and direct more work their way – we are seeing this trend already with many in-house teams reducing their panels to focus on fewer, higher-value relationships instead.

LAW FIRM INVOICES WILL GET PAID FASTER

Automated invoice review removes the need for manual checking of every bill. Those that meet the guidelines are approved automatically and can get paid faster. Many of our in-house customers commit to shorter payment cycles for electronic bills. This commitment can be a gesture to their firms that they view e-billing as a process that should be win/win. Some tools, like BusyLamp, allow law firms to submit “Work in Progress” or draft invoices for review or approval before submitting the invoice. In these instances, bills get paid even faster.

DATA-DRIVEN RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN IN-HOUSE TEAMS AND FIRMS

Much of the conversation around legal spend management data and its benefits go towards the corporate legal department and the savings they can make using data analysis to inform decision-making. Law firms also benefit from this data; both parties can use spend data in negotiations, detailed matter information makes for more thorough reviews, and firms can offer different charging models, alternative fee agreements and fixed fees based on facts. With confidence, the pricing models are commercially viable. This also comes back to corporate legal departments wanting transparency; they’ll be confident and happy that the agreed charging models are fair. Taking it a step further, the law firm can set universal rates and prepare more accurate and competitive estimates by analyzing spend data from multiple corporate clients.

COMPREHENSION OF E-BILLING IS A VALUE-ADD

Law firms should see e-billing as a marketing tool and something to offer to new and existing clients. Many law firms are experienced in e-billing and can advise clients on e-billing issues, best practices, and tailoring data to meet the in-house team’s needs. Prospective clients in today’s business environment will expect and require law firms to know about e-billing and demonstrate that they can offer this service when making new business pitches. In this age of “new law,” a law firm that can provide more than just legal advice appeals to in-house teams. A lack of e-billing understanding may hurt client acquisition efforts.

IMPROVE LAW FIRM PROCESS EFFICIENCY

While the initial onboarding process may have its hurdles and learning curves, e-billing will help the law firm identify and rectify internal billing and processing inefficiencies, allowing for more time on higher-value work.

REDUCING POSSIBLE NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF E-BILLING

Despite these benefits, getting up and running with e-billing can be costly, time-consuming and sometimes frustrating for the law firm. Here are some ways the corporate legal department and e-billing vendor can help reduce and eliminate negative experiences and impacts.

  • Some legal spend management solutions have pricing models that charge the law firm up to 100% of the subscription cost with no cost to the in-house team. Since the corporate legal department (rightly, so it fits their needs) gets to choose which e-billing tool to use, we think it’s unfair to charge the firm. We also believe that if the in-house team is paying for the tool, they are more motivated to use it to its full potential, which demands collaboration with the firm and maximizing the value of data that is input, so firms aren’t wasting effort entering unnecessary data. BusyLamp doesn’t charge law firms; ultimately, it’s up to the corporate legal team which solution and pay model they select.
  • Training lawyers to use new software can be a significant, time-consuming challenge for law firms. One way around this is to set up dedicated e-billing teams – all the larger firms have these. If fee-earners are to use the tool, then thorough training and support from the legal spend management vendor are essential at onboarding and beyond. Vendors may charge different amounts for different levels of training. While “online help” is usually included, higher-value training such as face-to-face can carry an additional fee. As the in-house team would foot this bill, the corporate team needs to understand the value and importance of investing in training. However, no amount of training can rectify the frustrations that accompany a poorly designed software interface. The software buyers on the in-house side should review the user experience (UX) and interface (UI) for the law firm and the corporate side, as the law firm experience can be below par with some solutions. The BusyLamp interface is the same for law firms and corporate clients to ensure both sides have an equal experience.
  • Corporate legal teams can reduce the number of rejected invoices (and therefore law firm frustrations) by including the law firms when agreeing on billing guidelines. Even if they do not, they should make them readily available and ensure the law firm understands them. Suppose an in-house team/law firm is currently unfamiliar with billing guidelines. In that case, we recommend starting with a few vital ones, as a large list from the off is more likely to cause confusion and inaccuracy. Law firms should also note unexpected rejections and errors, and the in-house team should be prepared and open to accepting and discussing this feedback.
  • Data security is an important issue, and law firms can be understandably reluctant to start uploading their information to a system they have yet to review and select themselves. The corporate legal department should ensure they choose a vendor with comprehensive information and data security policies (BusyLamp holds ISO/IEC 27001), including GDPR.

Find out more about data security considerations in our in-house legal tech data security checklist.

Driving Disruption in the Legal Department Part I: The Rapid Evolution of Legal Operations

Posted on August 27, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The pressure to run the legal department like a business has been gaining traction for several years. Driving efficiencies and containing costs are two key reasons that legal operations is important and is growing so quickly. In addition, law departments were forced to adopt a more operationally focused mindset as a result of the Great Recession. The 2008 downturn was so severe, and efficiency and cost-cutting were considered so critical to the survival of the business at large, that the balloon popped. And since it has, C-suites have increasingly been making their law departments behave more like their other business units. This ultimately led to the rise of a profession dedicated to bringing business discipline to the law department: legal operations.

Legal operations professionals handle the management of vendors, systems, strategic planning, technology, knowledge, financial issues and the myriad other tasks that can overwhelm the legal department. Legal operations is all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to help grow the company, and is a multi-disciplinary function that optimizes legal services delivery to a business or government entity by focusing on twelve core competencies. The competencies, developed by the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC), are divided among three levels: foundational, advanced and mature. Almost every legal department function is covered, including vendor management, technology and process support, service delivery and litigation support.

