Author: Onit

Introducing A New Source for the Latest Developments in Legal Ops, AI and Ideation

Posted on November 18, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events

Corporate legal departments and the enterprises they serve are increasingly on a mission to adopt best practices and transform them into smarter workflows, better processes and operational efficiencies.

Legal operations professionals are crucial in creating this digital transformation, something reflected in a recent CLOC survey. It outlined top-ranked priorities for legal operations, including automating legal processes, implementing new technologies and right sourcing legal work.

Over the past several months, experts and pioneers in digital transformation and legal technology have gathered to discuss some of the biggest challenges and opportunities for general counsel, in-house counsel and law departments. Their insight, covering areas such as NDA challenges and constructing world-class legal operations, is now available as podcasts on this LinkedIn page.

Some of the podcast highlights include:

  • How to Alleviate the NDA Strain – Nick Whitehouse, GM for Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, talks about how technology, AI and automation, including Automate NDA from Onit, is transforming the NDA process. Nick has extensive experience in leading digital transformation at large organizations, and he knows how important a quick win is to making those transformations successful.
  • How to Build World-Class Legal Operations – Brad Rogers, Onit’s SVP of Strategy and Growth, shares his insights into what goes into the creation of industry-leading legal ops. While budget is an important factor to how fast you can move on technology, it’s important to remember that you need to tailor the speed of your transformation to the human capacity for change.
  • What Lawyers Really Want from Contract AI – Are legal and contract AI technologies giving lawyers what they truly need? Lawyer Jean Yang, Vice President of the Onit AI Center of Excellence, discusses this question and practical uses of technology in law.
  • CLM ROI: Is It Hype or Really Happening? – Contract lifecycle management (CLM) is yet another popular topic in legal tech today. Matt DenOuden, Onit’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales, discusses how to get past the hype to CLM payoff and the ultimate ROI opportunity.

You can listen to all these podcasts and more here.

The Onit Advantage

Onit is home to some of the best minds in legal technology. Our executives created this industry and ground-breaking technology including enterprise legal management more than 20 years ago – all while working hand-in-hand with corporate legal departments to make it easier to handle the business of law.

To learn more about how Onit is revolutionizing legal operations, contact Onit today.

Bodhala Named Winner in 2021 LegalTech Breakthrough Awards for Second Consecutive Year

Posted on November 17, 2021 by - Legal Operations

The annual awards program recognizes Bodhala as Overall Legal Analytics Solution of the Year

Bodhala, the leading provider of AI-powered legal spend analytics, benchmarking and market intelligence, today announced the company has been named winner of the “Overall Legal Analytics Solution of the Year” award in the second annual LegalTech Breakthrough Awards.

Bodhala is at the forefront of creating better technology services to improve the legal market. Bodhala’s platform optimizes buy-side legal spend while also creating the transparency necessary to drive competition and foster innovation across the legal industry.  

With over $20 billion dollars worth of invoice data as well as publicly available and proprietary third-party data, Bodhala’s machine learning engine delivers actionable insights informed by the market. Bodhala’s solutions give corporate legal departments an unparalleled grasp on the legal work being performed so they can determine the value their law firms provide for the rate they’re being paid.

General counsels and their legal ops teams, spanning from mid-cap to Fortune 500s, can tap into digestible data and benchmarks to accurately compare and contrast their outside legal work while also evaluating work within individual firms and across panels.

“We founded Bodhala with the belief that great legal talent should come at market-driven prices, and we’re incredibly proud to have built the most powerful solution on the market for legal spend analytics. This award from LegalTech Breakthrough reinforces our role in tackling the longstanding, unchallenged and one-sided marketplace,”  said Raj Goyle, CEO and co-founder of Bodhala.


The mission of the annual LegalTech Breakthrough Awards program is to conduct the industry’s most comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the standout technology companies, solutions and products in the legal technology industry today. This year’s program attracted more than 1,300 nominations from over 12 different countries throughout the world. In 2020, Bodhala was recognized by the awards program as “Legal Spend Management Innovation of the Year.”

