Category: Artificial Intelligence

From Manual to Magical: The Power of AI in Contract Management

Posted on March 20, 2023 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

World Commerce & Contracting states, “Smarter contracting is a new vision for how modern enterprises should experience contracting. A vision that elevates the role of contracts as a source of the real-time data needed to manage the complexity of today’s business environment.”

Contract management is a vital process in any business, and it can be complex and time-consuming. However, contracts are the backbone of any business relationship and must be well-managed to satisfy all parties involved. Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software has been around for some time, but the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) re-introduced innovation to this field. Whether you are part of corporate legal, procurement, or sales operations, you need reliable tools to streamline workflows, reduce manual workloads, and increase productivity. So, what’s required to make this vision a reality?

By 2024, Gartner predicts a 50% reduction in manual effort for contract review % due to the adoption of AI-based contract analytics solutions. While technology is a vital part of this puzzle, it needs to be approached differently. AI-powered CLM is the way businesses go from manual to magical. AI is infinitely more effective when closely interwoven into enterprise functions connecting people, integrating systems and data, and facilitating the flow of intelligence.

Introducing Onit’s Smart CLM Solution

This is why Onit developed Smart CLM. Onit’s Smart CLM solution streamlines the contract management process pre- and post-signature, reducing the time and resources required to manage contracts. The solution uses AI to automate the review of contracts and extract essential data from them, such as key terms and obligations, dates, and other relevant information. As a result, businesses can quickly and easily identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts, which can help them make informed decisions and negotiate better terms.

Key to Onit’s Smart CLM is the tight integration of OnitX CLM with two new products, Onit Catalyst ReviewAI and Contract Extraction. Catalyst ReviewAI utilizes advanced AI algorithms to analyze and extract key contract data points, such as dates, clauses, and obligations. As a result, you can quickly identify potential risks and issues and prioritize your work accordingly. By using ReviewAI, you can locate misaligned contract terms and missed renewal dates, reducing the risk of errors or misinterpretation. In addition, with powerful analytics and reporting capabilities enhanced by the Risk Analysis Dashboard, you can make informed decisions, negotiate better contract terms, and reduce your organization’s legal risk.

Contracts are only sometimes in a centralized repository, obligations are ambiguous, rules and regulations constantly change, and market trends and business decisions can send you in different directions. The newest addition to Onit’s Smart CLM solution, Catalyst Contract Extraction, solves this challenge and creates structure from unstructured contracts by automating and augmenting contract data extraction to report and act on previously hidden information. Catalyst Contract Extraction uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze the text in contracts and identify key phrases and clauses. It also uses advanced machine learning algorithms to automate bulk contract migration and accelerate the repapering process; Contract Extraction also locates poor data and contract clauses that may impact your contract’s compliance.

With Contract Extraction, you can reduce the time and resources required for legacy contract migration, manual document review, and management, ultimately minimizing the risk of errors or misinterpretation.

The Benefits of Onit’s Smart CLM Solution

One of the most significant benefits of using AI in contract management is that it can save time and reduce errors. Manual contract review is a time-consuming, error-prone process, especially when dealing with large volumes of contracts. With Onit Smart CLM, businesses can automate much of the review process, significantly reducing the time and resources required. As a result, companies can focus on more strategic activities, such as negotiating better terms and managing relationships with their partners.

Another benefit of using Smart CLM is that it can help businesses identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts. By extracting essential data from contracts, companies can quickly identify areas of risk exposure, such as non-compliance with regulations or breaches of confidentiality. As a result, you can now proactively mitigate these risks and protect their business interests. Similarly, by identifying contract opportunities, businesses can negotiate better terms and improve their bottom line.

