Author: Onit

5 Ways a Legal Hold Solution Can Help You

Posted on May 17, 2018 by - Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Unfortunately, legal holds are here to stay and the best we can do is to have a trustworthy process to handle them. But it takes a little digging to find just the right software for your legal department, and it will be time well-spent.

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.

Beyond those basic features, a legal hold solution should be able to help you to:

  1. Avoid significant fines
  2. Streamline and simplify the legal holds process
  3. Create new holds and distribute notices to all legal hold custodians
  4. Gain visibility into all legal hold activity to minimize company risk and increase defensibility
  5. Ensure all relevant data is properly collected and preserved

In our white paper, “Is it Worth the Risk?  How to Implement a World Class Defensible Legal Hold Process” we discuss the significance of legal holds in today’s corporate environment, why you need gold-standard legal hold automation software, and strategies to fuel your company’s path toward a robust legal hold process.

Download this white paper to discover how a cutting edge legal hold platform allows 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.

Our white paper offers the following insights:

  • Why you need a world class legal hold process
  • A little history of recent landmark legal hold cases and why they should concern you
  • Current best practices of legal holds
  • Essential features to know before shopping for legal hold software
  • The problems associated with using antiquated or inappropriate legal hold tools
  • Onit’s intuitive, agile and quickly deployable legal hold solution where user experience is top priority

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. The stakes are high, and the time to act is now.

Onit Marketing Team Wins 2018 AMA Crystal Award!

Posted on May 15, 2018 by - Company News and Events

We’re excited to announce that Onit’s marketing team won a prestigious American Marketing Association (AMA) Crystal Award at the bustling American Marketing Association gala event last week in Houston! We won with our entry, “Onit Website Transformation,” which showcased our new website, and demonstrating how much more effective it is over our previous site. Thanks to everyone on the team for their hard work to make this happen!

The Crystal Awards committee sets criteria, tabulates results, and certifies finalists and winners. A select panel of esteemed marketing professionals from across the country acts as judges. Past participants have been senior marketers from other AMA chapters, Ogilvy & Mather, FedEx, Accenture, University of Michigan, and more. All entries are judged at least twice. Judges make all decisions regarding eligibility, finalists, and winners. Each entry must include answers to the five questions below, 800-word maximum for each question.Each spring, AMA Houston hands out Crystal Awards to the Texas’ top marketers in categories ranging from print and radio spots to website design, social media advertising and everything in between. The awards gala is the largest marketing event in Houston and is attended by more than 650 marketing professionals from almost every industry in Houston.

2018 Corporate Legal Operations Institute in the Spotlight

Posted on May 14, 2018 by - Company News and Events

This year’s Corporate Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas once again received its fair share of attention. There were many presentations spanning the four-day event, and reporters from Legaltech News and Corporate Counsel were on site to cover them. We’d like to share a few of the stories that came out of the event (in chronological order of publishing).

The CLOC Institute is the largest gathering of corporate legal professionals in the world focused on optimizing the delivery of legal services to businesses. The energized, inclusive and open community they’ve created welcomes industry veterans and newcomers, allowing attendees to create a breadth and depth of connections not available anywhere else. With more than 75 curated educational sessions, provided by industry leaders, the CLOC Institute offers unrivaled opportunities to learn, share, and connect.

Onit Client Jaguar Land Rover a Finalist for Transatlantic Legal Department of the Year

Posted on May 8, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) is a finalist for the Transatlantic Legal Department of the Year award! JLR was nominated due to their success in using technology to spearhead the transformation of their legal department.

JLR collaborated with Onit to implement cutting-edge technology in their legal department. For the first time, JLR has comprehensive legal matter information at its fingertips and the tools to easily manage and report on this data. JLR’s legal technology makeover empowered them to do more than just billing and matter management. By partnering with Onit, they drove change in their legal department with process efficiencies and better managed their legal operations and legal spend.

The Transatlantic awards recognize excellence in handling transatlantic matters across the key areas of corporate, finance and disputes, as well as highlighting law firm innovation, commitment to pro bono, outstanding transatlantic strategy, and in-house leaders. The winners will be announced at a gala dinner in London on June 14, 2018

Last year, Onit client Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) won the prestigious Transatlantic award for designing and implementing sustainable processes and systems to “make the complex simple.” ADM’s global rollout allowed real-time access to legal spend and offered predictive metrics and reporting dashboards. Overall, the company reduced its outside legal spend by more than one-third and reduced volatility by using fixed fees and other alternative fee arrangements.