Legal operations professionals are now managing outside vendors, implementing technology, overall legal spend and many other aspects of the legal department. And it’s not only happening in the Fortune 500 companies (as it was a few years ago); smaller companies are getting aboard as well. We believe that legal operations will be responsible for some of the biggest changes in the legal ecosystem in years to come.

Click here to download the full white paper, “Driving Disruption in the Law Department”

Legal Data in the Driver’s Seat at Microsoft

Posted on August 23, 2019 by - Legal Operations

  • Microsoft has agreed to join a growing coalition of legal departments looking to standardize legal data for machine learning environments
  • More and more legal departments are talking about making data-driven decisions with their outside counsel
  • Bodhala does precisely that with the power of our industry-leading data set and analytics

Over at Bloomberg’s Big Law Business, Roy Strom reports Microsoft has begun rolling out a new standard for legal taxonomy developed by the Standards Advancement for the Legal Industry (SALI) Alliance.

Although now in a pilot program, the move is an effort to standardize all legal matters facing the tech giant in hopes of taking control of legal spend.

Here’s a killer quote that caught our eye:

“We are more and more asked to think about how we enable our teams to make data-driven decisions about how they engage with outside counsel and how they do their work,”

– Rebecca Benevides, Director of Legal Business

Benevides noted that SALI taxonomy will help Microsoft legal teams by creating cleaner data models to leverage.

Preach! We hear this from clients and in discussions with industry leaders every week. And an implementation at this scale will almost certainly lead to greater adoption of a data-driven mentality across the market.

Bodhala is a groundbreaking legal technology platform created by lawyers to transform the half-a-trillion dollar global legal industry. Our platform refines organizational processes by empowering your legal team with deeper insights that allow you to better analyze, interpret and optimize outside counsel spend, trailblazing a new era of legal market intelligence.

We’re built on data – and how we develop it, how we utilize it and how we analyze it for the benefit of our customers sets us apart. Our proprietary benchmarking metrics and rate review algorithms generate detailed insights into every aspect of legal spend. An intuitive dashboard puts the information you need to make more cost-effective decisions about legal service providers at your fingertips, effectively boosting efficiency and reducing your bottom line.

Anyone who works at the intersection of Big Law and Big Business knows there’s a shift underway. Just recently the Wall Street Journal cited our data to show how the legal industry is changing at a lightning pace. Check it out!

We’d love the opportunity to help your company follow Microsoft’s lead. Shoot us a message and let’s talk about how your existing data can make sense of your spend. 

Request a custom demo here or email us at [email protected].

Onit Ranks #963 on the Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Company List

Posted on August 15, 2019 by - Company News and Events

We are excited to announce that Onit ranked #963 on Inc. magazine’s annual Inc. 5000 list, the most prestigious ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. Onit had a three-year revenue growth of 441 percent. This is the fourth consecutive year Onit has made the list.

The list represents a unique look at the most successful companies within the American economy’s most dynamic segment—its independent small businesses. Microsoft, Dell, Domino’s Pizza, Pandora, Timberland, LinkedIn, Yelp, Zillow, and many other well-known names gained their first national exposure as honorees on the Inc. 5000.

The 2019 Inc. 5000 is ranked according to percentage revenue growth when comparing 2015 and 2018. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2015. They had to be U.S.-based, privately held, for profit, and independent—not subsidiaries or divisions of other companies—as of December 31, 2018. (Since then, a number of companies on the list have gone public or been acquired.) The minimum revenue required for 2015 is $100,000; the minimum for 2018 is $2 million.

Click here to see Onit’s press release.

The Lean, Mean Legal Department Part II: Technology to the Rescue

Posted on August 13, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Cost control and cost management have, and continue to be, among the biggest challenges of legal departments around the globe. How have legal departments been handling this? By increasing the workload of existing resources, bringing on more in-house lawyers, and implementing more technology. Increasing the workload? Something employees definitely don’t want to hear. Hiring more in-house lawyers? That’s not really making things “leaner,” is it? That leaves us with technology. Let’s investigate this option a little more by first referring to HBR Consulting’s 2018 Law Department Survey:

“Law departments also continue in their efforts to streamline operations, not only to control costs but also continue to increase efficiency. Legal technology continues to be a focus of many departments and plan implementation of next generation technologies to increase productivity. Law departments continue to be interested in data-related technologies, with 28 percent indicating they plan to implement artificial intelligence technology in the next one to two years, and 26 percent planning to implement legal spend analytics. These were topped, however, by contract management solutions, which 29 percent plan to implement in the next one to two years. These new legal technologies help automate manual workflows and create visibility into workload and spending, allowing organizations to improve operating efficiency and facilitate decision making.”

E-billing, matter management, legal holds and contract management top the list of most implemented legal technology, but there are many others. Interestingly, the top two areas where customers are moving out of their existing deficient systems are e-billing and matter management. This points to an even greater demand for those cutting-edge companies who provide the crème de la crème of legal technology solutions.

Why has it taken so long for some legal departments to see the light and get on board with technology? Understandably, a lean budget is often cited as one of the major reasons for not implementing legal technology. Resistance to change is another common reason. But one of the other major reasons is a reluctance to integrate new technology with existing systems. Here’s a little secret: resistance to change is really the only thing that should be holding up progress – the other issues of budget and integration have changed considerably in favor of organizations seeking new technology. There are technology solutions out there for practically every budget, and integrations are much more seamless than in the past. Gaining the support of leadership is a big step toward solving the resistance to change. Stop dreading the phrase, “do more with less.” Instead, we challenge you to thrive on it and explore the technology solutions out there that will truly help you do more with less.

Read our white paper, “Doing More with Less: How Technology is Optimizing Legal.”