Year: 2022

The Definition of a Legal Matter and its Management

Posted on October 25, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation

This article is the first of our four-part blog series focusing solely on matter management and its various aspects and best practices. To kick off the series, we will be going back to the basics. In this article, we look at what matter management and legal matters are and why digital matter management is rising in importance.

Matter management is a term that is regularly used within the legal industry. It’s what lawyers and legal operations professionals want to optimize, and it’s the challenge that legal tech vendors are trying to solve. However, its scope is so broad that it’s easy to get confused as to what “matter management” is. To help address any uncertainty, we thought that we’d share our thoughts on the subject and set out what we believe matter management means and how technology can play a part. 

Starting With the 7 Core Components of a Legal Matter 

While matter management has received more attention with the growth in legal tools aimed at streamlining the process, it’s important to note that matter management is a discipline that has been around much longer than any software tool.  

As the name suggests, matter management is the process of managing a legal matter (with or without technology). But what does this entail? To explain, it’s easiest to first look at the constituent elements of a legal matter.

1. Documents

Think of lawyers, and you’ll often conjure up images of huge contracts and files full to the brim with documents. Every legal matter involves documentation of some description, from contracts and licenses to emails and letters. All this documentation needs to be centrally and securely stored and managed.

2. Knowledge

While legal teams are smart people, it’s perfectly natural they cannot have all the answers. They need quick access to quality and accurate data and know-how to support the delivery of any legal matter. Making this knowledge accessible when it is needed is a core component of matter management.

3. Collaboration

Law is a team sport. Every legal matter involves a broad range of different stakeholders – within the legal department and the wider business, as well as external to the organization. Efficient matter management requires seamless communication and collaboration between all parties.

4. Workflow

While many legal matters are complex and have their own nuances, most legal matters are quite formulaic. In other words, they follow a set sequence of phases and stages depending on the facts and circumstances of the matter.

5. Management

Matters are projects, so they need to be managed with the same diligence and attention. From scope, budgeting, and resourcing to task allocation, risk tracking, and status reporting, matters need to be carefully managed like any other project to ensure delivery on time and within budget.

6. Spend

Tracking spend against budget is a key component any matter where outside counsel or other legal service provider is instructed. It’s always vital to monitor how matter spend is performing against budget, keep track of work-in-progress (WIP) and accruals, as well as look out for issues that might adversely impact the budget and matter spend.

7. Reporting

In order to properly manage any legal matter or portfolio of matters, it’s necessary to have access to all the information about the relevant matters. Whether it’s information about status, risk, resourcing, spend, contracts, matters, etc., this information needs to be collated, available, and capable of being easily reportable. 

Matter management simply involves the efficient coordination, organization, and delivery of all these core components for legal matters. 

Micro vs Macro Matter Management 

When people think of matter management, they are usually thinking about it at matter (micro) level, e.g., the management of a single matter. This will normally be the case for participants in particular matters who need visibility over matter activity and have access to matter-related documents and know-how. However, legal departments are constantly handling large numbers of ongoing matters that also need to be managed and tracked at a portfolio (macro) level. This will particularly be the case for General Counsel, CLOs, and legal operations managers who need visibility, reporting, and insight across all legal matters. Therefore, it’s important to remember that matter management also includes matter portfolio management. 

The Rise of Digital Matter Management 

Unsurprisingly, digital matter management (DMM) involves the use of technology to support the management and delivery of legal matters. There are many software tools available that will help improve the discreet elements of a legal matter listed above, from contract assembly and document management systems to spend management and enterprise collaboration applications. Whilst it’s a basic approach, even the use of tools like MS Excel and Dropbox is a form of digital matter management that works for many legal teams. 

Currently, there is no shortage of software point solutions to help manage and streamline different components of a legal matter. However, the use of separate tech tools presents its own challenges – for example, integration difficulties, data silos, and inefficiency caused by context switching across applications. Legal departments are also under pressure from their organization’s IT teams to simplify and reduce the tech stack. For these reasons, there is a growing trend away from point solutions for matter management and towards single platforms that aim to optimize the full matter lifecycle in one central system. Therefore, in recent years, legal departments have been increasingly adopting full-suite cloud platforms. 

What is Driving the Focus on Digital Matter Management?  

Optimizing matter management has become a key focus for many legal teams in recent years, and they’re turning to technology to support this initiative. It’s part of a rapid digital transformation trend across legal departments that is being driven by a range of different factors, including, but not limited to: 

  • Move to remote working, which requires greater focus and investment in legal productivity and workflow tools and easy access to know-how from anywhere and at any time 
  • Pressure to be more cost-efficient as a legal function and deliver more value to their organizations 
  • Growing global regulation and uncertainty causing increased legal workloads 
  • More work being serviced in-house without legal department headcounts increasing significantly 
  • Need to improve internal customer engagement as well as vendor selection and management 
  • Maturing of legal operations and rise in dedicated legal technology strategies for corporate legal departments 
  • Need for legal departments to demonstrate that they are a net contributor to the business

All these factors are leading many legal departments to seriously explore the adoption of matter management platforms to alleviate these pressures and help boost the value that they are delivering to their businesses.

Read Part II of this series: 7 Key Components of a Full-Suite Matter Management System.

Onit Employees Support Ukraine War Charity Effort 

Posted on October 25, 2022 by - Company News and Events

Several Onit employees took time out of their calendars last week to help organize medical supplies for the war in Ukraine. The group — featuring members from Onit’s research and development, professional services, and administrative departments — volunteered at Medical Bridges in Houston. Medical Bridges is a nonprofit organization that collects medical donations from around the United States for distribution to healthcare workers worldwide. 

