Category: Business Process Management

Empower Legal Operations Automation with the Best CLM Tools

Posted on January 21, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

The right legal contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution is a crucial component of your legal ops toolbox.

When you work in legal operations, you’re required to wear a lot of hats. On any given day, you’ll work closely with general counsel as well as business stakeholders at all levels of your company. Legal operations is key in creating processes and practices that improve the day-to-day efficiency and effectiveness of the company’s legal team and, in turn, the company as a whole. Contracts are the lifeblood of corporate legal departments, and having tools to manage them is critical to the efficiency legal ops is trying to achieve.

Contract Lifecycle Management in Day-to-Day Legal Operations

It’s nearly impossible to think about legal operations without thinking about contracts. On a daily basis, you’re requesting and drafting contracts, monitoring their progress and obtaining signatures. On top of that, you’re responsible for implementing tools to streamline your organization’s legal practices, developing and enforcing processes and policies to manage outside counsel usage and spend, assisting with budget matters and optimizing workflows within the legal department, and managing the design, rollout and training for new systems – just to name a few things.

With that many important roles on your plate, monitoring contracts doesn’t need to be taking up any more of your time than it has to. With the right tool for managing your contracts from start to finish, you’ll be freed up to focus on tasks that are more critical to boosting efficiency and creating value for the organization.

Finding the Right CLM Solution

As is the case with most legal technology these days, there’s no shortage of options when it comes to choosing a contract lifecycle management solution. In making your choice, it’s important to keep in mind the pain points you’re trying to address in legal operations and the functionalities you want to achieve from your new tool.

Among the biggest challenges that legal ops professionals tend to face when it comes to CLM are:

  • Having a lack of visibility into where your deals stand, who’s responsible for them and what the next steps are at any given time
  • Having no easy way to keep contract drafting and negotiation moving forward
  • Needing an effective way to reduce risk and improve governance
  • Needing to accelerate contract turnaround time while also reducing costs
  • Having no means of self-service, and instead having to rely on others to handle contracts

The ideal CLM tool will serve as a single point of truth for all your contract data, allowing you to standardize your processes and increase efficiency through automation. You’ll have real-time insight into where each contract stands and who might be holding it up, so you can nudge them along and keep everything moving smoothly. CLM solutions also allow you to easily find contracts and have visibility into your renewal and amendments cycles without overwhelming you with information – the best tools allow you to see only the information you need to see, when you need and want to see it.

Implementing CLM in Legal Ops

Legal operations professionals are no strangers to developing, implementing, and using today’s most cutting-edge legal tech solutions. Using technology to manage contracts should be no exception. CLM tools help bolster the practice of corporate law, streamlining the contractual processes that are so integral to the operation of every legal department, and, indeed, every organization operating today.

Contact us today to learn more about how Onit can help you with end-to-end automation of your entire contract management process.

January Digest: Current Legal Operations Trends and Industry News

Posted on January 19, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

From COVID to cost-cutting, here are some of the leading industry articles on legal operations trends. This blog post represents a new monthly feature that shares the latest industry news for corporate legal and legal operations professionals.

#1

Legal Ops May Still Struggle for a Seat at the Table in 2021

(source: Legaltech News)

COVID has forced many professions to pivot in how they approach their jobs. Legal operations is no exception. In this article, experts share how 2020 will shape legal operations trends in 2021. Nick Whitehouse, GM of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence, discusses the importance of building smart processes and workflows to remove low-value work from in-house and the growing adoption of AI-enable contract lifecycle management, automated third-party contract reviews and document automation. Roycee Hasuko, director of product engagement for SimpleLegal, advocates for the importance of clean data and systems to convey business priorities and how remote working will require legal ops to continue investments in communications strategies and cross-functional collaboration. You can read the full article here.

#2

Legal departments cut outside spending, focus on managers and specialists, study shows

(source: ABA Journal)

Legal departments have always been under pressure to cut costs, but last year has taken this to unprecedented new levels. The current pandemic has been responsible for the largest part of this pressure. This article examines legal operations trends uncovered by a Gartner survey, highlighting the fact that more legal spending (57%) is staying in-house compared to previous years, participants are expecting reductions in their budgets and 94% say their headcount will remain the same or be reduced. Find the full article here.