Onit CEO Eric M. Elfman a Finalist for Regional EY Entrepreneur of the Year

Posted on May 4, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that our CEO Eric M. Elfman is a finalist for the Entrepreneur of The Year® 2018 Award in the Gulf Coast Area! The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who are excelling in areas such as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. Eric was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges. Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on June 14th 2018 at the Marriott Marquis Houston.

Now in its 32nd year, the program has expanded to recognize business leaders in more than 145 cities and more than 60 countries throughout the world. Regional award winners are eligible for consideration for the Entrepreneur of The Year National competition. Award winners in several national categories, as well as the Entrepreneur of The Year National Overall Award winner, will be announced at the Entrepreneur Of The Year National Awards gala in Palm Springs, California, on November 17, 2018. The awards are the culminating event of the Strategic Growth Forum®, the nation’s most prestigious gathering of high-growth, market-leading companies.

EY Entrepreneur of the YearEntrepreneur Of The Year®, founded by EY, is the world’s most prestigious business awards program for entrepreneurs, chosen from an independent panel of judges including entrepreneurs and prominent leaders from business, finance, and the local community. The program makes a difference through the way it encourages entrepreneurial activity among those with potential and recognizes the contribution of people who inspire others with their vision, leadership and achievement. As the first and only truly global awards program of its kind, Entrepreneur of The Year celebrates those who are building and leading successful, growing and dynamic businesses, recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 145 cities and more than 60 countries.

To learn more about Entrepreneur of the Year, click here.

Onit Recognized as a Finalist in American Marketing Association (AMA) Crystal Awards Competition

Posted on May 2, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that we are an AMA Houston Crystal Award finalist in the website category! Each spring, AMA Houston hands out Crystal Awards to the Texas’ top marketers in categories ranging from print and radio spots to website design, social media advertising and everything in between. The awards gala is the largest marketing event in Houston and is attended by more than 650 marketing professionals from almost every industry in Houston.

The Crystal Awards committee sets criteria, tabulates results, and certifies finalists and winners. A select panel of esteemed marketing professionals from across the country acts as judges. Past participants have been senior marketers from other AMA chapters, Ogilvy & Mather, FedEx, Accenture, University of Michigan, and more. All entries are judged at least twice. Judges make all decisions regarding eligibility, finalists, and winners. Each entry must include answers to the five questions below, 800-word maximum for each question.

 View Onit AMA SubmissionView Onit AMA Submission

 

Onit Debuts New Company Video

Posted on April 17, 2018 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

We’re delighted to announce that we now have a new company video. We’re especially excited because we feel this video captures what Onit is all about: we love our product and empowering customers with a better way to work. It also offers a snapshot of how Onit is positioned to help businesses create better processes, make smarter operations, make informed decisions, and build better business.

Watch the video to learn more about Onit’s innovative technology.

5 Most Popular Enterprise Legal Management Solutions

Posted on April 6, 2018 by - Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Enterprise legal management (ELM) solution come in so many flavors now, that it can be a confusing job just finding the right match for your legal department. Worse yet, there are still ELM software providers out there that are simply regurgitating databases that look or feel better. But there’s so much more to ELM than that – systems of engagement are what you need to be looking for.

We’ve narrowed the field a bit in order to show you the solutions that many legal departments have chosen for their enterprise legal management platform. Some departments start with only one solution and add more as needed. Others feel just one solution is all they need. The point is that if the enterprise legal management platform is flexible to start with, then adding more solutions later or modifying existing ones is never a headache.

The most popular enterprise legal management solutions to solve legal departments’ needs are:

  1. Matter Management – A matter management solution gives you clarity about your overall matter portfolio, so you can make informed, strategic business decisions.
  2. E-Billing – An E-billing solution allows third parties such as law firms and other vendors to submit invoices securely to the corporate legal department for review and payment.
  3. Contract Administration – A contract administration solution lets you quickly manage contracts and business documents in one central location.
  4. Legal Service Requests – A legal service request solution simplifies the intake process and provides a simple portal, so business users can interact with the legal department.
  5. Legal Holds – A legal hold solution helps legal departments notify custodians of their duty to preserve information in a timely manner and guarantee compliance.

We should also mention that any enterprise legal management platform you choose should provide the benefits of cost savings, flexibility, easier collaboration and cutting-edge performance. Finally, watch out for solution providers that have long implementation times.

Your chosen provider should be able to promise an implementation time that’s a fraction of what the rest of the “pack” offer. This is the only proven way to start quickly driving the results you’re seeking and deserve.

