Year: 2022

The Top Six Leading Corporate Legal Operations Trends for 2022

Posted on February 17, 2022 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

The pandemic changed everything about our world seemingly in the blink of an eye—corporate legal operations included. However, with change comes opportunity: to unlock novel technology solutions and discover cutting-edge ways of catapulting efficiency and catalyzing transformation for enterprise-wide excellence.

Consider these six corporate legal operations trends, compiled from the latest metrics and data, to tackle your ever-evolving law department challenges.

1. Turning Budgets into Roadmaps

Corporate legal departments are projected to triple their legal technology budgets by 2025, according to Gartner’s 2021 Legal Planning & Budgeting report. Additionally, the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium’s (CLOC) 2021 State of the Industry Report revealed that technology implementation is increasing, a triumph in efficiency for legal operations professionals who often tend to handle as many as five different business areas.

Not surprisingly, efficiency is the principal motivator encouraging general counsel (GC) and chief legal officers (CLOs) in $1B+ organizations to purchase new tech. With legal operations teams seeking to streamline and automate workflows, these purchases prove more than the sum of their parts. They are an integral part of “a defined and actionable legal systems roadmap,” the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel says. In fact, 32 percent of respondents in Deloitte’s 2021 State of Legal Operations Survey believe that procuring state-of-the-art e-signature, e-billing and contact management tools have supplied them with the ability to “provide actionable KPIs and reporting without significant manual effort,” maximizing time, energy and expenses saved.

2. Championing Diversity and Inclusion

Not only do diversity and inclusion (D&I) initiatives contribute to more robust work quality and skyrocket a competitive edge, they simply encapsulate the right thing to do. Still, despite an American Bar Association (ABA) ‘s Model Diversity Survey determining a marked leap in diversity among in-house counsel senior leadership, only 11.5% of GCs at Fortune 1000 companies were ethnic or racial minorities.

There is good news, though: post-pandemic, the number-one priority that legal operations professionals cite is implementing a D&I program.

Bloomberg’s 2021 Legal Operations Survey concluded that diversity is bolstered by both tracking metrics and introducing new processes, such as internal diversity training, more remote work opportunities and forward-thinking recruiting patterns. Also imperative? Holding vendors, namely law firms, responsible for the same standards of diversity and inclusion.

Three trailblazing companies that have elevated D&I are Intel, Uber and Novartis AG. Corporate legal departments can start by asking their current law firms to complete the ABA Model Diversity Survey and combining that data with D&I information from RFPs in a centralized legal solution.

3. Bridging Cybersecurity and Compliance Gaps

With data breaches on the inevitable rise and the average cost of a breach $4.24 million, it’s no wonder that 57% of the respondents in an ACC survey noted the urgency of having a “comprehensive data management strategy to ensure compliance, defensibility and security.”

Legal operations are an essential puzzle piece in comprehensive cybersecurity. Law.com stresses that organizations collaborate with IT to conduct data security and privacy measure audits focusing on consumer protection. The American Bar Association revealed that only 43% of those surveyed use encryption, and only 39% execute multi-factor authentication. Because remote work protocols dramatically augment technical vulnerabilities and cost over $1M more per breach, investing in a secure multi-factor authentication tool is fundamental for risk management.

4. Capturing the Power of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer merely a visionary trick in sci-fi flicks: its tech has helped lawyers and legal operations professionals analyze data patterns and generate business insights.

AI has proven especially vital in legal contract review software by reviewing thousands of contracts simultaneously, migrating legacy contracts and exporting data in under five seconds. Studies show that its functional aptitude for performing first-pass reviews makes even the newest users more than 51% productive and 34% efficient.

Those percentages provide a compelling argument for AI when extrapolated across a legal department. Whereas an average company has 55 lawyers who review a total of 9,526 contracts annually, AI can propel the same legal team to process 4,906 more each year. That’s analogous to hiring 28 additional lawyers!

Another bonus? Saving in-house counsel countless hours while circumventing the 9.2% average value “leakage.”

5. Realizing the Win-Win of AFAs

Alternative fee arrangements (AFAs) have often been branded with a bad reputation. That’s likely due to many legal departments fearing they may pay more with an AFA than an hourly fee. However, the tide is slowly changing as the average amount of AFA revenue across AmLaw 200 firms has consistently increased since 2018.

However, AFAs –which offer benefits for spend management over traditional billable hours—can be incredibly advantageous for clients, legal operations teams and law firms. They provide more control over spend, more reliable billing and a greater capacity for companies to remain on budget.

