Year: 2021

Legal Ops in 2020: A Look at How Law Departments Have Weathered the Storm

Posted on January 12, 2021 by - Business Process Management

There’s no question that 2020 was an unusual year for organizations across all industries – and their law departments. From being forced into working from home overnight to embracing new technologies at an accelerated pace, law departments have adapted in ways they never imagined.

The Blickstein Group recently released its 13th Annual Law Department Operations Survey, titled “Weathering the Storms of 2020.” The findings show that, despite the pandemic’s unprecedented challenges and novel demands, corporate law departments have weathered those storms well.

As the survey points out, the world changed dramatically in the year since the 2019 Law Department Operations Survey. The impacts of those changes, however, were less dramatic. Here are just some of the critical insights about legal ops in 2020.

The Biggest Challenges

Survey respondents were asked to identify their most significant challenges in 2020 relating to law department functions, and notably, COVID-19 was nowhere near the top of the list. Instead, the top-three challenges identified were:

  • Cost containment and savings/managing the budget – 60.3%
  • Business process improvements – 56.2%
  • Departmental resources (e.g. funding for personnel/technology, personnel retention) – 38.4%

Concerns about cost containment are nothing new, as managing costs and budgeting have long been a focus for legal ops professionals. The same is likely to remain true throughout 2021 and into the future, making Enterprise Legal Management solutions – which simplify legal operations by analyzing legal spend, minimizing company risk and driving process efficiency – valuable investments.

Delivery of Work Product

Disruption to everyday business practices and routines seemed to come from all sides in 2020, but law departments didn’t let that stand in their way. When asked if they noticed a diminished ability of their internal legal teams to deliver work product due to the pandemic and working from home, a staggering 94% of respondents said no.

Much of this ability to avoid disruption can be attributed to advanced technologies that support remote legal operations management work, allowing legal departments to deliver the high-quality work product from anywhere. Automation and AI also played a major role in seeing legal ops through the pandemic. For example, a tool like Review AI automates contract review, cuts contract review time by up to 70% and increases accuracy in reviewing, redlining and editing all types of contracts. These tools are critical to improving efficiency and eliminating manual tasks that would otherwise present barriers to remote work

Focus on Diversity

The pandemic wasn’t the only thing grabbing headlines in 2020. Diversity and inclusion were perhaps more in the spotlight than ever before. While companies across the country struggled to figure out how to best address diversity and inclusion within their ranks, what was clear was that more and more law departments were turning the focus to these issues. When asked what employee-related metrics they track, 72.7% reported tracking diversity, up significantly from prior years’ surveys.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for improving diversity and inclusion, technology can play a significant role in achieving progress. At Onit’s recent Hack the House competition, one team – Team Diversity – built a solution to expand opportunities for diversity and an equal opportunity workspace using Onit Apptitude in just three weeks. (You can see a demo here.) This is only one example of how legal ops professionals can use institutional data to address workplace challenges and track progress on important issues.

Law Firm Rates

Law firm rates have increased in 2020, according to law departments. When asked how overall law firm rates changed in the past year, only 3.6% of law department respondents reported any decrease. In fact, 69.7% reported an increase, while 26.8% said that rates remained flat. Participants indicated they expect this increase to continue in the next 12 months, with 46.4% expecting an increase.

There’s no reason to think these trends won’t continue for the foreseeable future. That means it’s more important than ever to be able to track invoices and ensure that your law firm’s charges are accurate and in-line with your billing guidelines. With Onit Enterprise Legal Management, you’ll have the data you need to show the value your law firms are providing to the organization in exchange for the rates they’re charging.

For more insights on the state of legal ops in 2020 and how the pandemic has impacted law department operations, you can download the entire survey here.

Four Legal AI Trends Impacting Corporate Legal Departments

Posted on January 7, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events

Each day, the accomplishments of artificial intelligence multiply. AI recently solved Schrödinger’s equation in quantum chemistry. It regularly diagnoses medical conditions, pilots jets and fetches answers for our everyday queries. And now, it might dance better than you do.

The ever-improving abilities of AI are having marked positive impacts on a wide variety of industries and professions – especially corporate legal departments and the in-house counsel and legal operations professionals that run them. So, what can corporate legal departments expect from legal AI in 2021?