Onit donated $50,000 to Medical Bridges, sponsoring two crates full of critical medical supplies — everything from bandages and field trauma blankets to boot covers, hairnets, and gloves — to aid healthcare workers on the ground in Ukraine. Five Onit employees spent three hours sorting and boxing the crates at the Medical Bridges warehouse on Magnet Street in Houston. The team returned to the site this week to help assist with final shipment of the materials.

Sorting the supplies at Medical Bridges. From left to right: Joseph Jefferson, Jana Barlow, David Goldfarb, Meredith Page, and Abhi Rao of Onit.

For the volunteers, the effort hit home; AXDRAFT, one of the businesses in Onit’s family of companies, is headquartered in Ukraine.  

“The team in Ukraine is amazing,” Meredith Page, office manager and one of the volunteers, said. “They’re so positive and optimistic, even with everything happening over there. They’re really good people, and we’re proud to do anything we can to help out.” 

The final shipment ready to go. From left to right: Walter Ulrich, CEO of Medical Bridges; Trevonna Hendrix, Director of Global Health at Medical Bridges; Meredith Page, Tiffany Nguyen, and Nick Whitehouse of Onit.

“Donating to Medical Bridges is an honor, and we look forward to partnering with the organization again in the future to help care for those in need around the world,” Onit Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Eric Elfman said. 

ABOUT MEDICAL BRIDGES 

Medical Bridges is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to procuring medical and surgical supplies and equipment for donation to qualified providers of charitable medical care in developing countries. Medical Bridges was established in 1997 in Houston, TX. 

For more information on Medical Bridges, visit https://www.medicalbridges.org.  

Harnessing the Power of Data: 3 Reasons It Is Imperative for Increasing Legal Ops’ ROI

Posted on October 14, 2022 by - Legal Operations

Data analysis is crucial to understanding market trends and your business. Here are the keys to why legal leaders must capitalize on critical data to increase visibility, improve forecasting, and create continuous competitive advantage — ultimately transforming Legal from a cost center to a strategic, materially impactful powerhouse.

Data, it has often been said, is the new oil as it is a commodity of immense worth. It is a resource that must be protected, and if left unrefined, it holds no true value. But when mined, data can illuminate our lives, our businesses, and our world.

In the third and final chapter of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, the multinational study* showcases the untapped potential of legal operations to be a change agent in driving meaningful business results. While the report determined that eight in ten (79%) enterprise employees do not see Legal as a modern operation, it also uncovered that technology acts as a catalyst for evolution for businesses and practitioners who wish to differentiate and grow.

Data can be like oil. Yet unlike oil, data has the potential to be infinite, shared to every corner of the planet literally at the speed of light. And, far from crude, data is a sophisticated tool available to everyone in the form of transformative digitalized technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), predictive analytics solutions, and business process automation (BPA).

Why data matters for Legal

Traditionally, Legal has not been required to quantify key performance indicators (KPIs) and return on investment (ROI) with the same rigor as other functional groups. However, the ELR Report revealed that two in three (64%) legal respondents are unable to track all outside counsel spend — and one in 25 (4%) cannot track it at all. In fact, the average department can track just three-fifths (60%) of outside spend at most; in Germany, this figure rises to two-thirds (66%), and in the United States and United Kingdom, it drops to less than half (53%).

Now is the time for Legal to become a true business driver. But to create greater operational wins, accelerate revenue acquisition, and function in an efficient and modern capacity that demonstrates market intelligence, Legal must develop transparent quantitative metrics and report regularly, just like Sales may conduct weekly pipeline calls or Finance faces quarterly reviews. Legal must quantify its performance – and that requires its own systems of record that capitalize on critical data to increase visibility, improve forecasting, and assist in decision-making.

Here are three essential ways harnessing data can assist in your legal department’s evolution:

1. Data optimizes wiser cost containment.

The ability to maintain and monitor total visibility of your legal spend data in real time — and to make changes instantly and agilely, based on ever-changing industry trends — is vital, principally in our current macroeconomic climate.

Benchmarking cannot reel in inflation, but integrating state-of-the-art matter and rate benchmarking solutions can identify waste and streamline budgeting and rate reviews. Although less than one in two (48%) legal professionals use e-billing and spend optimization solutions at this time, data solutions that track specific, high-level metrics can calculate projected savings automatically — and the insights gleaned can provide not only a complete overview of financial data now, but also ensure upcoming hiring decisions and forecast spend are cost-efficient.

2. Data solidifies partnerships, today and tomorrow.

Every business is, first and foremost, a collection of people. Without inherently human vision, ingenuity, and expertise, there could be no corporate success.

The ELR Report showed that four in five (80%) of employees believe Legal excels at procuring vendors and services. Analyzing data via business intelligence software takes this to the next level, creating “big picture” awareness for comparison of partners — juxtaposed against each other, as well as collated with wider legal industry data — in order to establish performance evaluation standards and highlight areas requiring change. That way, Legal can initiate more honest, fact-based conversations about what it needs to strengthen collaboration, productivity, and growth moving forward.

3. Data can uncover a gold mine of revenue leakage.

Though critical for risk mitigation, contracts tend to be overwhelmingly time-consuming. According to the ELR Report, most legal respondents spend at least half their time (4 to 5 hours each day!) reviewing and managing contracts. But AI-powered contract lifecycle management (CLM) can redline a contract in under two minutes, automatically escalating issues if needed.