Generally, the more flexible an AFA, the more appealing it is. Utilizing spend management software to analyze current AFAs and compare vendor rates can help make enterprise-changing decisions.

6. Navigating Data-Driven Vendor Processes

According to a survey of GCs, vendor management is their top priority. This is even though CLOC’s State of the Industry Report revealed only 27% of legal department respondents formally reviewed law firm performance. In such an absence of vendor evaluation guidelines, how can return on investment (ROI) be determined?

This is where legal technology software shines. By assisting legal operations teams in orchestrating a formal vendor performance review process, it can also track vendor metrics, billing compliance, accruals and spend totals, shifting to a data-driven strategy and the most cost-effective business resolutions.

Whether it’s accelerating staff, budget or technology, each of these legal operations trends shares one element: in today’s rapidly metamorphosing world, they are becoming more critical by the day. Embracing change and advancing unrivaled growth with enterprise legal management software, contract management and transformational vendor and diversity programs will revolutionize legal operations in 2022—and long into the future.

Read more about these top legal operations trends by downloading our latest white paper.

Legalweek 2022: Connect with Onit and Its Family of Companies in New York City

Posted on February 15, 2022 by - Company News and Events

After a virtual detour last year, Legalweek is back in business. Legalweek 2022, scheduled for March 9-11 at the Hilton Midtown, welcomes thousands of attorneys, legal operations professionals and tech enthusiasts to New York to explore this year’s theme: “Addressing The Changing Legal Landscape.”

Onit has been a part of Legalweek since our founding 10 years ago, and each year we find a new, fun way to celebrate the show. If you attended in 2020, you might remember our Mardi Gras band that led a parade of attendees to happy hour. We’ll continue the tradition in 2022, and here’s how.

First, visit our Legalweek 2022 booth on the third floor of the Hilton by the conference’s registration. This year, we have an even larger presence to accommodate the entire Onit family of companies that includes SimpleLegal, ContractWorks, Bodhala, AXDRAFT and Busylamp.

Drop by to see demos of Onit products that include enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management and our workflow and artificial intelligence platforms. You can also pick up fun giveaways (no spoilers!) and learn more about all the Onit companies.

Second, join us on Wednesday, March 9, at the Renaissance Hotel for a joint happy hour with PwC. Sip delicious libations, nibble on small bites and catch up with all the movers and shakers in legal technology. Sign up here.

Third, let’s break bread together. Onit and Consilio are hosting an exclusive dinner for in-house counsel and legal operations professionals on Thursday, March 10. Expect great food, even better conversations and a floor-to-ceiling view of lively Times Square as a backdrop. Let us know to reserve your seat by visiting here.

Finally, after you take in Legalweek 2022 keynotes from celebrity anchors Don Lemon of CNN and Dan Abrams of ABC News, make time to go to another must-attend session. On Thursday, March 10 (1:30-2:30 pm ET), Hearst, Corteva and MassMutual panelists will share their vision for why legal must connect to the broader enterprise and how they are implementing processes and technology to make these connections. Titled “Building Stronger Connections to the Enterprise,” the session is open to everyone with an all-access badge to the show.

See a complete list of all of our Legalweek 2022 activities here.

Onit’s AI for eBilling Review Takes Home an Innovation Award

Posted on February 8, 2022 by - Company News and Events, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

We’re excited to announce that Onit has won a prestigious Business Intelligence Group (BIG) 2022 Innovation Award for our AI-enabled eBilling validation and processing technology, InvoiceAI. The awards program recognizes organizations, products and people bringing new ideas to life in innovative ways.

InvoiceAI debuted to customers in May of 2021 and then launched publicly four months later in September. It works with Onit’s enterprise legal management solution and traditional billing rules to conduct a first-pass review of outside counsel and vendor ebills submitted to corporate legal departments. Since AI and machine learning power it, it understands context, learns and can identify additional potentially noncompliant charges on top of what billing rules have already found.

This is the next evolution of eBilling review. Traditional billing rules rely on set parameters to identify invoices containing noncompliant line items, such as a specific word or series of words. Suppose a law firm or legal vendor uses billing descriptions that are similar but differ from what is outlined in the billing rules. In that case, an invoice may be automatically approved for payment.

How InvoiceAI Addresses eBilling Review Challenges

The review of a high number of invoices and their collective dollar total have challenged large corporate legal departments for decades. They’re often pressed to accomplish more in less time with fewer resources and lack the bandwidth to chase corrections or parse a large number of warnings. And they’re faced with invoice issues that include vague or insufficient details, block billing, improper coding of invoices and work being done by the wrong staff class. All of these issues are difficult for traditional billing rules to uncover and sort.