Ari Kaplan, attorney, legal industry analyst, author, technologist and host of the Reinventing Professionals podcast, recently interviewed Nick Whitehouse, General Manager of the Onit AI Center of Excellence. Nick, who is the 2019 IDC DX Leader of the Year and Talent’s 2018 Most Disruptive Leader Award (as judged by Sir Richard Branson and Steve Wozniak), shared the legal AI trends that general counsel and legal operations professionals should keep an eye on for 2021, including:

  • Accelerated adoption – The pandemic has greatly affected the use of AI, spurring businesses and their corporate legal departments to recategorize it from curiosity to necessity. For example, 2020 saw many companies having to quickly reassess large numbers of contracts (such as leases). Legal AI allowed in-house teams to quickly assess their contracts and take action, helping their businesses survive and thrive.
  • Banishing the black box – Legal departments have historically been perceived as black boxes – work goes in and decisions come out slowly with little transparency. AI reduces the time spent on individual transactions, increasing transparency by enabling consistent use of playbooks and the ability for the business to self-serve.
  • Focus on solving in-house challenges  – The technology has shifted from a project-based law firm focus toward products that are centered on solving in-house problems like contract lifecycle management and AI legal contract review. With 71% of lawyers saying they are mired in manual tasks, these AI products can drive a massive amount of value for corporate legal.
  • AI in the near future – In addition to the shift from law firm focused AI services to more in-house based services, corporate legal can expect a greater blending of AI into contract lifecycle management and third-party review as well as AI-assisted document automation and billing management.

Visit the Reinventing Professionals website to listen to the podcast. You can also find it (and subscribe) on Apple podcasts.

6 Trends for Legal Tech in 2021

Posted on January 7, 2021 by - Legal Operations

It’s no exaggeration to say that the coronavirus pandemic has affected every single person and business around the world, forcing many of us to rethink what we know about how we work and the tools we need to do it – and legal tech is no exception.

The industry was already experiencing increased adoption and momentum, but the pandemic has forced both law firms and corporate legal departments to do more with less and modernize at an accelerated rate.  

Here’s a look at some of the top trends we expect to see in 2021: 

1. Remote Technology & The Talent Wars

For many, COVID-19 accelerated — and sometimes forced — the adoption of new technology in an effort to keep operations afloat. Businesses will continue to look to legal tech solutions to facilitate collaboration, eliminate man hours spent on menial tasks, measure performance of service providers, manage budgets, and more. 

The normalization of remote work has also opened the doors to a broader talent pool. Businesses are no longer restricted to just the candidates in their geographic area. They are now free to pursue the best talent – but so is everyone else, resulting in some serious talent wars. 

While we do believe physical offices will make a comeback, we foresee many businesses adopting a more hybrid approach that allows them to suit up and battle it out for the top talent. 

2. Artificial Intelligence

As legal tech looks to service more corporate legal departments to transform the tedious, manual tasks that typically waste precious time and resources, AI will become increasingly understood and less stigmatized.

Legal departments will leverage AI to deliver real-time insights, making them more efficient and effective. As we like to say at Bodhala — AI will help ‘let lawyers be lawyers!’

AI is turbocharging the legal industry and as we continue operating in a remote environment for the foreseeable future, expect to see more corporate legal departments adopt legal spend management tools, eDiscovery, contract management, and other legal tech solutions to drive their strategic initiatives,

3. Increased Focus on Data & Analytics

Data has long been the driving force of the strategic decisions in most businesses – from media to manufacturing and everything in between. It probably comes as no surprise, but legal has been a late adopter of data and analytics. But renewed focus on ‘the business of legal’ has forced a data reckoning, with both firms and corporate legal departments taking new interest in how they can leverage data to improve strategic decisions and business processes. 

In-house teams are also now demanding increased transparency from their outside counsel on everything from rates to the diversity of the timekeepers staffing their matters. This demand is driving a need for real-time data and reporting as well.

With cost optimization and diversity efforts assumed to be at the forefront of many corporate legal departments’ 2021 priorities, legal spend management solutions and data visualization tools will become even more prominent in the marketplace. 

4. Cross-Functional Collaboration

Legal departments have often had reputations for being a bottleneck when it comes to decision-making. But organizations are increasingly looking for solutions that support collaboration with legal departments to speed up, not slow down, their decision-making processes. 

In 2021, legal tech won’t just serve the legal department. It will play an integral role in cross-functional collaboration, consolidating pertinent information into one place and streamlining workflows.

For example:

  • Finance departments may leverage legal spend management solutions and eBillers to optimize their workflows, consolidate invoices, obtain data-backed insights to support budgeting/forecasting, optimize spend, or report on the health of their bottom line.
  • Sales teams will continue to benefit from legal tech tools that decrease sales cycles and simplify the process for prospects, like contract management and e-signature solutions.
  • Legal procurement teams will expand their use of data from legal spend management solutions to improve strategic spending decisions and firm selection processes.

As organizations look to become more spend-savvy, disintermediation continues to be a common trend. 

Prompted by the high rates charged by law firms even for mundane tasks or simple matters, many in-house teams are embracing a more economic and efficient solution — Alternative Legal Service Providers, or ‘ALSPs’. 

Lawyers will leverage technology to not only identify target task and matter types, but to also recommend categories that could be outsourced to ALSPs and the projected savings opportunity. 