#3

Forging Into The Unknown: How COVID-19 Has Already Changed Legal Department Budget Planning

(source: Corporate Counsel)

We always like to maintain a sense of optimism about getting back to normal after the pandemic, and rightfully so. But some believe that things in legal departments will get much more complicated before there’s a return to normalcy. Budgets are the topic of discussion in this article, from opinions on tweaking budgets from previous years,  the role of analytics and “giving smarter haircuts.” The full text of the article is published here.

#4

COVID-19 Proved the Value of Legal Operations In-House

(source: Corporate Counsel)

Despite COVID challenges, many forward-thinking legal ops professionals have made significant strides in finding ways to save money. This article looks at how these individuals have discovered new ways to use their existing technology instead of acquiring additional technology, as well as how they were able to smoothly transition from the office to home. You can read the article here.

#5

Artificial Intelligence Trends Impacting Corporate Legal Departments

(source: Reinventing Professionals)

After ringing in the New Year, it’s that time again to examine current trends in our industry. Ari Kaplan of Reinventing Professionals recently interviewed Nick Whitehouse, general manager of Onit’s AI Center of Excellence. In this thought-provoking interview, they cover several aspects of AI and legal operations trends and how they translate to efficiency and savings for corporate legal. You can listen to the podcast here.

Additional Resources for Legal Trends

If you’re interested in more resources related to legal operations trends, here are some recommendations:

  • To support our customers and colleagues in the legal operations field, Onit offers free Business Continuity Apps to support remote workers and their families that are sheltering at home.
  • Interested in hearing more about how to trim spend? In our Virtual Legal Resourcing Debate with Buying Legal Council, three teams of legal professionals debate different approaches and their pros and cons.
  • In this on-demand webinar, the legal operations team at Pearson shares how they radically transformed how they manage contracts, cutting costs annually by roughly 30%.

We hope you find these articles helpful. We’ll return in February with another industry update on legal operations trends.

How Enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management Software is Changing the Game for General Counsel

Posted on January 14, 2021 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Managing risk at an organization is a full-time job, especially for a general counsel (GC) or chief legal officer (CLO). As a company’s chief internal lawyer, they are expected to provide legal advice on a vast range of subjects – legal rights, risk mitigation, compliance with new and existing laws and so much more.

If that weren’t enough, GCs and CLOs are also expected to manage the organization’s legal matters, oversee outside counsel spend, conduct legal research, review internal litigation strategy, and be the ultimate approver and keeper of the organization’s contracts. Despite handling all these critical, sensitive matters, legal departments are often seen as “cost centers” and therefore are forced to do their challenging jobs without all the resources they need to succeed.

Technology, automation and artificial intelligence are key to doing more with less and streamlining processes, particularly when it comes to contracts. Enterprise contract lifecycle management software allows busy lawyers end-to-end control over contracts, freeing up time to focus on other tasks in the process. They can also play pivotal roles in helping corporate legal departments reduce contract management costs. For example, Pearson’s commercial transactions shared service center for more than 10,000 users worldwide achieved a 35% cost reduction and 30% improved contract turnaround time.

Contractual Pain Points

Even the simplest contracts can expose an organization to risk and liability if it’s not handled correctly. GCs and CLOs are tasked with overseeing the crucial job of examining and creating draft agreements, maintaining knowledge of the organization’s operations and legal documents, approving non-standard contract language and more.

Without a centralized solution for managing contracts on an organization-wide basis, legal departments run into countless hurdles, including:

  • Inconsistent language between contracts, often caused by employees using out-of-date contract templates
  • Competing objectives of moving contracts through quickly yet still having enough oversight to effectively manage risk obligations
  • A lack of insight into all the organization’s current contracts
  • An inability to track changes in contracts and ensure that contracts are in compliance with new and existing laws and regulations
  • The risk that contracts might expire or renew without notice because no one’s tracking them
  • Complicated review and approval processes for even standard contracts
  • Manual review and approval processes that create longer contract cycle times
  • Human error and inconsistencies inherent in manual processes, increasing the organization’s risk exposure
  • Lost revenue when add-ons, upgrades and renewals are missed
  • Being seen by other aspects of the business as a barrier to closing deals

The above list is by no means exhaustive. Given the large volume of contracts at today’s modern businesses, the challenges presented by trying to manage those contracts can become overwhelming when you rely on manual processes or basic contract tools that lack automation and AI for general counsel, as well as a means of creating a single source of truth for the organization’s contracts.

The Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Tools

While the challenges outlined above may seem daunting, they’re not insurmountable. CLM tools use automation and AI to remove the tedious, manual aspects of traditional contract management, increasing accuracy and efficiency, eliminating errors, and freeing up precious time that GCs and CLOs can use to focus on the many other critical tasks they’re responsible for handling.