InvoiceAI finds issues such as administrative tasks and improper billing for time during travel and then integrates these findings with ELM and existing rules engines for a more intelligent eBilling review that continuously learns. As a result:

  • Attorneys can quickly review invoices
  • Legal operations can identify noncompliant billing guidelines and harvest early savings
  • General counsel can gain greater visibility into law firm performance and legal spend metrics.

As one customer commented:

“Now, our invoice review team doesn’t have to feel like the bad guy. The machine catches these issues (and does it better) so that we can focus on the relationships and let the system drive the needed action.”

Historical and Real-Time eBilling Review – Results

Before its public launch, InvoiceAI combed through the eBilling from 2020 for a set of Fortune 500 customers. It identified an average of six figures of savings in travel-related billed time and expenses submitted to the customers during the onset of COVID-19 when travel was severely restricted. These were invoices previously sent through traditional billing rules, meaning these savings surpassed what had already been found.

InvoiceAI yields positive results for real-time invoice review as well. When it is used with ELM and billing rules, some Onit customers have found up to 20% in savings.

Continuing AI Excellence

InvoiceAI is one of the latest AI innovations Onit has introduced since the founding of its AI Center of Excellence in 2020. Since then, we have released four other AI offerings in addition to InvoiceAI:

  • Precedent, an AI platform that automates and improves both legal and business processes for corporate legal departments, law firms, contract professionals and procurement teams.
  • ReviewAI, which quickly drafts, reviews, redlines and edits all types of contracts.
  • ExtractAI, AI which extracts and obtains usable data from executed, legacy and third-party paper contracts.
  • Automate NDA, an easy-to-implement, best practice AI solution that helps you manage and automate the end-to-end non-disclosure agreement process.

How to Learn More About InvoiceAI

Interested in learning more about InvoiceAI and how it helps eBilling? Start here or request a demonstration.  You can also learn more about AI and corporate legal with these blog posts:

Data Security: How Not to Put Your Legal Data at Risk

Posted on February 7, 2022 by - Enterprise Legal Management

With the global expansion of remote working and increased reliance on digital technologies to support every type of business, it’s no surprise that data security has risen to the top of the boardroom agenda. The issues associated with data security are particularly prominent in the minds of legal counsel since in-house legal teams frequently must help organizations manage and recover from crises, including data breaches.

WHY DOES DATA SECURITY MATTER?

Most organizations today rely on data. That means any data loss, whether caused by cyber-attack or human error, poses a considerable risk to the business. The impacts include significant time, cost, and resources spent responding to and recovering from an incident and the potential loss of revenue and long-term reputational and financial damage.

REAL DATA SECURITY RISKS FOR EUROPEAN LEGAL DEPARTMENTS

Recent studies show that a significant number of European businesses suffered a data breach involving the loss or theft of more than 1,000 records in the past two years; many of them came from a remote workforce. The shift towards remote working in the wake of the pandemic has increased the risks to data – and no legal team or business can afford to ignore them.

Data Breach Preparedness Study sponsored by Experian and conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that 49% of European businesses had suffered a data breach involving the loss or theft of more than 1,000 records in the past two years. Almost half of the data breaches came from a remote workforce (43% of European respondents). The shift towards remote working in the wake of the pandemic has increased the risks to data – and no legal team or business can afford to ignore them.

In the legal profession, the highly confidential and sensitive nature of internal data (and with law firm suppliers) makes it especially important to protect. And in an industry where your reputation is one of your most valuable assets, any data security incident that undermines that reputation is potentially devastating.

The CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations Consortium) 2022 Survey by the Association of Corporate Counsel highlighted concerns about the risks to data among Chief Legal Officers. It reported that “57% of the respondents in an ACC survey noted the urgency of having a ‘comprehensive data management strategy to ensure compliance, defensibility and security.’”

HOW TO CHOOSE LEGAL SOLUTIONS THAT PROTECT YOUR DATA

Legal firms must ensure their IT security protocols are as robust and effective as possible to protect valuable data. The key is providing the software and systems you use to offer the highest levels of data safety. Even the most technology-savvy legal operations managers may need to be more expert in data security. But there are some key features you should look out for in any legal software you choose:

  • Single jurisdiction hosting ensures that once you’ve chosen the geographical location for your datacenter, your data never leaves that country.
  • Banking grade encryption: using the latest algorithms to encrypt data wherever it is stored, accessed, or transmitted – whether on disk, on the network, or in the database.
  • Secure cloud hosting: choose applications hosted securely on your own data center (private cloud), certified data centers (public cloud), or a hybrid.
  • Regular audits, pen tests, and certifications – compliance with recognized global certifications and standards, including ISO27001, ISO 9001, and GDPR, provides peace of mind in the security and reliability of your software.

