Author: Onit

“It’s supposed to be automatic, but actually you have to press this button.”

– John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar (1968)

A legal hold, or legal hold notice, is simply that –  a notification to a company or individual that material or data regarding an active or be anticipated legal proceeding shouldn’t be destroyed. However, it doesn’t guarantee that the material will be preserved. Actual preservation is the responsibility of the notified organization’s leadership and employees involved.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(e) states that when, “electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery,” the court may take certain actions.

Usually drafted in the form of an email or paper letter, legal holds are not to taken lightly. Even though the legal hold is “just a notification” doesn’t make it any less crucial in the process of keeping a company safe from costly and time-consuming litigation. Fortunately we now have software to help with the notification process.

The best legal hold solutions help corporate legal departments notify custodians of their duty to preserve information in a timely manner and guarantee compliance with this duty. Highly intuitive, easily mastered “process” platforms allow team members to gain real-time access to the status of collection requests, know when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention. The tool should also create comprehensive dashboard views, so teams can see when a custodian leaves an organization, so they can enable email archiving or suspend the destruction of data.

A powerful legal hold solution offers a quick and highly cost-effective way to supercharge your automated business processes, as well as your bottom line. Reduce the ever-present risk of costly court cases, and let the software shoulder the burden of notification. The rest is up to you.

To learn more about Onit’s legal hold solution, download this white paper.

In part I of this blog series we discussed the Apptitude platform, focusing on an overview of what it does and how it works. We referred to the platform as a differentiator because it stands out from the rest of the pack. Onit differentiates itself from other providers because we have a deep understanding of what customers need and are looking for to stay ahead of the game.

Apptitude offers more than 200 pre-built actions, is easily configurable, scalable, agile and sports low-code configuration to facilitate fast development. Among its many capabilities, Apptitude features state-of-the-art collaboration, integrations, security, process and workflow. Robust reporting ability shouldn’t be ignored, and Apptitude offers Onit Suites, grid-based dashboards, Tableau integrations and Microsoft Word and Excel reporting. Onit integrations are highly robust with an extensive API and REST request action.

Apart from its capabilities, here are five reasons to use a platform like Apptitude:

1. Cost savings:
Solve business problems without the need for costly support, training or IT infrastructure. Software as a service (SaaS) is the way to go, freeing up your team members to do their “real work.”

2. Solutions are easy to create:
Some workflow solutions can be created in less than 30 minutes, depending on the complexity and scope of the workflow.

3. Transparency:
Business teams have real-time visibility in processes, such as legal service requests, NDA requests, or contract negotiations.

4. Implementation is fast:
Most implementations take place in weeks, not months and ROI can be seen much sooner than with traditional process automation projects.

5. Highly human-centric:
Each solution has four simple but crucial built-in capabilities:

• A simple intake form
• Shared workspace
• Configured and ad hoc workflow
• Dashboard views

Business process automation platforms have been around for years, but the best have only recently emerged. It can be an overwhelming task trying to decide which one is just right for your business. When it comes to state-of-the-art solution development, you must have the workflow, process and collaboration platform that is the best fit for the way your teams work.

To learn more about our business process automation platform, listen to Episode 3 with our Apptitude expert Jonathan Powers.

“Now one of the very first requirements for a man who is fit to handle pig iron as a regular occupation is that he shall be so stupid and so phlegmatic that he more resembles in his mental make-up the ox than any other type.”

– Frederick Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911

Fortunately, we’ve made a bit of progress since Frederick Taylor offered his assessment of process management. When you’re looking for a process automation platform that is not only collaborative but helps you quickly simplify and solve real-world business problems, there’s not a lot of time to waste. There are many process automation platforms out there that tout how they can easily solve all your business problems with a wave of the wand. The differentiator, however, comes from Onit’s Apptitude platform and its ability to apply individualized workflows and tasks by matter and matter type. These apps can be connected to other related apps to form a “suite” of cross-functional integrations to support complex operations.

With Apptitude, users can build a matter intake system to streamline the process of multi-party data entry and review/approval, or a collaboration workflow to resolve timekeeper issues directly with outside law firms. Onit’s flexibility allows businesses to quickly develop both very simple and very complex processes and workflows to drive everyday business functions and operations—in legal and other departments. In a legal context, this could include the creation and approval of matters, the drafting and review of non-disclosure agreements, and many other every day activities.

Onit uses a workflow-centric approach that seeks to deconstruct matter management into independent, collaborative functional lifecycles that lawyers and operations managers use on a regular basis; a la carte model empowers users to add capabilities and components as needed. Modern architecture showcases class-leading technology and a decidedly SaaS-based approach to legal business application management. Onit’s Apptitude platform is designed for rapid deployment, flexibility and agility.

In part II of this blog series we’ll discuss Apptitude’s features and its benefits of ownership.

Click here to read Part II…