While only half (54%) of legal professionals say their contract processes are currently automated, by exploring all data avenues — and molding data into actionable information — Legal will find themselves with more free time to do the type of high-level, client-based, and intellectual work that matters most to businesses: extracting novel opportunities for material growth via innovation and competitive differentiation.

Legal in the spotlight

Simply put, one cannot effectively manage what one does not measure. Data might be perceived as “the new oil” in various ways, but one vast difference emerges in particular: Oil is a limited asset, whereas the more data is utilized, the more advantageous it can become.

Knowing how to harness data can elevate Legal’s value throughout the enterprise, bolstering the department’s brand image as a business partner and corporate rainmaker. Unleashing insights and actions derived from that data builds a lasting foundation, predicting paths for what lies ahead: Legal making its mark materially across every aspect of business, from topline revenue generation to bottom-line cost and operational efficiencies, with an eye firmly on the future.

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 and how Legal can evolve to prove material impact and improve efficiencies across the business.

*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.

Business First, Practitioner Second: 3 Keys to Improving Legal Ops’ Speed and Spend

Posted on October 7, 2022 by - Legal Operations

With the world in constant flux and macroeconomic trends influencing companies to increase scrutiny on operational and cost efficiency, a dual challenge has been created for Legal. Here’s why both speed and spend matter – and what you can do to execute gains in efficiency, revenue generation, and transformation across the enterprise

As President Harry S. Truman once famously said, “The buck stops here.”

The nature of accountability has long been considered an essential component of leadership. Taking ownership of the choices we make emboldens transparency and empowers collaboration — which, in turn, elevates trust and enhances productivity. Accountability is also a proven baseline for measuring legal operations’ impact on its business.

In the third and final chapter of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, the multinational study* spotlights the unlimited potential of legal operations to be a transformative agent in driving meaningful business results with technology.

But while internal clients are most concerned with Legal’s operational efficiency, such as responsiveness, speed of execution and resolution, the ELR Report revealed that executive leadership and C-suite members concentrate most on cost efficiency. And with a 2022 priority initiative on the reevaluation of outside counsel providers and spend, nearly two in five (37%) legal respondents say chief financial officers (CFOs) hold Legal accountable for outside counsel spend, as well as legal expenses in general. While this is hardly surprising, what is eye-opening is that accountability is not necessarily tied to the CFO, CEO, or even internal management teams: One in 10 (11%) say it is their board that also holds Legal accountable for spend.

The price of accountability

In many companies, general counsel (GC) and even chief legal officers (CLOs) do not have a seat at the boardroom table. So to execute gains in efficiency, cost-justify, and demonstrate the value of its operations and impact on business, Legal must share accountability and collaborate more strategically.

Three in four (75%) U.S. and nearly seven in 10 (68%) German respondents feel their departments are cost-efficient, whereas just half (52%) in France and less than half (44%) in the United Kingdom do. With many enterprises holding operations in more than one nation, this variability can be startling, leading to questions about operational management and cost structures.

The bottom line is that the legal departments that not only track legal spend but drive the best possible commercial bargain with outside counsel are the ones who show the greatest market intelligence and who will accelerate their own bottom-line efficiency, as well as topline revenue recognition.

3 Keys to Improving Legal Ops’ Speed and Spend

1. Acknowledge the periodic hidden factory.

Sometimes Legal can be perceived as a hidden factory – a concept coined by statistician Armand Vallin Feigenbaum referring to the potential of a department, activity, or process to create roadblocks and work against efficiency.

It has never been Legal’s intention to put the brakes on business. However, for Legal, the devil is in the details; that is literally Legal’s job as protector of the business to deliberate over contracts and deals with a fine-toothed comb of compliance and risk mitigation. Add to this that the average legal ops professional is required to support 23 other employees, according to the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC). But contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions that offer self-service portals to automate contract review can not only shrink sales cycles by 24%, but also give Legal back 30% of their time.

2. Evolve your legal spend management strategy.

In an ever-changing macroeconomic market, “unexpected” budget changes can become the norm — so being proactive when it comes to managing spend, rather than reactive, is crucial. Modern legal operations can catapult efficiency on every level, however, by creating systems to track spend and identify opportunities to sustainably control outside legal counsel.

Utilizing a cloud-based platform and centralized database with spend management solutions will permit legal ops professionals and GCs to gain oversight of matters and spend as well as optimize costs, manage vendor performance, and save up to 26% on accrual or unbilled estimates for work in progress.

3. Invest in a silver bullet.

Today’s climate of instant gratification can lead to clients, both internal and external, expecting (even demanding) both accountability and speed. While it could be advantageous to introduce an intuitive timekeeping solution to monitor how much time is spent on various legal tasks, operational efficiency doesn’t always require the same level of formal tracking that cost efficiency does.

When it comes to matters of spend, though, it is imperative. Yet less than half (48%) of legal respondents worldwide currently utilize AI-integrated e-billing solutions — even though implementing software to expedite invoicing and replace paper billing is proven to not only improve revenue flow, but to also mitigate unauthorized charges and surprise fees, contributing to 8.4% annually in legal spend savings.

Putting the business first

Legal need not be a cog that slows the wheel of the enterprise. In fact, with a dual focus on speed and spend, Legal can drive efficiencies, control costs, and demonstrate it understands specific business needs to achieve success, now and moving future-forward.

By improving operational and cost efficiency, Legal will also contribute to faster revenue generation, competitive differentiation, margin control, and corporate change — delivering value and operational wins that materially impact its businesses in innovative, game-changing ways.

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 and how Legal can evolve to prove material impact and improve efficiencies across the business.

*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.