Find further advice in our in-house legal tech data security checklist and here: Legal spend management software can help mitigate data breaches.

NOW IS THE TIME TO SECURE YOUR DATA

As the new financial year approaches, now is perfect for organizing your data security protocols. New vulnerabilities and data breaches hitting the headlines recently are a timely reminder of the risks posed to data and the need for constant vigilance. Throughout Europe, data protection plays a central role for legal departments and is a top priority for corporate governance. As you set your legal tech budgets for the year ahead, ensure data security is at the top of your shopping list.

DEVELOPED FOR SUPERIOR DATA SECURITY

The legal operations software provided by Onit’s European legal spend management solution BusyLamp eBilling.Space has enterprise data security terms front of mind. That means our solutions handle the matter, and billing data are subject to the highest security standards.

Moreover, BusyLamp has been recognized again by Hyperion Research as an Enterprise Legal Management Advanced Solution in its MarketView™ Report. The report recognized our data privacy policies, highlighting our robust data privacy features, including geographic data segregation options and automated data classification and retention tools.

YOUR DATA IN SAFE HANDS

When it comes to e-billing software that helps you reduce costs and operate more efficiently, you can be confident that BusyLamp offers market-leading data protection and security standards to safeguard the confidentiality of your matters and the reputation of your business.

Request a demo to find out how BusyLamp can safely, securely, and compliantly enhance your legal operations.

Legal E-Billing Systems vs. General E-Billing: Why You Need a Specialized Tool

Posted on February 3, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management

There are a lot of options out there when it comes to legal e-billing systems and software. If your IT teams are pushing back on the idea of purchasing a specialized legal e-billing tool, you’re not alone. Many corporate legal departments run into the same problem – being shoehorned into general billing software instead of e-billing and enterprise legal management (ELM) software designed for legal users.

The difference matters.

Because they’re designed specifically with the needs of legal users in mind, legal e-billing systems like ELM and AI-enabled invoice review offer a whole host of benefits for corporate legal departments of all sizes.

In this blog post, Jackson Mayes, vice president of ELM sales for Onit, and Robin Snasdell, managing director of Consilio, discuss the differences. Consilio is a member of Onit’s Strategic Alliances program.

The Downside of General E-Billing

When choosing billing tools, it might be tempting to think that a general e-billing system will be good enough to meet your needs. However, there are a few things to consider with this approach.

Most generalized e-billing systems incorporate some rules and support workflows to guide billing decisions. Still, those rules and workflows are not specific to a corporate legal department’s needs.

General e-billing systems have several shortfalls for corporate legal users. Among other things, these tools:

  • Don’t support electronic timekeeper rates from outside counsel
  • Can’t prevent law firms from billing to matters without approval
  • Can’t receive invoices in the industry-standard Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) format or compare LEDES invoices against company billing guidelines
  • Don’t permit you to write off or reject individual invoice line items
  • Don’t allow you to compare your spend against your budget
  • Don’t support the automatic allocation of invoices to specified cost centers or codes, and
  • Don’t allow you to report on spend by relevant factors such as time, activity, matter, firm and more.

Accurate and efficient legal invoicing requires all of these functionalities, and the inability to perform them can be detrimental to your company’s revenue streams.

The Benefits of Legal E-Billing Systems

Specific legal e-billing systems, which are a part of Onit’s legal management software, address all these shortfalls, and then some.

Legal e-billing systems support the submission, review and approval of timekeeper rates, which accelerates invoice review and reduces the chance of invalid rates being approved, leading to overpayment. Law firms can only submit invoices when they’ve been assigned to a matter by your department, which gives you better financial control and further reduces the chance that invalid invoices will be submitted.

Inbound invoices are automatically allocated to the appropriate matter, reducing the risk of incorrectly allocating spend. As invoices are received, they can be automatically compared against budgets for matters, vendors or matter phases to highlight variances. If you need to adjust or reject an individual line item, you can do so via automated or manual review, saving time and streamlining invoice review across your department.

Legal e-billing systems are also designed to work with invoices prepared in LEDES. They can quickly analyze fee and expense data included in law firm invoices, automatically comparing every invoice line against your outside billing guidelines and capturing the LEDES invoice data into a database for robust reporting on spend. The ability to work with LEDES invoices accelerates invoice review and ensures compliance with billing policies.