5 Problems the Best Contract Management Solutions Can Solve for You

Posted on April 5, 2018 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

In previous posts last year, we spoke about features you should be looking for in a premier contract management solution. We’d like to keep the momentum going on this topic by discussing some very common, and major problems that the best contract management solutions can solve for you.

Before we get to the problems, we’d like to make something clear: contracting is more complex than ever before, and this unfortunate trend is expected to continue. One reason is that standard, “universal” contracts are a thing of the past now as clients are demanding more personalized contracts. What’s needed is a simple and reliable process for getting new contracts into the system, approving those contracts and then managing and storing them. Business, legal, and even financial contract approvers should have access to one central location to collaborate and approve contracts as they move through the contract lifecycle process. Now, let’s have a look at the problems.

Problem #1: The contract management process is unnecessarily complex.

This is the 21st century and we need to press “delete” on this problem. The top contract management solutions allow you to easily collaborate with reviewers and departments directly. Email updates may be sent to contracts through an assigned unique email address, and email notifications will be configured for multiple events, including new contract requests, comments, tasks, updates and documents. The best solutions simplify the submission, review, approval and management of contracts in one easy-to-use tool. Team members should never have to search their inbox or hard drive for the latest version or keep an Excel spreadsheet to manage their contracts. And if your CM solution is part of a broader, more comprehensive enterprise legal management system, so much the better.

Problem #2: A decentralized and confusing repository.

A complete, centralized contract repository allows users to organize lifecycle information such as participants, documents, milestones, negotiations, status reports, key dates and provisions. Systematic categorization, clarity, versioning and easy storage of documents are some key benefits of such a repository. A single source for all sales collateral and other customer-facing content is a key element of the best CM solutions, as well as contract lifecycle management solutions.

Problem #3: The lack of visibility.

Centralizing your contracts allows visibility throughout their lifecycle. You can see a document’s history, including all previous versions and can create reports based on any data field in a personalized dashboard. Part of what exacerbates the speed vs. control dilemma for legal is a general lack of visibility into contract terms, obligations and value. If you can’t see it, you can’t control it. This becomes a major pain point because agreements outline the terms of the value exchanged. If you can’t ensure you are getting the right value for your deals, money is slipping through your company’s fingers.

Problem #4: Inflexible workflow.

The best solutions allow workflow to be configured relative to a contract type or matched to your unique business needs. It’s important to have a mechanism for managing changes over time. You need to be up-to-speed on renewal dates, pricing changes, emerging legal requirements and other events that will require you to speak to your customer/vendor specifically about your contractual relationship. Your ability to manage the contract, particularly changes over time and the renewal process, will have a direct impact on your customer retention rate.

Problem #5: Weak reporting and analytics.

Why would this even still be a problem today? A powerful, straightforward dashboard allows stakeholders to quickly view and analyze the department’s progress on contracts and certain bottlenecks that may appear. Powerful business analytics and reporting engines are additional hallmarks of the best solutions and are crucial in helping team members with their reporting, configuring notifications and other tasks.

These are the main problems we’ve noted over the years, but the list could go on and on. Choosing a provider that is always on top of their game is a sure-fire way to rest assured your money is well spent. By the way, it’s quite possible to purchase a contract administration solution, and also a separate contract review and approval solution. Better still, if you choose to use a contract lifecycle management solution, you’ll have the best of both worlds: a convenient combination of contract administration and contract review and approval all in one package.

Onit Client TIAA to Present at Annual Corporate Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas

Posted on March 30, 2018 by - Company News and Events

Onit is especially excited about this year’s Annual Corporate Legal Operations Institute in Las Vegas during 22-25 April. Onit’s client TIAA will present a session called, “Process and Technology: Transforming A Law Department to Achieve Legal Department Efficiency.” 

Brad Rogers, Chief Operations Officer and Chief of Staff for Law, Compliance, Government & Regulatory Affairs, and Corporate Secretary at TIAA will be presenting. In this session, you’ll learn how TIAA recognized that there is a revolution underway in the legal industry and saw an opportunity to transform their legal department to drive up value while more effectively deploying both budget and talent. Brad will discuss how they optimized legal services delivery to a Fortune 100 company with millions in legal spend, and the importance of bringing together law department employees and vendor partners from across the world and how a comprehensive technology platform with capabilities rooted in process, workflow and collaboration is changing the way they run their legal business and support their corporate clients. He will also share lessons learned from the selection and implementation process as well as early results from their outside counsel convergence program.

To learn more about this year’s Institute, click here.