Leverage the benefits of contract lifecycle management software to take control of your corporate legal budget and take the headaches out of risk management.

Among other things, the right enterprise contract lifecycle management software will allow you to:

  • Find every contract you need, when you need it
  • Store all your contracts in one cloud location, creating a single source of truth for your organization’s contract data
  • Have full visibility at all times into the status of contract drafting, negotiations, amendments, and renewals, ensuring that nothing’s missed or overlooked
  • Implement uniform templates and playbooks to speed up contract cycle times, reduce manual errors and ensure you’re always using preferred terms
  • Automate approval processes to eliminate bottlenecks
  • Be notified of contract renewals to get a jumpstart on the process
  • Allow for self-service, so that other departments can create standard contracts with the correct language without legal review
  • Improve legal risk management across the organization
  • Improve efficiencies and free up the corporate legal budget for strategic use by automating contract lifecycle management
  • Demonstrate that the legal department is a strategic partner of the business, not a cost center

The ideal CLM tool will give you real-time insights into all phases of the contract lifecycle and provide you with actionable intelligence to make informed decisions for the business. More information means a better ability to identify and control risks across the contract process.

It’s time to take control of your contracts and let contract lifecycle management for general counsel and automation do the heavy lifting for you. Contact us today to learn more about how Onit can help you implement end-to-end CLM for your organization.

Legal Ops in 2020: A Look at How Law Departments Have Weathered the Storm

Posted on January 12, 2021 by - Business Process Management

There’s no question that 2020 was an unusual year for organizations across all industries – and their law departments. From being forced into working from home overnight to embracing new technologies at an accelerated pace, law departments have adapted in ways they never imagined.

The Blickstein Group recently released its 13th Annual Law Department Operations Survey, titled “Weathering the Storms of 2020.” The findings show that, despite the pandemic’s unprecedented challenges and novel demands, corporate law departments have weathered those storms well.

As the survey points out, the world changed dramatically in the year since the 2019 Law Department Operations Survey. The impacts of those changes, however, were less dramatic. Here are just some of the critical insights about legal ops in 2020.

The Biggest Challenges

Survey respondents were asked to identify their most significant challenges in 2020 relating to law department functions, and notably, COVID-19 was nowhere near the top of the list. Instead, the top-three challenges identified were:

  • Cost containment and savings/managing the budget – 60.3%
  • Business process improvements – 56.2%
  • Departmental resources (e.g. funding for personnel/technology, personnel retention) – 38.4%

Concerns about cost containment are nothing new, as managing costs and budgeting have long been a focus for legal ops professionals. The same is likely to remain true throughout 2021 and into the future, making Enterprise Legal Management solutions – which simplify legal operations by analyzing legal spend, minimizing company risk and driving process efficiency – valuable investments.

Delivery of Work Product

Disruption to everyday business practices and routines seemed to come from all sides in 2020, but law departments didn’t let that stand in their way. When asked if they noticed a diminished ability of their internal legal teams to deliver work product due to the pandemic and working from home, a staggering 94% of respondents said no.

Much of this ability to avoid disruption can be attributed to advanced technologies that support remote legal operations management work, allowing legal departments to deliver the high-quality work product from anywhere. Automation and AI also played a major role in seeing legal ops through the pandemic. For example, a tool like Review AI automates contract review, cuts contract review time by up to 70% and increases accuracy in reviewing, redlining and editing all types of contracts. These tools are critical to improving efficiency and eliminating manual tasks that would otherwise present barriers to remote work

Focus on Diversity

The pandemic wasn’t the only thing grabbing headlines in 2020. Diversity and inclusion were perhaps more in the spotlight than ever before. While companies across the country struggled to figure out how to best address diversity and inclusion within their ranks, what was clear was that more and more law departments were turning the focus to these issues. When asked what employee-related metrics they track, 72.7% reported tracking diversity, up significantly from prior years’ surveys.

While there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for improving diversity and inclusion, technology can play a significant role in achieving progress. At Onit’s recent Hack the House competition, one team – Team Diversity – built a solution to expand opportunities for diversity and an equal opportunity workspace using Onit Apptitude in just three weeks. (You can see a demo here.) This is only one example of how legal ops professionals can use institutional data to address workplace challenges and track progress on important issues.