Simply put, legal e-billing systems work with the nuances of invoicing in the legal field. Chances are, you wouldn’t consider using non-legal technology for the most critical aspects of your business, like matter management or legal spend management. Billing and invoicing should be no different.

Onit is a leading provider of solutions designed specifically for legal e-billing, including Onit ELM and InvoiceAI. Schedule a demo today to implement the right legal e-billing system for your specific needs or email [email protected].

Consilio is a global leader in eDiscovery, document review, risk management, and legal consulting services. Through its Consilio Complete suite of capabilities, the company supports multinational law firms and corporations using innovative software, cost-effective managed services, and deep legal and regulatory industry expertise. For more information, please visit us at consilio.com.

Current Legal News for Corporate Counsel (February 2022 Edition)

Posted on February 1, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Once more, we offer current legal news for corporate legal departments. This month’s edition includes a chipmunk lawyer, what the global legal market has in common with Apple, rethinking the title “in-house counsel,” associate pay raises and how better contract management can increase revenue.

1. The Global Legal Market On Track to Join the Trillionaire’s Club

Is the value of the global legal market joining the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet? These companies have famously broken the billion-dollar mark, cresting into the trillions in market value. A new report places the current global legal market at almost $900 billion and predicts a 4.4% compound annual growth rate through 2028 – meaning it will hit more than a trillion dollars by that time. Artificial Lawyer looks into why legal is snowballing and what it can mean for legal technology.

Source: Artificial Lawyer

2. Introducing the Chipmunk Lawyer

First, we got the lawyer cat, when an attorney had an incredibly adorable (and hard to remove) furry filter during a virtual hearing. We now have another video conferencing mishap in current legal news. This time, a faulty microphone converted a lawyer’s voice into a frequency and speed that Alvin, Simon and Theodore would appreciate. Fortunately, Judge Roy Ferguson – who also presided during the lawyer cat case – quickly identified the glitch and helped fix it.

Source: Above The Law

3. Is It Time to Ditch the Term “In-House Counsel”?

What are you called if you are an attorney working in a corporate legal department? Some may jump to “in-house counsel.” It’s long been an industry term. But corporate counsel may want to reset it. A CLO sparks a spirited debate about the title on LinkedIn. Spoiler alert: He isn’t a fan. Others in the same profession jumped into the conversation, talking about its pros and cons and offering alternative titles like “house counsel,” “internal counsel” and “crisis and strategy counsel.”

Source: Corporate Counsel

4. More Associate Pay Hikes for Law Firms, According to Current Legal News Outlets

International law firm Milbank announced an increase of up to $20,000 in pay for associates, creating a new salary range of $215,000 to $385,000. Many other firms, including Baker McKenzie, DLA Piper and Goodwin are following suit, according to the ABA Journal (who also relied on Above The Law, Law.com and Reuters). This follows a similar pattern from last year as law firms focus on staying competitive and retaining top talent. Corporate legal departments may feel conflicted about the raise since higher salaries can contribute to higher law firm bills. This blog post has a few pointers for those looking for tips to contain legal spend.

Source: ABA Journal

5. How Improved Contract Management Increases Revenue 9%

Improving how your company manages the lifecycle of contracts can bring impressive bottom-line benefits. The World Commerce & Contracting organization estimates that enhanced contract development and management can increase profitability to the tune of 9% of a company’s annual revenue. Here’s how technology like AI and automation replaces manual processes to create stronger contract management.

Source: Onit

We hope you enjoyed this digest of current legal news for corporate counsel. If you’re interested in learning more about how corporate legal departments use technologies like enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, AI and more, schedule an Onit demo today or email [email protected].

Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software

Posted on January 25, 2022 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management

How CLM can Increase Revenue 9%

When it comes to contract lifecycle management software, one thing is sure: It’s on everyone’s radar. Consider these findings from the Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2021 Legal Technology Report for In-House Counsel:

  • Contract management software was ranked as one of the top three most effective technologies, behind only matter management and e-billing.
  • 77% of participants said they want technology to help them better manage contracts.
  • 56% said they are looking into investing in contract lifecycle management software.
  • 81% in the $500M to $999M range said they are looking into a contract management software upgrade, while 44% of companies under $100M in revenue are doing the same.

It’s no surprise that interest is high. Contracting delays impact the entire enterprise, stalling revenue generation, new services, valuable partnerships and more. Outdated technologies (those that can’t integrate or scale, for example) and manual processes offer further complications, especially when considering the high volume of contracts and the often limited resources available to manage legal obligations.

