Author: Onit

Legaltech 2020 – Demos, Dining, Drinks and maybe even Dancing with Onit!

Posted on January 28, 2020 by - Company News and Events

What do Mardi Gras, Mediterranean and Modern Technology have in common? They’ll all be featured in Onit’s lineup of activities at Legaltech 2020! Like last year, Onit will be fully energized and busy at Legaltech NY. The New York Hilton Midtown will be bustling with activity, and Onit doesn’t intend to sit on the sidelines.

Onit will be stationed on the third floor near the show registration desks. Here, you’ll find the Onit and SimpleLegal Smart Charge Station, and have the opportunity to see demos of our cutting-edge process automation solutions for enterprise legal management, contracts, legal service request and more. You can learn more about our recent launch of Onit Contract Lifecycle Management, as well as our acquisition of SimpleLegal.

You won’t want to miss this: Onit will be hosting a thought-provoking session titled “Career Up! LegalOps for eDiscovery Professionals & Tech Wonky Attorneys” in the Legal Operations Technology and Emerging Trends Track on February 5 from 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. This session features our own Paige Edwards moderating a discussion between legal operations professionals from Prudential, Toyota and Purdue Pharma. The session will cover career statistics and trends in the legal operations job market, certifications and degrees that matter most, salary guidelines and business of law implications.

And it doesn’t end there. Join Onit, SimpleLegal and NetDocuments for an early Mardi Gras happy hour on February 4 a few blocks from the show at the Dream Hotel for great jazz, cocktails and light bites. The party will get started at our booths during the Legaltech opening reception at 5:00 p.m. and carry on to the Dream Hotel. Get Details and Register here

We also invite you to join an exclusive dinner for in-house legal leaders, co-hosted with Consilio. Enjoy cocktails and a seated dinner at an acclaimed Mediterranean hotspot two blocks from the show. Seats are very limited so request yours today! You can email us at [email protected] or request a seat here.

Last but not least, please schedule time for an Onit demo in our private demo room away from the exhibit hall floor to take a deeper dive into how Onit products can help your legal department better manage legal work, costs and risks. The schedule is nearly full so don’t wait! Request a time slot here.

Onit Named a Top 25 Legal Vendor for 2020

Posted on January 24, 2020 by - Company News and Events

We’re excited to announce that Onit and our sister company, SimpleLegal were both named a Top 25 Legal Vendor for the 2020 OnCon Awards!

The OnCon Icon awards recognize the top professionals and vendors in the world in the areas of marketing, human resources, and legal. The OnCon Icon Award winners are determined by more than 4,500 peer-to-peer votes.

“It is a tremendous honor to be selected as an award winner, as the selection is based off of peer recognition of performance, impact, and contributions. Winners represent many of the most senior leaders from the world’s top organizations. Company winners represent the best vendors as determined by the end user,” commented Sean Tomarelli, Founder & CEO at OnConferences.

Click here to see Onit’s listing.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 7

Posted on January 24, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


Law firms Still Don't Get Legal OperationsThe Global Legal Post: Law firms Still ‘Don’t Get’ Legal Operations
Since we’ve started the Highlight Blog series we’ve been talking about how important we think having dedicated legal operations staff is, and we’re happy we have another opportunity to beat that drum. At CLOC London, most of day two was spent bringing this point home with legal ops professionals and GCs running an open dialogue. CLOC London attendees now have a better understanding about what makes the most effective legal operations partnerships and are now more equipped than ever to move their organizations toward the future. We would expect to see legal operations become ever more important in Europe as more discussions like these happen. Spoiler alert…Onit and our partner Duff & Phelps might even host a few! Stay tuned.


Alibaba Legal Tech Summit 2019: 5 Key TakeawaysAsian Legal Business: Alibaba Legal Tech Summit 2019: 5 Key Takeaways
Lawyers have been hearing the same line over and over for the last few years: legal technology will make your operations more efficient so you can deliver better service for clients. Speakers at the Alibaba Legal Tech Summit also conveyed how deep legal technology runs as it affects many business units outside of legal that are still integral to service delivery. The main point being driven home was how technology enhances lawyers’ abilities to tackle complex matters and how they should be looking at these technologies as a revitalizer rather than a replacer. This idea of incorporating business units outside of just legal in order to make all legal processes more efficient is foundational to Onit’s approach to our customers’ challenges.