Technology as a Catalyst for Evolution: 4 Steps to Right-Sizing Legal Ops Solutions

Posted on September 27, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

State-of-the-art tech is a game-changing enabler for businesses that wish to differentiate, grow, and succeed. Here’s how departments can be sure they are embracing the features they need – and not overspending on ones they don’t – to elevate efficiency, ignite revenue, and evolve for the future.

No word on exactly what career he grew up to have, but as the iconic Ferris Bueller once said: “Life moves pretty fast.” These days, the speed of business moves faster than ever – seemingly at the speed of light when fused with modern technology.

In the newly released third and final chapter of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, the multinational study* spotlights the unlimited potential of legal operations to be a transformative agent in driving meaningful business results by positively influencing revenue generation and operational and cost efficiencies with technology.

A “by the book” department dependent on precedents, Legal has, admittedly, never been exactly a trailblazer when it comes to tech: Nearly half of legal professionals (44%) call their department “averse to change.” But businesses that invest in technology surpass others in the best of times and remain a step ahead during times of disruption – and those who adapt to the latest solutions are bound to surpass and replace those who do not.

A need for modernization

To function in a modern and efficient capacity, Legal requires its own systems of record and engagement, just as every other function has. However, the ELR Report revealed that many legal teams lack the automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to advance both machine learning (ML) and human decision-making. In fact, almost half (46%) of legal respondents acknowledge they do not utilize automated systems for managing contracts.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital modernization, of course. But here are four essential steps every department must consider when adopting new tech to right-size its solutions:

1. Look at the big picture.

Whether your business has a technology roadmap in place or not, it is crucial to audit your current offerings. Gauge the functionality of legacy systems and vendors, pinpoint which are outdated, and ask: What do we have that we don’t need? What do we need that we don’t have? 

Another criterion to consider in a post-pandemic landscape where both cultural flexibility and remote work are paramount is: Is a tangible version of this required, or can this be streamlined and moved to the cloud?

2. Choose a single collaborative system.

No single technology can be all things to all people, but platforms that integrate workflows and offer communication skyrocket efficiency – which is highly necessary when nearly two-thirds of enterprise employees (59%) feel legal departments can sometimes be inefficient and 44% believe Legal can improve its effect on deal closures and revenue generation.

Enter enterprise legal management (ELM) to provide workflow clarity, track spend, and reinforce collaboration. Although less than half (48%) of respondents currently utilize e-billing and spend optimization solutions powered by AI, introducing a single source of truth that “speaks the same language” as it captures transactions, matters, and projects will help every function work smarter, not harder.

3. Don’t get distracted by bells and whistles.

Although most departments do want to get up to speed – 46% agree Legal must do better at accepting technological innovation – there is no tech Fairy that can provide the perfect “glass slipper” transformation. So it’s especially important to avoid “shiny object syndrome,” or the tendency to choose flashy features with the promise of an instantaneous tech happily-ever-after.

To prevent shiny object syndrome, compose a features list with two columns: “Must-Have” and “Nice-to-Have.” Keep in mind that overall capability, resources, and fit are critical, as is corporate culture – less than three in 10 ELR respondents (28%) describe themselves as early adopters by nature, and one in four (25%) says they lack the time to learn a new system. Selecting a dedicated team to oversee the rollout and set aside designated training periods can orchestrate a smooth deployment.

4. Focus on what automation can (and cannot) do.

When workloads increase but headcounts do not, the only typical answers used to be longer in-house hours or hiring outside counsel – and either one can be costly, taxing talented teams, budget, or both. Advances in intelligent automation, ML, and natural language processing (NLP) now offer a novel alternative.

While the concept of automation is rife with the stereotype it will replace real employees, this could not be further from the truth. The newest contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions automate contract review and administer data required to identify revenue recognition and acceleration opportunities, giving attorneys up to 30% of their time back for decidedly human pursuits: delivering in-depth, personal client device; focusing on the innovation and negotiations that impact and protect research and development (R&D), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and intellectual property; and devising new cultural initiatives that bring meaningful change. And when it comes CLM, return on investment (ROI) is real: sales cycles are reduced by 24% and overall legal spend slashed by 50%.

What lies ahead

Technology takes the vision, insight, and knowledge of a business and shuttles it through the enterprise so that it lands where it will produce the greatest effect. But investing in tech is merely step one: Ensuring it is embraced is the real key to elevating operational and cost efficiency.

By deploying new technology, Legal has the uniquely positive chance to cash in on its influence as a trusted advisor, authority figure, and true business partner. And with right-sized solutions, every department can evolve into a more materially impactful, future-proof function for the ever-transforming worlds of business and 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 and how Legal can evolve to prove material impact and improve efficiencies across the business.

*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.

The Merging of Art and Science Through the Evolution of CLM — Part Two

Posted on September 8, 2022 by - Contract Lifecycle Management

This article by Charmel Rhyne was first published on Law.com. 

The final part of this series on CLM’s growth examines how first- and next-generation solutions have evolved can help with selecting the right type of contract management tool. Part one outlined the distinction between contract management and contract lifecycle management and discussed the challenges solved by first-generation CLM platforms and what drives their continued evolution.

By the end of the 2010s, first-generation contract lifecycle management was starting to look very much like a comprehensive end-to-end solution close to enterprise maturity. But these offerings were still costly and expensive. Legal departments began to recognize the importance of taking CLM up a notch with factors like rightsizing, perfecting both buy-side and sell-side solutions, and implementing AI-driven CLM solutions. With those drivers in mind, next-generation CLM was just around the corner.