What are the Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software?

The World Commerce & Contracting organization estimates that improved contract development and management can increase profitability to the tune of 9% of a company’s annual revenue.

How does it accomplish this? It supercharges the speed of contracting with technology. Companies using contract management software soon find numerous advantages such as:

  • Self-service to create new contracts without legal intervention. Departments can select contracts from approved templates and the solution can facilitate a legal review of any deviations from approved language.
  • Easy access to all contracts stored in one repository, making it more effective to maintain compliance with audit and governance requirements.
  • Reduction of duplicative work by integrating contract data into order management, purchasing and invoicing systems.
  • Greater insight into risks, obligations and new laws and regulations through reporting and analytics
  • More transparent processes, with the status of any contract only a click away.
  • Faster contract turnaround with the help of automation, which steers each contract through its appropriate review cycle while providing automated updates to involved parties as necessary.
  • Reduced risk through consistent contract language upheld in the system via templates and contract playbooks.

Contract Management + AI – An Advantage for the Entire Enterprise

When you combine AI and contract management, the benefits multiple rapidly for everyone who depends on contracts.

Consider how AI helps first-pass review. It acts as a junior lawyer, making recommendations and delivering a risk profile. This makes the overall review process much quicker, including reviews by other lawyers. Instead of reviewing the contract, redlining it and adding clauses, an attorney opens up a contract with all of this already performed by AI. In fact, a study found that legal AI contract review software made new users 51.5% more productive and 34% more efficient.

When you apply a 51.5% productivity boost in the context of a typical midsize company, that boost translates into serious results. If you have 55 lawyers reviewing an average of 9,500 contracts, the same team can process an additional 4,900 contracts with contract AI. That’s the equivalent of adding 28 lawyers to the team.

Of course, the legal obligations continue after signature, and AI also supports that process. Contracts offer a wealth of usable data that should be harnessed. Their proper management ensures that the terms of the agreement are fulfilled and helps assess if the company is meeting expected business results. For most teams, this work is currently done manually or not done at all.

AI dramatically increases the efficiency and scope of data extraction, turning data into actionable information in several ways, including:

  • Batch review, by extracting data from multiple legal documents at once
  • Repapering, by amending or redlining contract details and critical terms to comply with regulatory changes or M&A activities
  • Contract abstraction, by identifying critical legal clauses, terms and details in documents for easy analysis and syncing with your CLM.
  • Audit compliance by automating large-scale legal contract review when regulatory changes occur and exporting relevant details in notes and reports
  • Due diligence through the automation of batch review of contracts for routine legal due diligence, freeing up resources
  • Legacy contract migration by rapidly analyzing and extracting legacy contract metadata, including critical dates, terms, and clauses, to assist in importing

AI won’t replace lawyers, but it will provide significant benefits when paired with contracting. This infographic on the benefits of AI and contract management breaks down the quantitative benefits of AI and contract management, including today’s contract burdens, their costs and how AI can accelerate sales cycles by up to 24%.

Additional Contract Management and AI Resources

Ready to start evaluating contract management solutions? Here are a few resources that may help:

The Latest in Corporate Counsel and Legal Technology News (January 2022 Edition)

Posted on January 20, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Legal Management

Welcome to the January digest of leading legal technology news and resources for in-house counsel and legal operations professionals. In this edition, you’ll read about the issues shaping legal and legal technology as we enter the new year, including an expected increase in legal disputes, the legal technology that’s helping GCs succeed and the possibility that the elusive sabbatical may come to the in-house world.

1. Almost a Third of Global Companies Expect Disputes To Increase In 2022, Study Finds

According to a recent report from global law firm Baker McKenzie, almost one-third of the world’s companies expect to see an increase in disputes in 2022. Not surprisingly, issues related to COVID-19 and cybersecurity – two of the most significant challenges in the past year – are expected to be the biggest threats. Specifically, 57% of respondents said cybersecurity disputes were most concerning for their companies, while 48% saw the pandemic as creating the greatest exposure to potential legal disputes. As we move forward in the coming year, companies should be braced for an uptick in court filings.

Source: The Global Legal Post

2. The Software That Lets GCs Showcase Their Value

In recent years, legal technology has played a significant role in helping in-house counsel juggle the competing demands of getting more done for their companies while keeping costs to a minimum. Jared Correia recently sat down with guests (including Matt DenOuden, SVP of Global Sales for Onit) in the latest episode of his Above the Law’s Non-Eventcast podcast to discuss just that. The episode focuses on how in-house counsel can best leverage matter management and legal spend management software to help lower overhead and improve operations. You can listen to the full podcast on Apple and Spotify.