“The legal industry’s lack of transparency has been a huge elephant in the room. Legal teams need deeper insights that allow them to better analyze, interpret and optimize outside counsel spend at competitive and market-driven rates,” said Bryan Vaughn, Managing Director of LegalTech Breakthrough Awards. “Bodhala is the first tech company to apply machine learning and AI to legal billing data to bring clarity to the billable hour and real economics to the market. 

Bodhala recently announced that it has been acquired by Onit, the leading provider of enterprise workflow and artificial intelligence platforms and solutions. By joining forces, the businesses create the most complete enterprise legal management solutions on the market, allowing corporate legal departments to evolve analytics into actionable intelligence to optimize outside counsel spend.

About Bodhala

Bodhala, the leading legal spend analytics and management platform, provides corporate legal departments with in-depth analytics and spend optimization solutions based on real-time market intelligence. Powered by machine learning and AI, Bodhala transforms messy data into actionable, high-impact insights to help companies save up to 20% on their outside counsel spend. The company, an independent subsidiary of Onit since 2021, serves clients across the Fortune 500 and critical services economy industries. Bodhala was named a LegalTech Breakthrough Award Winner for Legal Spend Management Innovation in 2020 and 2021, and One to Watch in Legal Technology by the Financial Times. For more information, visit bodhala.com.

About LegalTech Breakthrough
Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the LegalTech Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in legal technologies, services, companies and products. The LegalTech Breakthrough Awards program provides a forum for public recognition around the achievements of LegalTech companies and solutions in categories including Case Management, Client Relations, Data and Analytics, Documentation, Legal Education, Practice Management, eDiscovery and more. For more information visit LegalTechBreakthrough.com

New Podcast: Hear Onit and BusyLamp Leaders Discuss ELM Software for European Corporate Legal Departments

Posted on November 16, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

In late September, Onit proudly announced the acquisition of BusyLamp, a premier provider of ELM software – including legal spend management and matter management – for European corporate legal departments. The combined forces of Onit, BusyLamp and Onit’s subsidiaries SimpleLegal and Bodhala create one of the world’s largest enterprise legal management providers, with over 600 implementations completed worldwide.

We sat down with Eric Elfman, co-founder and CEO of Onit, and Dr. Michael Tal and Dr. Manuel Meder, CEOs and co-founders of BusyLamp, to discuss the acquisition and how it will benefit the corporate legal community.

The Most Complete ELM Software Offering On The Market

As they say in the podcast, Onit and BusyLamp were a match made in heaven.

The addition of Frankfurt, Germany-based BusyLamp to the Onit family of companies creates one of the most complete enterprise legal management offerings on the market. It adds to Onit’s existing global presence by bringing on board some of the brightest minds in legal operations and technology who understand European customers’ unique needs.

BusyLamp, co-founded by Michael, Manuel and CTO Konstantin Tadrowski, is designed to handle the most critical considerations for European companies, including VAT, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), regional tax policies and more. It serves many of Europe’s largest enterprises with its top ELM software offerings eBilling.Space, an award-winning legal spend management solution, and Matter.Space, a matter management solution that allows corporate legal professionals to manage all legal matters, service requests, documents and knowledge within one connected system. The company is operating as an independent subsidiary of Onit.

Joining Onit allows BusyLamp to continue its rapid growth and focus on its customers’ success. Onit’s AI expertise and impressive suite of technical solutions will enable BusyLamp to bring even more convenience to its customers. Together, the companies are building a solid roadmap for future success.

Going forward, Onit will continue to sell its highly customizable products worldwide while always looking for strategic ways to grow and improve our offerings.

Onit Acquisitions

The acquisition of BusyLamp marks our fourth acquisition in less than 12 months. In late 2020, we acquired legal AI innovator McCarthyFinch (now the Onit AI Center of Excellence) and launched three AI offerings for contract lifecycle management (ReviewAI, ExtractAI and business intelligence platform Precedent).

Thirty days later, we announced the acquisition of document automation provider AXDRAFT.

On September 1, Onit announced yet another acquisition – this time of legal spend analytics, benchmarking, and market intelligence company Bodhala.