Onit’s Smart CLM, comprised of OnitX, Catalyst ReviewAI, and Catalyst Contract Extraction, is designed to help enterprise business professionals work more efficiently, make informed decisions, increase compliance, and reduce the legal risk for their organizations. By automating much of the contract review process, businesses can save time and resources, reduce errors, and identify potential risks and opportunities in their contracts. In addition, with the help of AI, companies can manage their contracts more efficiently and effectively, ultimately leading to better business outcomes. So why wait? Try Onit’s Smart CLM today and see the difference they can make for your enterprise.

Schedule a call with us today to see how Onit’s Smart CLM can help your organization.

The Top Six Leading Corporate Legal Operations Trends for 2022

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

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

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

1. Turning Budgets into Roadmaps

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

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

2. Championing Diversity and Inclusion

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

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

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

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

3. Bridging Cybersecurity and Compliance Gaps

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

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

4. Capturing the Power of AI

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

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

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

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

5. Realizing the Win-Win of AFAs

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

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

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

6. Navigating Data-Driven Vendor Processes

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

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

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

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

Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software

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

How CLM can Increase Revenue 9%

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

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

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

What are the Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Software?

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

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

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

Contract Management + AI – An Advantage for the Entire Enterprise

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Additional Contract Management and AI Resources

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Can Robots Replace Lawyers? Legal AI Experts Weigh In

Posted on December 28, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Here’s a question almost every in-house counsel and legal professional has considered: Can robots replace lawyers? After all, AI does everything from diagnosing medical conditions to driving cars. Isn’t it only a matter of time before AI practices law?

Well, it isn’t Terminator time just yet of robots replacing lawyers, according to experts. But … it will make your job a lot easier.

The past year has been an exciting one in terms of legal technology, particularly in the area of AI. As businesses have been required to constantly evolve in the face of shifting pandemic demands and the need to accommodate remote work, AI has taken center stage for contracting and other critical legal tasks.

We’ve compiled the latest educational resources for AI, featuring experts weighing in on everything from how it will affect lawyers, contracting and legal operations. Consider it your year-end AI wrap-up!

Can Robots Replace Lawyers? Let’s Talk AI and the Legal Profession.

  • How Artificial Intelligence Will Affect the Practice of Law: Nick Whitehouse, GM of the Onit AI Center of Excellence, 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. The truth is that most lawyers are likely already using AI even if they don’t realize it. In fact, Nick argues, AI is making it an exciting time to be a lawyer.
  • Will AI Replace Lawyers & Other Myths: Legal AI Mythbusters: As with most buzzwords, there’s a whole host of misconceptions about AI’s capabilities. For example, can robots replace lawyers? Nick and Jean Yang, Vice President of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, united for a webinar dispelling common AI misconceptions. Together, they help legal professionals decipher marketing-speak and determine what’s genuinely AI and what’s just software.
  • To AI or Not to AI: The Great Debate on Legal AI Tools: While AI certainly plays a significant role in helping with routine, time-consuming tasks, is legal AI always the right answer? Onit hosted a webinar with Consilio and Buying Legal Council, titled “To AI or Not to AI? The Big Debate,” to answer precisely that question. Two teams addressed a hypothetical work scenario, alternatively arguing that AI tools for lawyers or outsourcing to an ALSP were the answer. You can also watch the webinar to learn which team’s proposal won.
  • The Future of the Legal Profession, AI and Legal Work: The legal profession faced seemingly endless changes in 2020 and 2021. Understandably, many people are anxious to know what’s in store for the future. Onit asked leading economist Daniel Susskind to tackle precisely that question. Daniel offers insights on what changes the industry should expect in the future, what role technology and AI will play and much more.
  • Four Legal AI Trends Impacting Corporate Legal Departments: AI accomplishes more every day. From medicine to piloting jets to dancing, AI grabs a foothold across all industries, including law. Ari Kaplan, attorney, legal industry analyst, author, technologist and host of the Reinventing Professionals podcast, interviewed Nick about how AI impacts corporate legal departments. He shared the legal AI trends that defined the past year.