The New Legal Tech Leaders: 8 Big Industry Moves From 2019Law.com: The New Legal Tech Leaders: 8 Big Industry Moves From 2019
2019 was a big year for technology, and an especially big year for the legal tech sector. The eight people listed in this article made colossal waves during a year crammed full of M&As and tectonic technology shifts. These industry shifts were in the news throughout 2019, but this summary shows some of the biggest news in one of the biggest legal tech sectors – eDiscovery.


As Legal Tech Incubators Multiply, Past Entrants Reveal What Makes a Successful EngagementLaw.com: As Legal Tech Incubators Multiply, Past Entrants Reveal What Makes a Successful Engagement
It’s well known at this juncture that the process of creating and selling new legal tech products has about as many similarities to starting up a regular tech company as it does differences, and one of those differences shows through the incubator experience. Victoria Hudgens from Legaltech News shares this difference that mostly comes from Big Four and Biglaw organizations running the incubators as well as how the experience can differ once companies have been accepted. Respondents share that while incubators that provide support in a wide range of business areas are the most helpful, accelerators and incubators for legal tech often don’t have as much investment experience as the companies being incubated have much less effect on their bottom line. These insights are especially interesting to us since Onit started in a “regular tech” incubator. My how far we’ve come!


The 2019 Legal Department Operations Survey ReportAbove the Law: The 2019 Legal Department Operations Survey Report
In case you missed it, the LDO Survey Report is back. The 12th edition of this report, produced in association with Morae Global and sponsored by Onit, comes to us on the heels of another year of impressive growth, but even the mightiest can still fall. This year’s report covers professional assessments of legal project management, contract lifecycle management, formal metrics programs, AI and other emerging technologies.


Women Hold Editor-in-Chief Positions at the 16 Most Elite Law ReviewsLaw.com: Women Hold Editor-in-Chief Positions at the 16 Most Elite Law Reviews
We’ve heard a lot about workplace equity and diversity for the last couple years now, but one lesser talked about cornerstone of legal culture among professionals is literature. Among the top 16 law schools’ law review publications, all 16 of them have women as editor in chief for the first time in their history. This is part of an upward trend over the last decade with women only making up 29% of the editors at these top institutions in 2012. This milestone is a strong victory for lawyers and institutions trying to cultivate a more hospitable environment for women, people of color, and first-generation law students.

Onit Announces 2020 Training Schedule

Posted on January 23, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Here at Onit, we have established ourselves as a leading provider of innovative software products for the legal industry. Our organization and global market share have grown exponentially over the last couple of years through strategic investments and successful acquisitions. As we continue this exponential rise in customers, end-users, and partners, our primary focus and vision remain the same, the support and service of our customers. At Onit we pride ourselves on our ability to arm our customers, new and existing, with the ability to not only use our products to their fullest potential but to ensure they are utilizing them in ways that fit their business needs and maximize adoption, productivity and ROI. We employ teams of industry thought leaders and software experts that teach proper business processes, techniques, and best practices throughout various disciplines and how to utilize our software to support those processes.

Today, we are excited to announce that we have rolled out our new training schedule for 2020! There are three training tracks: Apptitude, Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) and Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM). The Apptitude track offers courses for Apptitude developers. Within the ELM and CLM tracks are courses that are in either the technical or non-technical lanes, depending on whether you are an Apptitude developer or project manager. All tracks consist of four certification levels.

Whatever your role, and whether you’re a valued Onit customer or partner, attaining formal Onit credentials demonstrates to the world that you have the knowledge and skills to transform business processes using the Onit platform. Our formal certification program provides an easy-to-navigate framework for both securing and quantifying your Onit expertise.