These four acquisitions follow Onit’s first acquisition of modern legal operations software provider SimpleLegal in May 2019.

You can listen to the Onit Podcast featuring Eric, Michael and Manuel, on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect the Practice of Law

Posted on November 11, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The legal industry has been undergoing a technological revolution in the past decade, and few technologies have been having a more significant impact than artificial intelligence. Lawyers everywhere are curious to know how artificial intelligence will affect the practice of law.

Nick Whitehouse, GM of the Onit AI Center of ExcellenceNick Whitehouse, GM of the Onit AI Center of Excellence, recently sat down with Jared Correia, host of Above the Law’s Non-Eventcast podcast (available on Apple and Spotify), to discuss how AI impacts the legal world. Spoiler alert: it’s not Terminator time just yet.

The conversation started with an icebreaker about the latest Pixar movie, Lightyear, which proved to be an ideal segue into the topic of AI. Pixar is a prime example of how you can find success by using computers to do things differently.

Nick and Jared then discussed lawyers’ current attitudes toward AI and the lack of understanding about what AI truly is. To many, AI is an amorphous concept, made up of technical terms like “algorithms” and “machine learning” that aren’t always easily understood. Nick provides some handy definitions to clarify the terms.

How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect the Practice of Law

AI can have a tremendous amount of value for corporate legal departments and law firms. Consider areas of routine work that involve a lot of data. AI brings efficiency to many traditionally time-consuming tasks, like due diligence, document preparation, eDiscovery, transcription, contract lifecycle management, and billing. With the time saved, lawyers can focus on more complex and meaningful tasks than administrative or manual work.

According to Nick, the reality is that most lawyers are likely already using AI even if they don’t realize it. The emerging technologies will continue to reshape the legal landscape. Technologies like chatbots and robotic process automation are rapidly changing the way lawyers practice law. AI is helping lawyers understand what clients want and assisting with the work that meets those needs. Whether it’s drafting contracts, answering billing queries, automating administrative work or something else, AI is making it an exciting time to be a lawyer. The time to start experimenting and capitalizing on AI is now, so lawyers can gain a competitive advantage going forward.

When you discuss how artificial intelligence will affect the practice of law, it’s helpful to understand what will happen in the near future. What can we expect from AI in the future? As Nick explains, we’ll see AI increasingly used for contract management, matter management and billing. For in-house teams, AI will be applied more often to managing assets. At law firms, it will be harnessed more and more for determining proper fees, billing, data management and back-office productivity.

You can find the entire Non-Eventcast podcast on Apple and Spotify to hear Nick and Jared’s entire discussion of all things legal AI.

To learn more about how artificial intelligence will affect the practice of law, we recommend the following resources.

Contact Onit today for more information about how AI powers contract lifecycle management, enterprise legal management and more offerings for corporate legal.

 

The Latest in Corporate Legal Department Trends and Resources (November 2021 Edition)

Posted on November 4, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Welcome to the November digest of the latest in corporate legal department trends and helpful resources. In this edition, you’ll find information on AI’s effect on practicing law, stringent steps to increase law firm diversity, the importance of a business perspective, how to benchmark legal technology investments and the latest in tech spending for UK law firms.

1.    AI vs. Lawyers: How Does AI Affect the Practice of Law?

There’s always the question: Will AI replace lawyers? The answer is no. But it will reduce congestion and manual work resulting from back-office administrative tasks that lawyers face every day.

In the latest episode of the Non-Eventcast podcast, host Jared Correia of Red Cave Consulting speaks with Nick Whitehouse, GM of the Onit AI Center of Excellence. Together, they discuss fundamental components of AI, how it improves processes in the legal world, how it gives lawyers a valuable competitive edge and the future of AI in the next five years.

Source: Non-Eventcast podcast (Apple or Spotify)

2. Corporate Legal Departments Want Diversity, and They’re Using Money to Motivate Outside Counsel

One of the most prevalent legal department trends is diversity – and leaders are turning to the most significant penalty of all to push for compliance. They’re docking law firm fees. This can mean relocating work or reducing fees. It can also mean rewards for successful efforts.