How AI Makes Contracting Easier

Onit is a leading provider of AI-powered legal technology solutions, including contract AI. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you transform your legal function in the new year.

What NOT To Do In 2022: Legal Tech Trends To Ignore in the New Year

Posted on December 21, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Company News and Events

As workloads and the need to contain costs increase, corporate legal departments continue to turn to legal technology – so much so that Gartner predicts legal technology budgets will increase threefold by 2025.

Technology innovation, especially in artificial intelligence (AI), has fundamentally transformed the way legal professionals do business and how organizations run their legal function. While it’s easy to get caught up in the hype of legal technology, it’s important to keep perspective. Not all legal industry tech trends are ones that should be followed.

How can you sort the helpful trends from the hype?

Three experts from Buying Legal, Consilio and Onit recently gathered to discuss just that. Together, they explored the current state of legal tech and AI, how corporate legal departments should function as we enter the new year and which current legal trends are better to avoid.

Read on to learn which legal tech trends you might want to pass on as we enter 2022.

The Current Pulse of Corporate Legal

As we get ready to wrap up 2021, it’s a good time to take stock of where we currently stand when it comes to legal tech and corporate legal operations.

While some have posited that AI has become over-hyped, our expert panel explains that that’s not entirely the case. Instead, AI tends to be misunderstood, with different people frequently meaning different things when they say AI. This can lead to misunderstandings and even disappointment when it comes to implementing AI.

The top legal areas where AI is currently seeing some of the most significant traction are invoice review, contract review and risk monitoring. Nonetheless, companies still take different approaches to overall legal tech implementation, ranging from all-in-one platforms to best-in-class point solutions to enterprise applications.

Regardless of how you’ve implemented AI and other legal technologies up till now, however, it’s important to remember going forward that legal no longer stands alone. To succeed, you need to involve your department in overall enterprise discussions and initiatives regarding technology.

Legal Tech Trends to Avoid in 2022

While interest in legal tech will only continue to grow in the coming year, not all legal technology trends should be followed. The webinar outlines several emerging trends to avoid in the new year, including:

  • DON’T jump on every new technology that comes out – New AI and other legal tech tools are coming out constantly. It can be tempting to buy the shiny object but think about what you’re trying to accomplish with technology before you buy.
  • DON’T make the mistake of thinking that huge AI systems will solve all your problems – When AI first came out, it made a massive splash with powerful tools like Watson. In reality, the AI you use at your organization will exist on a smaller scale and be targeted at solving discrete problems.
  • DON’T rush to widespread AI implementation – Consider the strategic places where AI will be most helpful and practical (for example, NDA automation). This approach gives you time to understand the technology and the value in a much quicker time frame.
  • DON’T think that all your data needs to be kept local – With the introduction of the GDPR and the proliferation of privacy regulations, there’s been a trend toward scaring people into thinking they need to keep all their data in-country for compliance reasons. In reality, this is just a backward path back to in-house servers when there are other ways to achieve compliance.
  • DON’T let cost concerns keep you from the technology you need – Yes, nearly all organizations are increasingly looking to cut costs. You shouldn’t, however, allow that trend keep you from innovating. Instead, you can justify to the business why an investment in technology now will pay off in the long run.

To hear more about the current state of legal tech, including which trends you should be adopting and which to avoid, you can listen to the entire webinar.

Contact Onit today to learn more about how our solutions can help you transform the way you do business in the new year.

Having Contract Management Issues? Here’s How CLM and AI Can Help.

Posted on December 14, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Contract Lifecycle Management

Many sales, procurement and corporate legal departments struggle with contract management issues. The issues may seem mundane – too much manual work, a lack of visibility or slow responses – but together, the issues collectively (and quickly) slow down valuable revenue-generating efforts or can lead to regulatory breaches.