Here are the upcoming courses that we have posted on our training calendar. If you find an upcoming course that you’d like to attend, sign up on our registration page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out directly or send an email to [email protected].

Product Comparison: Bodhala vs. Tableau

Posted on January 21, 2020 by - Legal Operations

Tableau: A Business Intelligence Platform, NOT a Legal Intelligence Platform

With the abundance of data available at our fingertips, organizations are increasingly challenged to utilize data in meaningful ways. IT departments often overstate the utility of data visualization tools to internal legal teams to map out high-level metrics through charts and graphs – in ways that otherwise wouldn’t be apparent through traditional spreadsheets.

Tableau has been the leader among ’self-service’ business intelligence platforms — yet this popular generic data visualization platform fails to cover the nuances of legal spend management and often fall short of delivering meaningful insights.

Bodhala provides the solution through Hercules, our proprietary data tool that analyzes rates, practice areas, matter types, matter, and other factors to create peer sets that provide accurate apples-to-apples comparisons when it comes to cost and staffing. 

Let’s dig further into why Bodhala is the most powerful end-to-end legal spend management platform.

Quick and Easy Doesn’t Always Mean Insightful

Tableau is a presentation tool, not an analysis tool. Tableau gives you the “what,” but not the “why” and “how.”

With Tableau, you need to not only know where you’re starting but where you’re trying to go. While building simple dashboards on Tableau is easy if you have an admin on staff, legal spend management is relentlessly complex and requires data-backed insights to drive impactful decisions.

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

Our dashboard answers the following questions that your traditional data visualization platforms can’t:

  • How do firms allocate work to their associates?
  • How do law firms account for different discounts?
  • How much time, on average, does each matter take and what does it cost?
  • How much are you paying compared to the industry rate?
  • How are your rate cards impacting your total legal spend?

Utilizing Data You Trust

One of the greatest operational challenges Tableau users face is data cleanup. Although the platform was built with big data in mind, Tableau users find it difficult to manipulate and model data in an efficient manner. Some Tableau power users even recommend that data work be done outside of Tableau, and then be imported back into the platform for the best results.

On top of this, they must ensure that the imported data is clean and uniform, which is a process that requires countless hours by your data team to just make sure that everything is tagged appropriately and nothing falls through the cracks.

Bodhala removes this key operational headache with Hercules, the god of all analytics platforms. Hercules’ proprietary suite of data tools helps companies marry legal spend data in a clean, organized, and pain-free way.

Hercules uses machine learning to automatically organize, categorize, and taxonomize your legal data so you’re always working with clean data. The algorithm also detects any major disruptions in data patterns and helps you identify any anomalies within your massive dataset.

Fundamental Data Errors Lead to Bad Behavior

Law firm discounting is complex and difficult to measure through your invoicing platforms. Bodhala’s Hercules engine identifies and simplifies the following structures right out of the box:

  • Write-offs and task-level discounts
  • Invoice level discounts
  • Line item discounts
  • Relationship discounts

Leveraging Unmatched Business Intelligence

Teams utilizing data visualization tools like Tableau have traditionally relied on 3rd party benchmarks to determine the “best” rates when negotiating with their law firms. Unfortunately, this process doesn’t allow in-house counsel to go into the specifics of how those rates came to be.

Bodhala goes beyond the ‘rack rate’ and provides precise industry benchmarks that work closely with your proprietary data to identify how your legal fees weigh up to industry averages.

Our benchmarks empower teams to make true apples-to-apples comparisons. Unlike publicly available benchmarks, we provide transparency on integral factors like matter-type competitiveness, bankruptcy history, law firm financials, and aggregated client data.

Try Bodhala Today

Real transparency, real accountability, real control.

LEARN MORE
SCHEDULE A DEMO

Shoot us an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about how to get started.

Everything Must Go: Legal Bills Mount Over Sears Assets

Posted on January 16, 2020 by - Legal Operations

Creditors and former workers struggle while Big Law firms see the softer side of the Sears bankruptcy.

Over at The Wall Street Journal last week, journalist Soma Biswas illuminated the “tug of war” between former professionals, vendors, and the teams of Big Law firms vying for a piece of the shrinking pie of Sears assets in bankruptcy.