This article from Bloomberg Businessweek discusses how Facebook, HP, Novartis and more have embraced fee-based strategies to motivate racial and gender diversity within outside counsel. Others, such as BT, reward successful diversity efforts with a chance to join their law office advisory panel.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek + Equality

3.    The Link Between In-House Tech Adoption and Legal Department Business Acumen

The concept of running the legal department like a business surfaced decades ago. It’s still one of the legal department trends zealously endorsed by many GCs, in-house lawyers and legal operations professionals. New opportunities made possible by legal technology mean there are even more opportunities to evolve this discipline.

In-house panelists gathered at the Association of Corporate Counsel’s annual meeting to discuss the skills sets that amplify legal technology ROI. Not surprisingly, they pinpoint the importance of a business perspective. You can read the article here.

Source: Legaltech News

4.    How to Benchmark Legal Technology Investments: One Company’s Journey

Speaking of legal technology ROI, let’s shift to benchmarking. Every legal department’s journey varies depending on priorities. In this on-demand webinar, legal ops executives from a global provider of multi-cloud services for apps discuss their mission to transform and scale legal services to accelerate its growth and simplify the customer experience. They’re joined by an expert from HBR Consulting, who breaks down legal department trends and how data plays a critical role in a successful legal tech transformation journey.

Source: Onit

5.    UK Legal Department Trends Alert: Increased Tech Spending, But Not for All of the UK 100

Here’s good news for corporate legal departments aiming to work more efficiently with their UK law firms. A recent survey, analyzed by Artificial Lawyer in this article, finds that 60% of UK 100 law firms bumped up their tech spending in 2021. Further, more law firms indicated that improving the use of technology is a top priority in the next year, with standardizing and centralizing processes not far behind. The one drawback: The publication notes that “… for a significant slice of the market that sits between 11th and 50th place by revenue, tech spending shrank a little relative to revenue.”

Source: Artificial Lawyer

Bonus Resource: How to Implement Legal Digital Transformation

CLOC recently gathered a panel of experts to discuss one of the most interesting legal department trends happening now: digital transformation. Large and small companies alike have increasingly turned their attention to legal digital transformation to increase efficiency and improve the legal function. However, it can be challenging to know where to start and how to keep yourself on track. These CLOC experts offered valuable advice for implementing legal transformation projects, including the top-five considerations. You can read more about it and hear the recording of the presentation here.

What to Look for in a Legal Operations Management Platform

Posted on October 29, 2021 by - Business Process Management

Legal operations management platforms technologies have been revolutionizing the way corporate legal departments and legal operations have been doing business in recent years. More and more legal professionals are abandoning their stand-alone software and solutions in favor of a platform approach to technology that better allows legal to streamline business processes, implement tailored solutions and collaborate with other departments across the enterprise.

While stand-alone solutions exist to serve a single purpose or handle a discrete task, such as e-billing or document management, platforms are robust environments where you can host all the tools you need to address whatever scenarios arise. The right platform will even allow you to build additional solutions yourself as needed, tailored to the needs of your individual organization.

Not all platforms are created equal, however. If you’re looking to upgrade your technology, there are specific considerations to keep in mind when evaluating a legal operations management platform.

Top Considerations When Choosing a Legal Operations Management Platform

Making the switch to a platform approach is a major step toward a better-operating legal function. To make sure you choose the best possible legal operations management platform, however, you should look for the following features.