Brainstorming Next Generation CLM

Software developers have recently been diverging into two general branches of next-generation CLM. One is designed to handle all kinds of contracts—buy-side, sell-side, and otherwise. The second is for only buy-side contracts and primarily included with source-to-contract software packages. Interestingly, statistics show that organizations with either type of solution have been doing well with their CLM implementations of contract repositories and contract reports and analysis, but there is still room for improvement for other processes, particularly when managing all contracts.

Rightsizing is a crucial factor to consider when choosing the most appropriate CLM solution. All too often, a legal department will do due diligence and spend a lot of time deliberating, only to implement a solution that does not meet all its growth requirements or is more than what is needed. By choosing a rightsized CLM solution, you can’t go wrong. For example, by having the ability to configure and deploy the processes you need when you need them, you can enhance existing solutions and add new departments as your company evolves.

AI and machine learning are other areas of innovation taking CLM by storm. When pre-signature and post-signature AI contract solutions are built on an intelligent platform, machine learning and natural language processing come together to empower the organization with a solution that reads, writes, and reasons like a lawyer. Most CLM vendors have focused on the extraction of key terms/clauses, while very few have taken the much harder approach to automate redlining.

Connecting legal to the whole enterprise is another lofty goal, as legal departments often operate in a silo. While it’s no secret they are well-positioned to operationalize internal efficiencies, by investing in relationships with other departments, legal can have a significant impact on the enterprise at large. What does this have to do with contracting? Managing all the necessary steps in your contract process is hard enough internally across several departments. The complexity of managing contracts increases exponentially when you are overseeing them across several office locations, time zones, or languages. The ability to have everything centrally located with changes tracked in real-time becomes critical.

What About the Future of CLM?

One current school of thought says ERP and CRM vendors will expand in the CLM arena, forcing CLM out of its present niche. This is unlikely since ERP and CRM are transaction-driven and CLM merges art and science. The science here is clearly process automation, but what is the art?

A key factor in the future of CLM is the standardization of legal terms—the practice of law is the art. The art is in the negotiation and the exact, precise wording of what’s in the contract. Simplification of standard terms and conditions in contracts would make negotiations easier and less costly—think of how legal invoicing standards were finessed with the establishment of the Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES). Even though some modern solutions allow users to set conditional rules for the review of nonstandard terms, the problem remains that we need more standard terms across the board. The merging of art and science in contracting will be something to watch for in the coming years.

The bottom line is next-generation CLM solutions and other legal tech innovations are driving the industry toward even more intriguing and uncharted territory, and it’s up to all of us to help it get there.

Future-proofing Legal: 4 Ways AI Drives the Business of Law Forward

Posted on September 7, 2022 by - Legal Operations

The potential for legal departments to positively impact every aspect of business, from revenue growth to operational efficiency to corporate innovation, has been uncovered – and artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are proving to be Legal’s catalysts for evolution.

“Siri, remind me to make that call at 3 pm.”

“Alexa, play ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’”

From the fingerprint and facial recognition that unlocks your phone to the live chat inquiring when your latest online order or rideshare will arrive, automation and artificial intelligence (AI) have become sidekicks in the beautiful chaos of modern life – even in legal operations.

Corporate legal departments have, historically, been a little late to the digital transformation party. However, chapter two of the Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, a multinational study spotlighting how legal professionals perceive their interactions with internal clients, reveals that half of legal respondents voice an urgent need for modernization, deeming their technology both insufficient (47%) and outdated (46%). This technology lag is particularly prevalent in France, where nearly three in five (58%) desire an upgrade.

Some global legal departments do have a running head start integrating AI to manage contracts (51%), matter management initiatives (51%), and eBilling and spend (48%). But what is holding back the rest of Legal from evolving into a more service-minded, modernized, “work smarter, not harder” function?

According to Legal respondents, the department admittedly can be averse to change (44%). One in four respondents (25%) says they simply do not have time to learn new technology. Other obstacles include a lack of budget (39%) and the disenfranchising belief among two in three legal practitioners (67%) who feel executives are unsupportive in endorsing modernization.

But for legal departments continually expected to do more with less, modern tech can define a new era of operational and cost efficiency, especially in a macroeconomic market featuring inflationary risk, rising interest rates, and geopolitical conflict. Bringing automation to legal operations minimizes risk while boosting productivity, streamlining workflows, and freeing up time for legal teams to focus on business-critical tasks of higher value, complexity, and billability.

Legal can leverage AI and automation to help drive efficiency and material growth by:

1. Improving invoice accuracy.One of the most effective ways to manage outside counsel is to develop and maintain billing guidelines. While only 48% of ELR respondents currently utilize eBilling, an AI-powered system can simplify the billing of productive invoiceable hours and improve accuracy, flagging common errors and enforcing guidelines that might otherwise disrupt budgets – and contributing to up to 10% savings in outside counsel spend.

2. Accelerating contract workflows. About half of legal departments (54%) use automation in their contract lifecycle management (CLM), but to wildly varying degrees: 79% in Germany do, while only 31% in the United Kingdom can say the same. (The U.S. and France fall in-between, with 55% and 49%, respectively.) But that means that many legal professionals are practically being buried beneath an avalanche of contracts, on which 58% spend four to five hours or more daily. Still, it doesn’t have to be this way: AI solutions can quickly sift through thousands of contracts, uncovering risks, replacing language, and redlining them in less than two minutes – and accelerating approval by up to 70%.