Source: Above The Law

3. The Latest Perk for In-House Lawyers: Sabbaticals

Here’s an interesting trend for those keeping up on legal technology news: Time off! We all know a lawyer or two who could use a break, especially after the past couple of years. The good news is that more might soon get one. Sabbaticals have not often been included in in-house counsel compensation packages. However, a record number of attorneys left the workforce in 2021, mainly due to burnout, increased personal demands, a need for more flexibility and other concerns prompted by the pandemic. This has some corporations rethinking their stance on sabbaticals. Many recruiters are positing that employers might start using sabbaticals as a means of attempting to retain top talent in a competitive legal market.

Source: Law.com

4. The Top Legal Technology News Stories of 2021

There’s no question that 2021 was a year of ups, downs and everything in between for legal technology news. Here, technology evangelist and lawyer Nicole Black lays out the top five legal tech news stories that dominated headlines last year for the ABA Journal. The stories include the evolution of remote work, the uptick in cybersecurity risks, the significant increase in resignations in the legal industry at the associate level, the prevalence of mergers, acquisitions and consolidations in the legal tech space (including Onit’s acquisitions of Bodhala and BusyLamp), and significant legal tech IPOs that occurred in 2021.

Source: ABA Journal

(PS: Onit recently announced its latest acquisition, SecureDocs, which brings contract management to SMB customers. You can read more about it here.)

5.  Legalweek Conference Shifts to March

COVID-19 continues to disrupt conference season. This time, Omicron concerns have pushed  Legalweek. One of the leading conferences for legal technology news and advances is moving from the last week of January to March 8-11. If you’re registered, you don’t have to change a thing except  your hotel reservations. The conference, which legal thought leader Bob Ambrogi estimates to be in its 40th year, welcomes thousands of lawyers, in-house counsel, legal operations leaders and legal IT professionals each year.

Source: LawSites

We look forward to bringing you more news and insights as the new year progresses. As always, if you want to learn more about our legal business solutions, including enterprise legal management, contract lifecycle management, AI and more, schedule a demo today or email [email protected].

How to Identify the Best Enterprise Legal Management Software For Your Law Department

Posted on January 18, 2022 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In today’s fast-paced and quickly evolving business environment, corporate counsel and legal department professionals want to work faster, smarter and more efficiently. One of the ideal ways to do this is by automating manual processes, minimizing risk and gaining greater insight into matters and spend with enterprise legal management software.

How can you find the best enterprise legal management solution for your law department? If you’re interested in implementing the ideal ELM software to increase efficiency and help get a handle on legal spend, the following resources can help.

Enterprise Legal Management Resources

  • The History of the Enterprise Legal Management System and How Today’s Innovators Use It: ELM systems have evolved significantly since their first iteration more than 40 years ago. Before ELM solutions, paper ruled every aspect of legal operations. Now, with digitization, automation and AI, ELM systems transform legal operations, analyze spend, minimize company risk and drive process efficiency – all while helping corporate legal departments better support their businesses. Read more to learn how ELM software became critical to today’s corporate legal departments and how innovative GCs, in-house counsel and legal operations professionals are now using it.
  • Six Features of the Best Matter Management Software: Matter management software puts critical matter, financial and performance data at the fingertips of corporate counsel and legal operations. But what features should a corporate legal department prioritize to gain the best return on investment? This post outlines the top six features to look for in matter management software.
  • How to Prepare Your Team for an Enterprise Legal Management Software Implementation: An ELM implementation brings all-new operational efficiency levels to corporate legal departments. In fact, some estimate that the best enterprise legal management software can help save up to 10% on outside counsel spend. It’s critical, though, not to lose sight of the people component of ELM implementations. This blog post sets out the best practices to ensure that you have all your crucial players on board to make your implementation a success.
  • What to Look For in Enterprise Legal Management Software: ELM software turbo boosts legal operations and brings new levels of operational efficiency to corporate legal departments. A comprehensive solution that combines e-billing, matter management and legal service request intake into a single, streamlined platform provides a game-changing way to analyze legal spend, minimize company risk and drive process efficiency. However, all these benefits are only possible if you find the best enterprise legal management software to support your law department and its unique needs. This blog post breaks down what you should be looking for and why.