  • No-code configuration: Your platform shouldn’t require you to be a coding expert or even overly tech-savvy. No-code platforms bridge the gap between business and technical users, allowing even users with no technical background to simply create new workflows and build necessary solutions.
  • Artificial Intelligence: Not all platforms are powered by AI. Those that are can learn, anticipate, reason and improve – in other words, they can function like lawyers. An AI platform automates and improves processes, allowing users to get more work done faster. Allowing for unlimited users, these platforms are critical to scaling your resources and controlling your spend as your needs change.
  • Enterprise considerations: Your legal operations management platform should be useful beyond legal. You need to be able to create the solutions needed for day-to-day operations across all departments in your organization, and even allow business users to engage in new levels of self-service for routine tasks.
  • Agility and speed: You need a platform that’s capable of adjusting and evolving as your needs change, and can start creating value as soon as possible once you implement those changes. Look for a platform that allows you to quickly build solutions right on the platform and continually release updates when they’re available.
  • Integrations and partnerships: While building your own solutions is important, you also want your platform to be able to seamlessly integrate with the third-party tools you rely on every day for your organization to function. You also want your platform provider to have strategic partnerships with the best talent and resources in the industry to maximize your investment.
  • Business intelligence and analytics: Legal operations professionals today have access to more data than ever before. Your platform should integrate robust business intelligence tools and analytics capabilities that allow you to gain important insights from that data and make more informed business decisions.

Onit’s Platforms

Onit is the only two-platform company in the market, offering legal operations professionals and legal departments the most flexibility to build the workflows and solutions they need. Apptitude is Onit’s business process workflow platform, which empowers organizations to easily create, modify and deploy limitless workflow solutions in a no-code environment. Precedent is an artificial intelligence platform that automates and improves both legal and business processes across organizations, allowing users to get more work done faster with the power of AI.

Schedule a demo or contact us today to learn more about how Onit’s platforms can help transform your legal operations function

Introducing Bodhala’s QBR Program

Posted on October 19, 2021 by - Legal Operations

Data-driven conversations are pivotal to successful law firm management and relationships — and for many smart legal departments, it all starts with quarterly business reviews (or QBRs).

That’s why we are launching the Bodhala QBR Program: to simplify the process for those already doing it and jumpstart a critical best-practice activity for those who aren’t. 

Using data to make better, more strategic decisions on key management issues, like rate review and panel review, has become table stakes for many corporate legal departments — and the trend is growing. Bodhala’s QBR Program will turn a cumbersome, seemingly never-ending task into a piece of cake, from start to finish. 

And the best part? It’s a completely white-glove service. By leveraging our advanced machine learning and AI, coupled with detailed analysis from our team of data scientists and legal industry experts, Bodhala QBRs deliver deep analysis and actionable recommendations, giving you the tools you need to effectively manage your objectives. 

So what do you get with Bodhala QBRs? We’re glad you asked.

1. Full Transparency & Trend Spotting 

By surfacing critical data and analyzing it across practice areas and firms on a quarterly basis, QBRs unearth important trends across important metrics like partner and associate rates, work allocation, and block billing. Detailed insights provide detailed insights on your law firms’ performance over time, highlighting areas you need to keep an eye on. 

2. Actionable Insights & Improved Reporting

Our QBR Program surfaces critical insights and provides you with clear recommendations for how to improve your desired outcome – whether it be negotiating a better rate, improving task-to-talent alignment, and everything in between. 

3. ROI Projections

Specific ROI estimates accompany each QBR recommendation. Designed to be easy to execute, with a clear associated value, you have a direct line of sight to the impact of your actions. 

You can be confident in the results – and the knowledge that you will be able to manage your budget more strategically. 

As pressure for accountability and proactive budget management continues to trickle down from the C-suite, data is no longer a nice-to-have but a need-to-have for corporate legal departments. Regular, data-driven conversations with your key stakeholders and law firms will not only set the foundation for stronger partnerships but will be a catalyst for better results. 

The Bodhala QBR Program will give you the tools you need to not only save time, money, and improve your outside counsel management. You will also be completely prepared to “wow” the internal stakeholders demanding visibility into your spend. 

So what are you waiting for? 

Book a demo with our team of legal experts to get started!

How to Implement Legal Digital Transformation

Posted on October 19, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Digital Transformation

Companies both large and small have increasingly been turning their attention to legal digital transformation, with an eye toward implementing new initiatives and pursuing innovation that will help increase efficiency and improve the legal function. However, it can be challenging to know where to start and how to keep yourself on track.

Brad Rogers, Onit’s SVP of Strategy & Growth, headed up a CLOC Ask the Experts panel that offered some valuable advice for companies looking to implement legal transformation projects. Here are the top five considerations to keep in mind as you pursue legal transformation at your organization.