Comprehensive contract lifecycle management (CLM) solutions can defeat contract management issues by automating and standardizing processes and decreasing risk and manual work. They streamline the entire contract lifecycle and provide ease of use for all parties. With the ability to have unlimited users and an intuitive, user-friendly interface, these solutions dramatically improve supplier and vendor relationships and overall customer satisfaction.

How Your CLM Defeats Contract Management Issues

What should you look for in a CLM solution to overcome contract management issues? Consider this list of necessities.

  • Automatically generate contracts – The CLM software should allow you to save time and reduce risk by automatically creating a contract with the appropriate clauses based on a robust rules engine and contract metadata.
  • Work where you want to work – Most lawyers rely on Microsoft Word for contracts. An MS Word integration maintains seamless version control and secure links to the CLM software.
  • Let stakeholders help themselves – With a self-service portal, partners and clients can quickly request, submit or create contracts. Contracts can be automatically assigned and tracked, increasing visibility and improving turnaround time.
  • Reduce risks with less work – Manage and measure tasks or milestones related to compliance via a dedicated dashboard and reporting. Likewise, automated risk mitigation in a CLM identifies clauses and terms which add risk to your agreement and scores your contract repository to assist you in both negotiations and renegotiations.
  • A quick time to value – A CLM solution on an advanced cloud platform means your CLM solution can be deployed in 30 days or less.

The Role of AI in Contract Lifecycle Management – And How it Helps You

In recent years, AI has taken businesses by storm, gaining recognition for its rapid evolution and considerable accomplishments. From driving cars to diagnosing illnesses, it continues to prove its value to all industries.

Contract management is no different. Sales, procurement and corporate legal departments have the opportunity to benefit from AI during the contract lifecycle, realizing increased efficiency from technology that not only understands their organization but learns and continually improves.

As you look for AI-based CLM tools, here is what you should expect in your chosen technology.

  • Out-of-the-box functionality from day one – Your CLM AI should work for you from day one by being pretrained and coming with thousands of existing clauses created by legal experts.
  • Faster review – Need a first-pass contract review in two minutes or less? Your CLM AI can do this, quashing some common contract management issues.
  • Easy edit tracking –Open a contract in Word or PDF to view AI redlines with track changes and commentary.
  • Checklists to streamline review – AI tracks and assigns alerts for reviewers with interactive, automated tasks within Microsoft Word.
  • Identify negotiation positions – Obtain suggested primary and fallback positions directly connected to your checklists with AI.
  • Empower users – Business professionals can get an AI-assisted review of standard contracts like NDAs through email or a self-service portal.
  • Review in batches – AI can extract data from multiple legal documents at once for due diligence, applying contract updates or importing legacy contracts. You can also automate the batch review of contracts for routine legal due diligence, making time for higher-value M&A tasks.
  • Accelerate repapering – AI will amend or redline contract details and key terms due to regulatory, policy or commercial changes or M&A activities.
  • Quick analysis and management – Your CLM AI will identify key legal clauses, terms and details in documents. It can also analyze legacy contract metadata rapidly to extract critical dates, terms and clauses to assist in the import.
  • Large-scale contract review – Audit compliance with AI during regulatory changes and export relevant details to .CSV reports and in-document notes.

The Results

How much of an impact can AI and CLM have on contract management issues? CLM solutions can help you save 9% annually, reduce the average sales cycle by 24% and reduce the average hours spent on contracts by 20% or more.

A study of how legal AI contract review software affects in-house lawyers’ productivity showed that new users were immediately 51.5% more productive and 34% more efficient. And with post-signature contract AI, you improve efficiency by increasing the amount of data analyzed while reviewing and exporting data in five seconds or less.

As an example, consider what CLM AI can do for non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). NDAs are the highest-volume contracts handled by businesses today, with our customers telling us that they process anywhere between 500 and 100,000 NDAs every year. Processing that volume of contracts, no matter how standardized or routine, quickly adds up in cost and creates a real risk of spreading your legal department employees too thin. However, applying AI and CLM best practices can automate NDA management and cut time spent on them by up to 70%. This blog post shows you how this works.