Legal Spend Management Resources

  • Legal Billing Review: How to Right-Size Invoice Charges: When it comes to legal billing, corporate legal departments often have a baseline expectation: Charge my company the correct amount. However, what sounds like a simple premise (and should be easy to meet) comes with serious challenges. The ELM helps alleviate some of those challenges, but companies still need the right approach to invoice review to ensure they’re not overcharged. Matt DenOuden, Onit’s SVP of Global Sales, sits down with Chubb and Sterling Analytics executives to explore the ideal approach that adds efficiency and expertise to invoice review while still honoring a company’s relationship with its law firms.
  • Ensure Accurate Legal Billing By Avoiding These Four Common Invoicing Problems: While having accurate legal billing is something all parties involved can agree on, it’s still a complicated process for large corporate legal departments. A single law firm bill may have hundreds of pages, clock in at millions of dollars and cover multiple matters, tasks and timekeepers. Outside counsel guidelines, billing code confusion and the sheer volume of bills further complicate invoice review. This blog post discusses some of the most common errors that make accurate legal billing challenging.
  • The Latest Advancement For AI in Spend Analytics: Legal invoice review is rarely a top-ten task for corporate legal departments, meaning it’s the ideal process for AI in spend analytics to improve. This post explains how AI, combined with the best enterprise legal management software, analyzes historical and real-time legal invoices to find errors “between the billing rules.”

Finally, if you’re in the mood for a fun ELM video, we have just the thing for you.

Implementing the best enterprise legal management software for your business can go a long way toward increasing efficiency and eliminating the most common pain points associated with legal spend management. Onit ELM is here to help. Reach out to us today to schedule a demonstration or learn more at [email protected].

How AI and Enterprise Legal Management Find Hidden Legal Invoice Review Errors

Posted on January 13, 2022 by - Artificial Intelligence, Enterprise Legal Management

Legal invoice review and validation is a significant pain point for most companies and legal departments. In a recent survey, legal operations professionals cited their top three challenges as:

  1. Business process improvements (59.7%)
  2. Cost containment and savings (49.3%)
  3. Staying abreast of law department technology (35.8%)

All three of these items apply to legal invoice review, where outdated processes and technologies, combined with increasing workloads, more often than not lead to lost time, compliance risks, reputational risks, possible fraud, unnecessary payments and more.

Then there are the invoice charges that manage to fly under the radar. These are ones that slip by preset e-billing rules and human review, leading to the approval of invoices with potential erroneous charges like nonworking travel, block billing, vague descriptions and work done by improper staff class.

How Corporate Legal Can “Right-Size” Legal Invoice Review

Billing tasks don’t have to take up more of your time than identifying and mitigating risks to your company. AI, combined with enterprise legal management and e-billing rules, helps companies more accurately and efficiently process invoices.

Now, we’re introducing a high-level guide titled “How to Find ‘Between the Rules’ Invoice Errors” that discusses how AI, combined with ELM and billing rules, is revolutionizing legal invoice review.

Here are just a few of the highlights you’ll find in the Quick Start Guide.

  • The Limitations of Billing Rules: With paper invoices, in-house counsel never had time to review every line item. eBilling relieved a lot of strain by applying billing rules, which scour the invoices for keywords and parameters that might conflict with billing guidelines. However, because these rules cannot represent all potential billing language, they open the door for “between the rules” errors.
  • How AI-Powered Invoice Review Software Fills the Gap: Unlike traditional e-billing tools, AI-enabled invoice review solutions are constantly learning, searching for discrepancies and improving invoice review via machine learning. For example, an unauthorized travel charge may make it through review because its description doesn’t match the exact parameters of the billing rules’ language. AI and machine learning can pick up on language that may not be explicitly called out in billing rules.
  • What to Look For in an AI-Enabled Invoice Review Solution: All AI-enabled invoice review solutions are not created equal. When choosing a solution, you should look for specific features, including historical analysis, ELM integration, continuous learning, advanced analytics and reporting, advanced bill review services and reduced bill review time. The Quick Start Guide explains each of these features and what to look for.

Just how much of a difference can AI-assisted invoice review make? One historical review of a Fortune 500’s outside counsel spend found an extra 11-20% in potential savings. For example, when AI reviewed an average of $45 million in invoices for one year, it detected $900K of non-attorney billing, $1M in block billing and $100K of travel-related fees during the height of COVID.

AI-assisted invoice review also helps catch common errors fast, helps companies meet their ROI objectives more quickly, helps boost productivity and better insulates companies from fraud. It does so by combining smart rules, keeping experts in the loop and employing powerful analytics.

To learn more about finding those between the rules invoice errors, download the Quick Start Guide here.

For more information on contract lifecycle management, contract AI and more, contact Onit today, or you can request a demonstration.