1.   Remember that legal digital transformation is a journey.

No matter how prepared or dedicated you are, the transformation won’t happen overnight. You need to think of it as a journey – and one that’s disruptive and often messy. You might not be able to plan precisely where you’re going, but you should know where you want to get goal-wise. Just be prepared for the path there to zig and zag along the way. Too many people think of legal digital transformation like building a skyscraper with square corners where you can count all the nuts and bolts you’ll need to get the job done. In reality, transformation is more like building a city, where many people are involved, and some neighborhoods will go faster or slower than others.

2.   Know the primary goals of your GC.

It’s essential to keep your GC’s primary goals in mind as you implement legal digital transformation and align your strategy with those goals. Most GCs have the same priorities, namely to protect the company, have a team of highly engaged, top talent, and boost efficiency to be a world-class legal department. Keeping these goals in mind at all times will keep your GC engaged in your transformation efforts and lead to a better outcome.

3.   Know the primary reasons why you’re transforming in the first place.

No transformation initiative will be successful without a concrete plan. It’s not only important to have a plan, though – you also need to be able to articulate it. Successful digital transformation requires buy-in from all the stakeholders in your organization. If you want to secure that buy-in, you need to be able to adequately explain the reasons behind your transformation in your company’s town hall, in team meetings or even in the elevator.

4.   Understand why data is important for legal digital transformation.

Data plays into legal transformation in a number of ways. First, a data-driven staffing model is the only way to fully understand how many and what type of resources you’ll need to make your transformation initiative succeed. Second, you need to present data on matters, risks, legal spend and more to help your GC and your company’s leadership team understand your organization’s legal exposure. Finally, you need to give your leadership and your lawyers data on the legal function to help them manage the business better.

5.   Foster a process-based mindset.

It’s not always easy to get your lawyers to think about processes. The way you think and speak about legal digital transformation may not line up with the way your lawyers think. To overcome the gap, you should start with a high-level process map that your lawyers can follow. It shouldn’t be overly detailed, but simply create clarity around roles and responsibilities. Another helpful tool is a dashboard that provides key operational metrics that break down the process in a way that’s easily understood.

You can listen to the entire panel here for more insight into best practices for pursuing legal digital transformation.

Onit is helping businesses of all sizes with their legal ops transformation journey. Contact us at [email protected] or schedule a demo to learn more.

ACC Panel: BT’s Efficiency Gains Through Digital Transformation

Posted on October 14, 2021 by - Company News and Events, Digital Transformation

Every year, the Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) hosts the world’s largest gathering of in-house counsel. Onit is proud to be a gold sponsor of this year’s ACC Annual Meeting, which will take place virtually from October 19–21, 2021.

This year’s schedule features an impressive roster of speakers from some of the world’s top corporations, who will be addressing some of the most pressing topics for corporate legal departments today. Among them is Onit customer British Telecom (BT), who will be talking about the company’s digital transformation journey along with Matt DenOuden, Onit’s SVP of Global Sales, on Thursday, October 21 at 9:00 a.m. CT.

BT’s Digital Transformation Story

Digital transformation has recently been sweeping across corporate legal departments, and BT is a prime example of how to do it successfully. BT’s recent efforts allowed them to see increased efficiency and productivity gains in a short period of time, thanks to implementing the right tools.

BT’s legal team took a multi-pronged approach to digital transformation that allowed them to re-envision their processes and technologies to optimize the delivery of legal services to stakeholders across the organization. Ultimately, BT reduced the complexity of its technology stack by 75 percent, were able to track and report on 70 percent of matters and overhauled how they track and control legal spend.

For BT, the digital transformation journey started with implementing technology that would serve as the backbone for company-wide transformation. BT replaced its existing piecemeal solutions with Onit’s business automation and workflow platform Apptitude. Using the platform, BT’s legal department was able to build the Apps it needed to help manage its matters and documents.

Within three months, BT’s new system was live for matter management and real-time reporting. Within a year, BT had successfully implemented a cutting-edge platform that eliminated manual management tools and disconnected processes. Going forward, BT’s legal department will continue to build and deploy the configurable solutions it needs on Onit’s platform, Apptitude, to automate legal operations and compliance processes and increase collaboration across the organization.