Some of the biggest firms with the biggest price tags have charged more than $200 million in legal bills since Sears went under in late 2018. Sears’ main bankruptcy firm, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, maxes out their billing at $1,695 an hour according to the article, and their total payout has been more than $65 million.

In October, a $50 million estate fund was set up to pay creditors. Akin Gump, who represents unsecured creditors, has so far billed for more than half the funds of that pot, while vendors and creditors were paid $21 million in December.

Meanwhile, more than $3 million in severance to former Sears employees remains unpaid.

While these numbers might sound shocking, it’s a trend we’ve seen growing in the legal industry over the last decade. Last summer, WSJ wrote a groundbreaking piece, based largely on data we provided, that examined the changing nature of law firm partnerships and their interactions with clients. In the span of a few decades, white-shoe law firms have transitioned from a relationship-based model to a system where “data and money rule.”

Bodhala can’t keep you out of the headlines but we can keep the headlines from covering your legal spend. 

We unlock the power of the data you already own to help your corporate legal department make decisions to keep your company’s legal billing under control – and out of the news! Our machine learning algorithms immediately identify patterns in your legal spend to give you the best three-dimensional view of your billing, giving you the confidence to negotiate from a position of strength in every interaction and enhance your relationship with your trusted outside counsel.

Our platform gives you instant snapshots of every facet in your legal matter, from the number of timekeepers to surfacing the true rate per hour, and staffing diversity.

Bodhala is the leading tech platform enabling corporate legal teams to analyze and optimize their spend. We’re dedicated to helping firms get a handle on their legal spend, regardless of the size and scope of their enterprise, or the matters at hand. 

Using the power of big data and machine learning algorithms, our proprietary system helps corporate legal departments find the right talent, at the right value. We’ve saved our clients millions in negotiation and procurement every year, and we’re eager to get to work for you.

Contact us TODAY to find out how we can help you realize more value in your spend: http://bit.ly/37zaM7X

Like what you’re seeing?

Shoot us an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about how to get started.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 6

Posted on January 3, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


2020 Vision: A Look Into What In-House Counsel Need to Know for the New YearLaw.com: 2020 Vision: A Look Into What In-House Counsel Need to Know for the New Year
Corporate Counsel magazine reporters spoke to several general counsel about what they say will impact their work and the legal industry. From outside counsel merging with other law firms to the use of artificial intelligence to keep down legal department costs, this article outlines some of the trends in-house counsel may find themselves dealing with in the new year.


First 90 Days Game Plan To Building A Legal Operations FunctionAbove the Law: First 90 Days Game Plan To Building A Legal Operations Function
Olga V. Mack has interviewed Twitter’s Legal Operations director Colin McCarthy and this week they’re sharing a comprehensive take on what employing a legal operations function should look like. According to McCarthy, the main goals of this deployment should be good decision making, future-proof technology solutions, proper spend and scaling and all of this should be recorded for future analysis. These 90 days are critical to a successful legal ops function as they will determine whether your relationships with key stakeholders are solid, which inefficiencies can be eliminated and how to implement your plan under what timeframe.


Could a Legal Operations Role Benefit Your Organization? Here’s How to DecideLaw.com: Could a Legal Operations Role Benefit Your Organization? Here’s How to Decide
Legal operations has been rapidly cementing itself as a cornerstone role in legal departments across the world, but the decision of whether you want to dedicate the resources to that position is a tough one. In the last few years as corporate counsel have noticed their workflows becoming more demanding and requiring more business knowledge, the legal operations position has helped companies like Liberty Mutual, Google and The Gap meet demands with stringent budgets and extensive administrative hurdles. If you’re a general counsel and you feel like you’ve been bogged down by all of business-related tasks you need to tackle, employing a dedicated legal operations role might help you and your department get back to the legal work you’re more specialized in, while also driving efficiencies in critical business-focused areas.