3. Creating documents faster. Document drafting and analysis are a major part of any legal process. Supervised machine learning (ML), a subfield of AI that mimics controlled intelligent human decision-making, allows document automation to populate form fields of AI-assisted templates to expeditiously produce contracts, agreements, and invoices. This not only saves time dramatically – often reducing legal document drafting to less than five minutes! – but also increases precision, as AI tools are more likely to pick up questionable details humans might have missed while repeatedly reading so many pages.

4. Harnessing the power of data. Sifting through piles of data can take weeks, even months. But AI-driven tools – which can review up to 500 data points organized by relevant criteria, then extract high-quality data in just seconds, even compiling and synthesizing data in storytelling mode – can identify precedents, confirm completeness of data, and keep track of ever-changing regulations while bringing vital clarity, slashing time and spend, and finding leakages that could otherwise affect business opportunities and materiality.

The future of AI  in Legal

This is real life, of course, not a sci-fi movie. Introducing and incorporating AI into legal operations will not unleash a wave of robot lawyers. What it will do is make legal ops’ work a little easier by giving lawyers and legal professionals back their time to map key investments, foster deeper partnerships, drive forward-thinking innovation, and influence meaningful business outcomes, from topline revenue generation to bottom-line cost and operational efficiency.

The future for Legal is more than just unlocking the latest in technology. But evolving to embrace that tech will provide the modern digitalization, optimized workflows, and requisite collaboration to prove Legal’s image moment of impact is here – to transform the department’s brand image, grow the enterprise materially, and elevate the future business 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.

*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.

The Merging of Art and Science Through the Evolution of CLM — Part One

Posted on September 1, 2022 by - Contract Lifecycle Management

This article by Charmel Rhyne was first published on Law.com. 

This two-part series examines the evolution of contract lifecycle management (CLM), which has accelerated tremendously in recent years. Yet despite the continued innovation driving steep market growth, there is no true one-size-fits-all CLM solution. Many organizations purchase expensive platforms rich with features they will never use, rather than a solution based on their actual business needs. But the right system can help legal teams better position themselves as a partner within their organization, facilitating a streamlined approach to handling contracts with improved business outcomes.

Part I: Ancestors of CLM

The history of contract lifecycle management (CLM) can be traced back over 5,000 years when cuneiform tablets were used to record business transactions. Ledgers and contracts inscribed in clay were as important in ancient times as digital transactions are now in the 21st century. In fact, ancient Mesopotamians routinely used contracts such as labor agreements, sales agreements, and marriage agreements. Interestingly, writing was developed out of the need for contract recording, which was also crucial for true market-based economies.

CM Solutions, Late 20th Century

Fast forward to the late 20th century: The first digital contract management (CM) systems were systems of record — or document management systems — ensuring the accuracy of contract databases was their key function. These were the days before SaaS evolved to the point of sophistication it’s at today, so most software was hosted on-site. As a result, implementations required months to configure and complete. The early days of modern CM consisted of relying on spreadsheets, systems of record, emails, and phone calls, all of which contributed to difficulties of tracking contract status.

First Generation CLM Makes Its Debut

So, what’s the difference between CM and CLM? CM was essentially a document management system in the 1990s and early 2000s. Current CLM software, in contrast, empowers legal, sales, procurement, and other teams with end-to-end control of the entire contract cycle — its lifecycle — using the strategic mix of people and technology to maximize the process. Rather than dealing with a patchwork of spreadsheets and emails, CLM uses a contract repository with automated functionality that supports all phases of the contract lifecycle from capture and creation, through negotiations and approvals, to execution and post-execution management.

The era of first generation CLM was expectedly disjointed. Some software providers focused on specializing in certain domains such as spend management and matter management, while others focused on a specific stage of contract management. And to make matters worse, many vendors called their offerings “end-to-end,” adding to the confusion and disappointment. Although some legal departments and lawyers were initially happy with their rudimentary systems, in the end they invariably found themselves with limited CLM functionality. Since customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions were already well established by that time, some providers were targeting customers of CRM and ERP with their CLM offerings.

Tweaking CLM to Help Better Meet the Needs of Lawyers

However, CLM has evolved a lot over the past decade. Many of the early CLM solutions were little more than glorified CM solutions with a few extra bells and whistles. While easy to implement, they had difficulty handling the more complicated tasks involved with contracts, as the inherent challenges of contracts presented significant roadblocks to the development of CLM. For example, digitizing the complex contract process and not considering how lawyers negotiate and finalize contracts have been formidable obstacles, given the complexity of contracts and the various functions required (such as redlining).

When you add the fact that many early CLM solutions didn’t fully address how lawyers negotiate and finalize contracts, it exacerbated the problems incurred in software development and usage. Not to mention, there still exists a lack of legal terminology standardization, adding to the complexities of developing effective CLM solutions that meet the needs of most users. Many legal professionals would consider managing contracts to be the most challenging business task in terms of technological and legal issues because of the lack of contract standardization, contract noncompliance, limited contract visibility, and process isolation from other systems. Another key issue is change management – lawyers want to work in Word because it’s familiar and they can avoid having to learn how to do the same thing in newly implemented software. And if the new software isn’t intuitive enough for the lawyers, it won’t be long before they revert to Word.

Fortunately, first generation CLM has gradually evolved over the years to become true next generation CLM solutions and systems of engagement that manage the end-to-end process of contracts, supporting all phases of their lifecycle. Part II of this series will focus on next-generation CLM solutions, and the innovation driving the industry toward even more intriguing and uncharted territory.

Part two of this two-part series will take a closer look at next generation CLM solutions, and how innovation is driving the move toward more rightsizing that prioritizes what users really need, helping to promote long-term success by connecting the legal department across the enterprise as a valued partner.

WAS IST EIN „REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL“ (RFP)? 