Reach out to us to learn more or schedule a demonstration of our contract lifecycle management and contract AI, including ReviewAI, ExtractAI and Automate NDA.

 

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.

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.

How to Find the Latest Updates in the Legal Operations Software Market

Posted on September 30, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

The legal operations software market is rapidly evolving, thanks to technologies such as AI and the ever-growing operational sophistication of corporate legal departments.

Fortunately, a slew of resources are available for those interested in legal operations and the technology that turbocharges it, including:

  • The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC) – A community of legal operations experts focused on redefining the business of law. In addition to releasing its yearly State of the Industry Report, it offers programming worldwide, educational resources and online connections for its membership.
  • The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) – Founded in 1981, this legal organization represents, guides and supports the global in-house counsel community in over 85 countries. In addition to valuable programming and online resources, it hosts the annual ACC Value Champions awards program, which highlights leaders in improving costs, predictability and outcomes.
  • Corporate Counsel – This magazine explores corporate legal department trends and challenges and how innovative legal leaders respond to them.

These are only a few of the resources available. And now, there’s one more.

A Podcast for the Legal Operations Software Market

Over the past several years, we’ve been tackling some of the most significant issues in legal ops, automation and more through a series of podcasts. Now, we’ve collected them all in one place, so that anyone in corporate legal can hear candid discussions on some of the latest news and advances in the legal operations software market.

Podcast highlights include:

  • How BT Enacted its Award-Winning Digital Transformation – In less than a year, BT transformed its global legal department, creating award-winning operations that judges described as admirable “not only due to the speed of their roll-out of the platform, but by taking an existing process and migrating it into a streamlined, efficient platform.” In less than three months, the company has been awarded the Legal Innovation Award in the category of Future of Legal Services Innovation – In-House Legal Operations and joined the shortlist for the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law awards. In this episode, David Griffin, Head of Legal Technology and Change at BT, shares how this happened.
  • How to Alleviate the NDA Strain – Reviewing and managing NDAs is a pain in the neck for in-house counsel. They’re the highest-volume contracts handled by businesses today. In fact, some corporate legal departments tell us they process between 500 and 100,000 a year. That’s a lot of time and cost that can be redirected to other contributions. Nick Whitehouse, GM for Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, talks about how AI and automation are transforming the NDA process – in some cases shaving the time spent on NDA processing by 70%.
  • How to Build World-Class Legal Operations – Brad Rogers, former Chief Operations Officer and Chief of Staff for Advocacy and Oversight at a Fortune 100 global financial services company with more than $1 trillion in assets under management and 14,000 employees globally (and now SVP of Strategy and Growth for Onit), shares his insights into what goes into creating world-class legal ops. While budget is an essential 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 – Everyone from tech companies to industry influencers tells lawyers what they need from AI. And, if there’s one thing about lawyers, they don’t generally like being told what they like. Jean Yang, Vice President of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, a lawyer and technologist, talks about ways legal and contract AI technologies are actually giving lawyers what they need.
  • CLM ROI: Is It Hype or Really Happening? – Surveys – both formal and informal – show a rising interest in contract lifecycle management (CLM). As interest grows in this technology, how can legal operations professionals cut through the hype to find ROI? Matt DenOuden, Onit’s Senior Vice President of Global Sales, discusses unique ways to find CLM ROI.
  • Ten Years of Onit: Stories from the Companies’ Co-Founders – How do four very different and strong-minded people come together to create one of the leading companies in the legal operations software market? Well, there’s success in dysfunction. In this podcast, Onit’s co-founders share their journey from startup to scaleup.

You can listen to all these podcasts and more here. Be sure to like our podcast LinkedIn page to get the latest episodes. You can also subscribe on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen to podcasts.

To learn more about how Onit is revolutionizing legal ops through AI and automation, schedule a demo or reach out to [email protected].