Who’s Afraid Of Machine Learning?Above the Law: Who’s Afraid Of Machine Learning?
Many legal professionals are becoming increasingly nervous about AI and machine learning because of the unknown nature or inherent bias that surrounds them. However, machine learning in its current state is designed to do one ley thing: recognize patterns. These tools are driving serious efficiency in administrative tasks and can help legal professionals gain a deeper understanding of the matters they are assigned.


The Top 9 Legal Tech Investments of 2019Law.com: The Top 9 Legal Tech Investments of 2019
Onit was included in the top nine investments in Legal Tech in 2019, a year that marked significant capital infusion into the legal technology space. This article highlights the investments that were deemed significant enough to reshape the legal tech market. Onit was a recipient of one of the largest capital investments, at $200 million, in the list. That strategic investment is contributing to more robust features in our existing products like Enterprise Legal Management, as well as new product lines like Contract Lifecycle Management. It is also helping to grow the company through acquisition, starting with the addition of SimpleLegal as a subsidiary.


Lawyers Want Easier Technology. But Providers Aren't Sure What That MeansLaw.com: Lawyers Want ‘Easier’ Technology. But Providers Aren’t Sure What That Means
In technology (and especially legal technology), feedback is critical as developers are trying to make their user experiences more friendly for the professionals that rely on them. Everyone wants the tools they use to be intuitive, and bridging the gap between legalese and tech talk might be the key to developing better legal technology. Even though legal is a fast-paced world, legal tech companies would like to see lawyers dwell on their previous matters for just a little longer and give developers proper feedback to hone their tools for what is coming next.


5 Legal Technologies You Thought Were Dead But Aren’tAbove the Law: 5 Legal Technologies You Thought Were Dead But Aren’t
There are good reasons to be wary of adopting cutting edge technologies early before all the kinks are worked out, but at some point you just have to rip the bandage off. According to the ABA 2019 Legal Technology Survey Report, books, CDs, fax machines, BlackBerrys and even WordPerfect are still being used by lawyers all over the country for one reason or another. Even though there have been massive leaps in technology available to lawyers, sometimes the old methods are gold and it’s not worth the billable hour to teach new tricks.


Legal Departments Use 'Moneyball' Approach to Pick Lawyers and Fight Mega VerdictsLaw.com: Legal Departments Use ‘Moneyball’ Approach to Pick Lawyers and Fight Mega Verdicts
For anyone that hasn’t seen the film or are unfamiliar with the Oakland A’s of the early 2000s, the “moneyball” approach entails using predictive analytics to show what methods and tools are undervalued in order to reduce spend and stay ahead of the curve. More law organizations and corporate counsel are employing these predictive measures to get critical information that might completely change the way they choose to run their case. New predictive technologies are giving lawyers information about spend, strategy and personnel. Some lawyers believe these tools will be necessary for practicing law within the next 20 years.

Legal Department Operations Survey 2019 Results are Out

Posted on December 18, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Onit is once again a sponsor of the Legal Department Operations (LDO) Survey. In its 12th year, this survey is the leading barometer for trends in legal operations. Onit Founder & CEO, Eric M. Elfman, contributed an article to the survey results package. Please read that article below and download the full survey results here.

Driving Disruption in the Legal Department: Legal Ops and Technology Lead the Way
By Eric Elfman

Legal operations is all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to grow and protect the company it serves. As such, legal departments are seeking a higher level of operational excellence. This is evidenced by their embrace of innovation, increased demand for automation of repetitive tasks and a workflow-centric approach and understanding of how to use technology to create operational wins.

Driving efficiencies and containing costs are two key reasons that legal operations is important and is growing so quickly. Legal departments were forced to adopt a more operationally focused mindset as a result of the Great Recession. The 2008 downturn was so severe, and efficiency and cost-cutting were considered so critical to the survival of the business at large, that it was no longer acceptable to spend freely. Since then, C-suites have increasingly been making their law departments behave more like other business units. This ultimately led to the rise of a profession dedicated to bringing business discipline to the law department: legal operations.