Posted on August 8, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

Ein Request for Proposal (RFP) ist eine Anfrage, mit der Inhouse Rechtsabteilungen ihre Arbeit an externe Anwaltskanzleien auslagern können. Vor allem heutzutage, wo Rechtsabteilungen immer mehr Arbeit in immer kürzeren Zeiträumen und für weniger Geld leisten müssen, werden diese Ausschreibungen zu einem zunehmend wichtigen Instrument. Ein typischer Use-Case ist, wenn eine Abteilung Rechtsberatung benötigt und sich an ihre internen Anwälte wendet – dies kann eine Anfrage zur Beantwortung einer einfachen Frage sein oder, im Extremfall, wenn das Unternehmen eine Fusion mit einem anderen Unternehmen in Erwägung zieht oder mit einem ernsthaften Rechtsstreit konfrontiert ist. Im Idealfall verfügt das Inhouse-Team über ein internes Wissensmanagement- oder Transaktionsinformationssystem, das Aufzeichnungen über frühere Beratungen oder Arbeiten für das Unternehmen enthält. Das Rechtsteam muss sich dann fragen, ob die Anfrage intern bearbeitet werden kann.

Wenn die Arbeit als risikoreich eingestuft wird, beträchtliche Ressourcen benötigt werden und es Bereiche gibt, in denen spezielles Fachwissen erforderlich sein könnte, dann sollten die externen Rechtsberater der Organisation von Anfang an einbezogen werden. Ist dies in der Tat der Fall, muss mit der Auswahl einer externen Anwaltskanzlei begonnen werden. Um zu entscheiden, welche Anwaltskanzlei mit der Arbeit beauftragt werden soll, verschickt die interne Abteilung eine Ausschreibung (Request for Proposal, RFP). 

Bei einem RFP für juristische Dienstleistungen sendet die Rechtsabteilung eine Anfrage an Kanzleien oder Rechtsdienstleister, um Angebote für die Arbeit zu erhalten. Dies kann von einem einfachen Kostenvoranschlag bis hin zu einer umfassenden Ausschreibung für ein größeres juristisches Projekt reichen. Kunden erstellen also RFPs und geben sie an ihre Rechtsdienstleister weiter. Sie können Kriterien für die Auswahl der Anbieter festlegen, die Antworten verfolgen und die Einreichungsrunden monitoren, bevor sie die bevorzugte Kanzlei auswählen und beauftragen. RFPs können auch an Rechtsdienstleister geschickt werden, einschließlich solcher, die nicht nur Rechtsberatung, sondern auch andere Dienstleistungen anbieten, z. B. eDiscovery, Dokumentenprüfung oder andere Verwaltungsdienstleistungen. 

WELCHE INFORMATIONEN SIND TYPISCHERWEISE IN EINEM RFP ENTHALTEN? 

Wenn eine Ausschreibung an eine oder mehrere Kanzleien geschickt wird, die für den Kunden neu sind und bisher noch nicht ihren beruflichen Hintergrund und ihre Berufserfahrung angeben haben oder die nicht in der Liste der Kanzleien des Kunden aufgeführt sind, werden Informationen der folgenden Art benötigt: 

  • Eine Vorstellung der Kanzlei, der Standorte, der Anwälte und der Gerichtsbarkeiten ist für einen Überblick über die Kanzlei erforderlich. Wichtig sind auch Angaben zur Diversität, zu Auszeichnungen in der Rechtsbranche und zu anderen Errungenschaften. 
  • Eine Beschreibung der Erfahrung in den einzelnen Tätigkeitsbereichen, einschließlich detaillierter Fallbeispiele, um die Kompetenz der Kanzlei zu verdeutlichen. 
  • Referenzen – idealerweise von der Art, die auf das Angebot oder die Ausschreibung der Kanzlei zutrifft. 
  • IT-Fähigkeiten, einschließlich Datenschutz- und Sicherheitsrichtlinien, sowie eine gute Erreichbarkeit, die zeigt, dass die Kanzlei über solide interne technische Fähigkeiten verfügt. 
  • eBilling-Kanzleien sollten nachweisen, dass sie in der Lage sind, Rechnungen in einem Format zu erstellen, das den Billing Guidelines des Kunden entspricht. 

Wenn die Rechtsabteilung aber bereits mit der Kanzlei zusammengearbeitet hat, kann mit einer „normalen“ Ausschreibung gearbeitet werden. Dies ist der Fall, wenn der Mandant ein Angebot für eine neue Angelegenheit einholen möchte, aber aus der bereits bestehenden Liste von Kanzleien auswählt. Obwohl jedes Angebot einer Anwaltskanzlei anders ist, gibt es einige zentrale Abschnitte, die in den meisten RFPs vorkommen. 

DIE WICHTIGSTEN ABSCHNITTE EINES RFPS UMFASSEN: 