To hear more about BT’s transformation journey, you can listen to our podcast.

At the ACC panel, BT and Onit will offer insights into creating a digital transformation plan, how to combine organizational health, customer service and technology to create organizational success, what we can expect to see in the world of digital transformation going forward, and more. You can read the entire program for the ACC Annual Meeting and register to attend here.

Onit will be offering demos of all our products at our virtual booth. To find out more about how Onit can help with your organization’s digital transformation, contact us today.

Innovation in Action: ADM’s Self-Built Vendor Management App for Legal Operations

Posted on October 12, 2021 by - Business Process Management

In an earlier blog post, we looked at some of the latest Apps legal operations professionals build to solve some of their most complex business problems. Now, we’re excited to continue this exploration – this time by highlighting a genuinely innovative approach to vendor management developed by Fortune 100 company ADM.

Why an App?

As a massive company, ADM not surprisingly engages with numerous vendors to accomplish many crucial aspects of its business. What they didn’t have, though, was a standardized process around selecting the right vendor for a particular matter or project. They needed a complete process from start to finish for how teams would operate and how they would engage law firms on their various matters.

ADM has built a strong law firm network and has devoted significant time to negotiating rates and pricing systems, including alternative fee arrangements in some instances. The next step was creating a means to obtain competitive bids on projects to make sure that they had the right law firms handling the right matters. That meant instituting a matter-specific RFP process – but there were a lot of cumbersome communications and past practices to sort through in order to get there. In addition, they needed a consistent and reliable way to score RFP responses.

Simply put, ADM wanted an easy way to empower its attorneys to handle RFPs, law firm selection and executing engagement letters for themselves.

The Vendor Management Solution

ADM’s legal ops team is incredibly lean, so it was critical that any vendor management solution could be managed by their attorneys. Ultimately, the answer was to build it themselves.

A crucial factor for ADM was that the entire vendor management process happen in a single place, rather than relying on cobbling together disparate tools that don’t necessarily integrate to create a seamless workflow. ADM turned to Onit’s Apptitude workflow automation platform, which allows organizations to turn ad hoc, chaotic, inefficient, everyday manual intensive work into manageable defined processes, to build the vendor management App that would meet its needs.

The App they created addressed vendor selection at the matter level, was standard across how their teams operate and combined the processes they were already using rather than reinventing the wheel.

At the end of the day, ADM’s new App addressed three problems that had been hindering efficiency: standardizing vendor approval,  automating engagement letter creation and execution, and streamlining the RFP process. They were able to combine all three aspects of the vendor management process into a single App that also leveraged vendor data and metrics. A key component of the App is always showing the attorney where they are in the process, what steps are left to complete and showing help text to walk them through the process. ADM utilized visualization of both phases and a task grid within the Onit tool.

As Aaron Van Nice, Vice President of Legal Operations at ADM, explains:

“I wanted a tool that really helped us and empowered our attorneys to conduct matter-specific Competitive RFPs themselves. There were some steps that we wanted to help them with, but the idea was to make this easy enough for them to do it themselves. We needed something that was efficient that could be managed by our attorneys. And that’s what we built.”

Today, ADM can use Onit Apptitude with their vendor management App to draft RFPs, send communications to vendors, accept questions or proposal submissions, review submissions, score proposals for each vendor and pre-approve vendors for review by Van Nice and ADM’s GC, who can ultimately approve hiring within the App. In addition to the vendor management App, ADM also built an engagement letter App that allows them to automatically generate engagement letters and send them through e-signature for execution.

In a nutshell, ADM succeeded in connecting all the dots in the vendor management process via Onit Apps.

To hear more about Onit’s new App Catalog and see a demo of ADM’s new vendor management App, you can listen to the webinar, Drive Legal Innovation One App at a Time, here. The webinar offers valuable insights about driving legal ops innovation.

To learn more about getting started with Onit Apptitude and building your own Apps to solve critical business problems, contact Onit today.