Legal department operations professionals (LDOs) handle the management of vendors, systems, strategic planning, technology, knowledge, financial issues and the myriad other tasks that plague the legal department. Legal operations are all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to support the business and is a multi-disciplinary function that optimizes legal services delivery by focusing on twelve core competencies. The competencies, developed by CLOC, are divided among three levels: foundational, advanced and mature.

Cost control and cost management have always been among the legal department’s greatest challenges. Economic downturns in recent decades served to exacerbate the “do less with more” mindset. In order to meet these intensifying challenges, many departments began increasing the workload of existing resources or bringing on more in-house lawyers. Others have built and started executing technology roadmaps. Technology has been optimizing legal operations in several key areas. Workflow and automation of processes deserve a spot at the top of the list. Data analytics is also important, as analytics can demonstrate the value of technology in the department and the value of the legal department to the business. Technology is assisting with the competitive bidding process on certain types of cases. Automating many routine tasks can shave hours off any busy schedule. Collaboration using  technology gives a whole new meaning to “working together.”

Today’s state-of-the-art technology allows all stakeholders from anywhere in the world – including legal departments, other service providers, and members of the corporation’s accounting team and business units – to be on a single platform. Technology will increasingly play a prominent role, as more LDOs are discovering they can better fulfill their mission by leveraging well-chosen technology solutions to automate processes, track legal spend and deliver key decision-ready information. The increasingly robust alliance of legal ops and technology is now helping to forge the future of legal operations in amazing ways we could never have imagined a decade ago. Onit purpose-built our technology platform to help drive this alliance and enables customers to execute their technology roadmaps over time.

Interested? Request a demo now!

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 5

Posted on December 13, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House CounselLaw.com: Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House Counsel
While law firms are reminiscing about a year of increased demand during this bonus season, corporate legal department numbers show they are looking toward a future recession and having to cut spending back. Even though law department spend is a concern even outside of the prospect of hard times on the horizon, only 40% of law departments responded to an Altman Weil survey saying they increased their budgets, with 38% of departments saying they’ve cut their budgets in the past year (up from 27%). Despite 2019 being a demanding year for law firms and corporate legal departments, Gretta Rusanow of Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group mentions that legal matters will still need to be attended to regardless of how departments and firms configure their budgets.


The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers WantAbove the Law: The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers Want
As we have mentioned in this blog series before, legal matters are becoming more business-centric and corporate legal departments are increasingly selecting solutions and ALSPs based on how much they fit in with their business’ needs. This Above the Law column says that in-house lawyers don’t just want a service provider that can do the work but want a more full-blown partnership that act on their client’s needs rather than reacting to them. It also asserts that this type of partnership ends up being mutually beneficial as the work providers might be doing could open up whole new revenue streams from previously unknown capabilities. We couldn’t agree more!


In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last YearLaw.com: In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last Year
According to a report released by alternative legal services provider Konexo, 63% of in-house lawyers report feeling more stressed about their workloads than they did last year, with common pressures being costs, lack of resources and team culture. Even though legal technology has been helping law departments work more efficiently, respondents also cited issues with technology onboarding and the need for them to serve as business partners within their companies. It probably won’t come as a surprise that respondents recommended more holistic approaches than the use of point solutions to make departments more efficient and better equipped for their growing demands. Again, we couldn’t agree more!


Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for LawyersBloomberg Law: Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for Lawyers
We’ve been hearing about blockchain technology and the hype around it since the Bitcoin boom a couple of years ago, but it would be unwise to completely dismiss blockchain as a hype machine without addressing how it can be used for legal contract management. This article says that because blockchain ledgers are especially strong at maintaining authentication the technology has great applications for contract management software and allows lawyers to spend less time on clerical aspects of their contracts. This article contends that as data gets more valuable, blockchain has proven itself to be especially useful for legal records management, and blockchain contract management solutions should definitely be on every lawyer’s radar in the years to come. See what you think!