  • Zeitplan – die Ausschreibung enthält Termine sowohl für die Einreichung des RFPs als auch für die eigentliche Arbeit, wenn die Kanzlei beauftragt wird. 
  • Ansprechpartner und Zuständigkeiten – die Ansprechpartner beim Kunden und die zuständigen Anwälte der Kanzlei werden genannt. Der Kunde kann auswählen, an welche einzelnen Anwälte in der Kanzlei die Ausschreibung geschickt werden soll und von wem eine Antwort erwartet wird. 
  • Personalplan – der Mandant erwartet von der Kanzlei, dass sie den Personalplan für die Matter detailliert darlegt, einschließlich der geschätzten Zeit für jede Zeitnehmerkategorie und das Verhältnis zwischen ihnen. 
  • Tarife und Preisgestaltung – der Mandant wird von der Anwaltskanzlei verlangen, dass sie die Tarife für die einzelnen Zeitnehmerkategorien, die geschätzten Gesamthonorare und etwaige Spesen angibt, welche Rabatte möglich sind und welche alternativen Preisvereinbarungen sie anbieten könnte. 
  • Umfang der Arbeit – der Kunde gibt den Umfang der auszuführenden Arbeit an und macht dabei so viele Angaben wie möglich. Eine gute Ausschreibung enthält Vorlagen für verschiedene Matter-Arten, die der Kanzlei dabei helfen, den erforderlichen Arbeitsumfang und die Erfolgskriterien zu definieren. Darin wird auch angegeben, welche Gerichtsbarkeiten von der Ausschreibung abgedeckt werden, und es kann auch möglich sein, die Matter nach Phasen aufzuschlüsseln, um eine detailliertere Schätzung der erwarteten Kosten zu erhalten. 
  • Repräsentative Fälle – eine Kanzlei könnte gebeten werden, eine Liste vergleichbarer Fälle vorzulegen, die sie abgeschlossen hat (in geeigneter Weise anonymisiert), um ihre Erfahrung zu untermauern. 

Die Zeit ist reif, um mit simplen Mitteln mehr aus Ihrer Rechtsabteilung herauszuholen. In unserem Blog „Was Rechtsabteilungen über RFPs wissen sollten“ werfen wir einen genaueren Blick auf den Ausschreibungsprozess und erläutern, wie Onit‘s Legal Spend Management-Lösung BusyLamp eBilling.Space den Prozess noch effektiver macht. Lesen Sie den vollständigen Blog hier oder fordern Sie eine Demo an, um sich selbst von unserer leistungsstarken Software zu überzeugen. 

Aus dem englischen Original-Blog übersetzt. 

What is a Request for Proposal (RFP)?

Posted on August 8, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a query with which in-house legal departments can outsource their work to external law firms. Especially nowadays, when legal departments must do more for less, the RFP is becoming an increasingly important tool.

A typical use case is when a business unit needs legal advice and turns to their in-house lawyers for it – this could be a request for an answer to a simple query or, at the other extreme, the organization is contemplating a merger with another company or is facing some severe litigation. Ideally, the in-house team has an internal knowledge management or transaction information system containing a record of previous advice or work undertaken for the business. The legal team then needs to ask themselves, can the request be handled internally?

If the work carries high risk, needs significant resources, and has areas needing specialist expertise, involve the organization’s external legal advisors from the start. If this is the case, we need to begin selecting an external law firm to instruct. The in-house department will send a Request for Proposal (RFP) to decide on the law firm to undertake the work.

An RFP for legal services involves a client corporation requesting law firms or legal service providers to submit proposals to do work on behalf of the client’s internal legal team. This can range from a basic fee estimate to a full RFP for significant legal work. Clients create and share RFPs with their legal service providers; they can set vendor selection criteria, track responses, and monitor submission rounds before selecting the preferred firm and inviting that firm to begin the work. RFPs can also go to legal service providers, including those that provide law firm services and not just legal advice, for example, eDiscovery, document review, secondees, or other managed services.

WHICH INFORMATION IS TYPICALLY IN AN RFP?

If an RFP is going to one or more law firms that are new to the client and have not previously been asked to provide their background and work experience information or are not on a client’s panel of firms, then more information of the following nature will be required:

  • A firm’s overview will require an introduction to the firm, office locations, lawyers, and jurisdictions.
  • Information about diversity, legal industry awards, and other firm accomplishments is also essential.
  • A description of experience by practice area, including supporting detail in terms of example cases to help to highlight the firm’s depth of expertise.
  • References – ideally of the type applicable to the law firm proposal or RFP.
  • IT capability, including data privacy and security policies, and good 24/7 communications demonstrate the law firm’s robust in-house technical ability.
  • Law firms should demonstrate their capability to provide invoices consistent with any format specified in the client’s billing guidelines.

However, suppose we discount the RFP to establish the suitability of a new law firm to work for a client. In that case, we should look at the contents of the more “run of the mill” RFP when a client is looking for a proposal/quotation for a new matter but from a controlled list of panel firms, for example. While every law firm proposal differs, several central sections will appear in most RFPs.

Basic sections of an RFP include:

  • Timeline: The RFP will have dates for the submission and, possibly, the work itself.
  • Contact persons and responsibilities: The vital contacts of the client and responsible lawyers in the firm. The client can select the lawyers the RFP should go to and who should respond.
  • Staffing plans: The client will expect the law firm to detail the staffing plans for the matter, including the time estimated for each timekeeper classification and the ratio between them.
  • Rates and pricing: The client will require the law firm to quote the rates they will charge for each timekeeper classification, the total fee estimate and any expenses, what discounts might be available, and suggest any alternative pricing arrangements they could offer.
  • Scope of work: The client will specify the content of the work, giving as much information as possible. A good RFP will have templates for different matter types to assist the law firm in defining how much work is required and the success criteria. This will also include which jurisdictions are covered by the RFP, and it may also allow the matter to be broken down by phase, to get a more granular estimate of the expected costs.
  • Representative Cases: A law firm might need to provide a list of comparable matters it has completed (suitably anonymized) to reinforce its experience.

The time is ripe to get more out of your legal department with simple means. In our “What Legal Ops Teams Should Know About RFPs” blog, we examine the RFP process and explain how our legal spend management solution helps streamline it.

Request a demo to see our powerful legal spend management solution tool for yourself.