Thanks to AI, machine learning, and a continued focus on cost optimization and efficiency, we expect ALSP adoption to hockey stick in the next few years.

6. Increased Investment, Acquisitions & Partnerships

The legal services market is a half-a-trillion dollar global industry, and like any massive market opportunity, it’s being disrupted – for the better! The opportunities to service the industry are massive – and innovation is really picking up. And along with innovation comes investment. 

2020, despite all it’s challenges, saw a huge uptick in legal tech investment – from venture capital funding to large scale acquisitions. Growth is also being driven by partnership – both technology partnerships as well as channel partnerships are on the rise. Case in point – Bodhala. In 2020 we closed our $10M A Round in March, and announced our first major partnership with Mitratech in November. 

As products and revenue accelerate growth, we anticipate interest from the investment community to continue to grow — undoubtedly making 2021 increasingly exciting! 

Looking Ahead

Though we hope that our world can slowly begin to return to normal in 2021, the events of 2020 have certainly proven the long-term value legal tech solutions can provide. 

It’s more than likely we’ll see the newly adopted practices and technologies adopted in 2020 remain in place for years to come as the legal industry has slowly unearthed the benefits technology and innovation present. 

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

What is Artificial Intelligence? The ABCs of What Is It and What it Does

Posted on January 5, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest buzzwords in legal technology today, but many people still don’t fully understand what it is and how it can impact their day-to-day legal work.

According to  Brookings Institution, AI generally refers to “machines that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responses from humans, given the human capacity for contemplation, judgment, and intention.” In other words, artificial intelligence is technology capable of making decisions that generally require a human level of expertise. It helps people anticipate problems or deal with issues as they come up. (For example, here’s how AI greatly improves contract review.)

In this blog post and podcast (see below), we cover the ins and outs of AI in more detail. In this first installment of our new blog series, we’ll discuss what it is and its three main hallmarks.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

At the core of AI and machine learning are algorithms, or sequences of instructions that solve specific problems. In machine learning, the learning algorithms create the rules for the software, instead of computer programmers inputting them, as is the case with more traditional forms of technology. Artificial intelligence can learn from new data without additional step-by-step instructions.

This independence is crucial to our ability to use computers for new, more complex tasks that exceed the manual programming limitations – things like photo recognition apps for the visually impaired or translating pictures into speech. Even things we now take for granted, like Alexa and Siri, are prime examples of artificial intelligence technology that once seemed impossible. We already encounter in our day-to-day lives in numerous ways and that influence will continue to grow.

The excitement about this quickly evolving technology is understandable, mainly due to its impacts on data availability, computing power and innovation. The billions of devices connected to the internet generate large amounts of data and lower the cost of mass data storage. Machine learning can use all this data to train learning algorithms and accelerate the development of new rules for performing increasingly complex tasks. Furthermore, we can now process enormous amounts of data around machine learning. All of this is driving innovation, which has recently become a rallying cry among savvy legal departments worldwide. 

Once you understand the basics of AI, it’s also helpful to be familiar with the different types of learning that make it up.

The first is supervised learning, where a learning algorithm is given labeled data in order to generate a desired output. For example, if the software is given a picture of dogs labeled “dogs,” the algorithm will identify rules to classify pictures of dogs in the future.

The second is unsupervised learning, where the data input is unlabeled and the algorithm is asked to identify patterns on its own. A typical instance of unsupervised learning is when the algorithm behind an eCommerce site identifies similar items often bought by a consumer.

Finally, there’s the scenario where the algorithm interacts with a dynamic environment that provides both positive feedback (rewards) and negative feedback. An example of this would be a self-driving car where, if the driver stays within the lane, the software will receive points in order to reinforce that learning and reminders to stay in that lane.

The Hallmarks of AI

Even after understanding the basic elements and learning models of AI, the question often arises as to what the real essence of AI is. The Brookings Institution boils the answer down to three main qualities:

  1. Intentionality – AI algorithms are designed to make decisions. They’re not passive machines capable only of mechanical or predetermined responses. Rather, they’re designed by humans with intentionality to reach conclusions based on instant analysis.
  2. Intelligence – AI often is undertaken in conjunction with machine learning and data analytics, and the resulting combination enables intelligent decision-making. Machine learning takes data and looks for underlying trends. If it spots something relevant for a practical problem, software designers can take that knowledge and employ data analytics to understand specific issues.
  3. Adaptability – AI has the ability to learn and adapt as it compiles information and makes decisions. Effective AI must adjust as circumstances or conditions shift. This could involve changes in financial situations, road conditions, environmental considerations, military circumstances, and more. Artificial intelligence needs to integrate these changes into its algorithms and decide on how to adapt to the new circumstances.

For a more in-depth discussion of artificial intelligence, you can listen to the entire podcast below.

In the next installment of our blog series, we’ll discuss the benefits AI is already bringing to legal departments. We hope you’ll join us.