Penn Law Keeps Its Name — For NowLaw.com: ‘Penn Law’ Keeps Its Name — For Now
In an earlier edition of the LegalOps Highlight Blog, we shared an article about how Penn Law students voiced concerns over the swift change in name to Carey Law. Since then, University of Pennsylvania’s law school has agreed to gradually rebrand to Penn Carey Law by 2022 in efforts to recognize the recent large contribution by the W.P. Carey Foundation. This return from the earlier name change shows that the school’s administration has listened to the hundreds of student and alumni voices and recognizes the prestige of Penn Law.


California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPRTechCrunch: California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPR
We’ve been covering the CCPA for a little while now because of its implications on data collection and management. It’s also important to note that the CCPA has different language on what it considers personal information under the law, and the writing also shows what companies could be fined for violations. The new law (and others being proposed by other states) shows that the US is on its way to meeting the standard of privacy legislation set by GDPR and gives lawyers an idea of the information management matters they may have coming to them.

Webinar Recap: Mastering Rate Card Season with Analytics

Posted on December 11, 2019 by - Legal Operations

Bodhala hosted its first live webinar on Dec. 10, 2019

Presented by Bodhala team members across Client Success, Marketing, and Product, legal leaders from around the world joined the live webinar. The webinar covered two hot-button topics: using big data analytics to uncover best practices and pitfalls to avoid when negotiating annual rate card increases with outside counsel. We highlight many of those pitfalls in our two new white papers, The Hidden Staircase and The End Of Excel Hell.

The webinar recording and presentation slides are now available here.

“Big data analytics are revolutionizing how corporate legal departments negotiate with their panel law firms, and we’re glad to share how in this webinar,” said Bodhala SVP & Head of Client Success, John Maloney. “One of the most irritating pain points for our clients is the yearly dread that comes with annual rate negotiations. Bodhala’s free and new rate card RFP platform alleviates that pain by leveraging machine learning to surface the best possible outcome for your legal department.”

Maloney explained that the webinar stemmed from seeing countless clients struggle to negotiate annual rates with panel firms, a process fraught with confusing concepts. Recognizing this universal challenge, Bodhala developed a learning series on RFP rate card negotiation, starting with what we call the “Hidden Staircase” of law firm rates.

Still, several barriers exist to getting the best possible rate, and most of them cannot be easily overcome by legal department staff. Bodhala created a whitepaper to help professionals apply our best practices for rate negotiation and navigate out of “Excel Hell.”

Bodhala’s powerful big data analytics are designed to make these processes easier. Our platform streamlines all of your RFPs in one dashboard, giving your legal department an unparalleled, 360-degree view of past spending and unmatched projection ability for the future. 

“Today’s webinar was a huge success and very exciting for us as a business,” said Kyle Johnson, Head of Marketing. “Our unique ability to pull proprietary information out of the Bodhala platform and share it with our audience proved to resonate – as was shown through the lively conversation throughout the presentation.” 

Among the interesting questions and discussion points, here are three of the top takeaways from this discussion:

  1. On average, organizations allocate 75% of their outside counsel spend to seven firms. When focusing on your rate card RFP process this year, focus the bulk of the work on prioritizing your top seven firms.
  2. According to the audience polls, the majority of companies represented at the webinar did not use a formal rate card RFP process (only 30% did so). Of those that did use a formal process:
    • Over half spend somewhere between 40 – 60 hours per RFP.
    • The majority have 5 – 10 panel firms.
    • The group was split almost evenly between members of the Legal Ops and GC / AGC teams.
    • The average outside counsel spend falls into the $25m – $50m range.
  3. By leveraging Bodhala’s free rate card RFP platform, companies are expected to reduce the time they spend running rate cards by one-tenth (~5 hours) with better results. Those who add on Bodhala’s analytics platform are able to experience even more positive outcomes, keeping their annual spends in check and ensuring compliance by the law firm.

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

Navigating through confusing concepts like annual rate card RFP negotiations is just the beginning. For more information on how Bodhala can revolutionize your relationship with outside counsel, and how to optimize your legal spend, set up a demo today at https://www.bodhala.com/demo-bodhala.

Like what you’re seeing?

Shoot us an email at [email protected], and let’s talk about how to get started.