Law Firm Rates

Law firm rates have increased in 2020, according to law departments. When asked how overall law firm rates changed in the past year, only 3.6% of law department respondents reported any decrease. In fact, 69.7% reported an increase, while 26.8% said that rates remained flat. Participants indicated they expect this increase to continue in the next 12 months, with 46.4% expecting an increase.

There’s no reason to think these trends won’t continue for the foreseeable future. That means it’s more important than ever to be able to track invoices and ensure that your law firm’s charges are accurate and in-line with your billing guidelines. With Onit Enterprise Legal Management, you’ll have the data you need to show the value your law firms are providing to the organization in exchange for the rates they’re charging.

For more insights on the state of legal ops in 2020 and how the pandemic has impacted law department operations, you can download the entire survey here.

What is Artificial Intelligence? The ABCs of What Is It and What it Does

Posted on January 5, 2021 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest buzzwords in legal technology today, but many people still don’t fully understand what it is and how it can impact their day-to-day legal work.

According to  Brookings Institution, AI generally refers to “machines that respond to stimulation consistent with traditional responses from humans, given the human capacity for contemplation, judgment, and intention.” In other words, artificial intelligence is technology capable of making decisions that generally require a human level of expertise. It helps people anticipate problems or deal with issues as they come up. (For example, here’s how AI greatly improves contract review.)

In this blog post and podcast (see below), we cover the ins and outs of AI in more detail. In this first installment of our new blog series, we’ll discuss what it is and its three main hallmarks.

What Is Artificial Intelligence?

At the core of AI and machine learning are algorithms, or sequences of instructions that solve specific problems. In machine learning, the learning algorithms create the rules for the software, instead of computer programmers inputting them, as is the case with more traditional forms of technology. Artificial intelligence can learn from new data without additional step-by-step instructions.

This independence is crucial to our ability to use computers for new, more complex tasks that exceed the manual programming limitations – things like photo recognition apps for the visually impaired or translating pictures into speech. Even things we now take for granted, like Alexa and Siri, are prime examples of artificial intelligence technology that once seemed impossible. We already encounter in our day-to-day lives in numerous ways and that influence will continue to grow.

The excitement about this quickly evolving technology is understandable, mainly due to its impacts on data availability, computing power and innovation. The billions of devices connected to the internet generate large amounts of data and lower the cost of mass data storage. Machine learning can use all this data to train learning algorithms and accelerate the development of new rules for performing increasingly complex tasks. Furthermore, we can now process enormous amounts of data around machine learning. All of this is driving innovation, which has recently become a rallying cry among savvy legal departments worldwide. 

Once you understand the basics of AI, it’s also helpful to be familiar with the different types of learning that make it up.

The first is supervised learning, where a learning algorithm is given labeled data in order to generate a desired output. For example, if the software is given a picture of dogs labeled “dogs,” the algorithm will identify rules to classify pictures of dogs in the future.

The second is unsupervised learning, where the data input is unlabeled and the algorithm is asked to identify patterns on its own. A typical instance of unsupervised learning is when the algorithm behind an eCommerce site identifies similar items often bought by a consumer.

Finally, there’s the scenario where the algorithm interacts with a dynamic environment that provides both positive feedback (rewards) and negative feedback. An example of this would be a self-driving car where, if the driver stays within the lane, the software will receive points in order to reinforce that learning and reminders to stay in that lane.

The Hallmarks of AI

Even after understanding the basic elements and learning models of AI, the question often arises as to what the real essence of AI is. The Brookings Institution boils the answer down to three main qualities:

  1. Intentionality – AI algorithms are designed to make decisions. They’re not passive machines capable only of mechanical or predetermined responses. Rather, they’re designed by humans with intentionality to reach conclusions based on instant analysis.
  2. Intelligence – AI often is undertaken in conjunction with machine learning and data analytics, and the resulting combination enables intelligent decision-making. Machine learning takes data and looks for underlying trends. If it spots something relevant for a practical problem, software designers can take that knowledge and employ data analytics to understand specific issues.
  3. Adaptability – AI has the ability to learn and adapt as it compiles information and makes decisions. Effective AI must adjust as circumstances or conditions shift. This could involve changes in financial situations, road conditions, environmental considerations, military circumstances, and more. Artificial intelligence needs to integrate these changes into its algorithms and decide on how to adapt to the new circumstances.

For a more in-depth discussion of artificial intelligence, you can listen to the entire podcast below.

In the next installment of our blog series, we’ll discuss the benefits AI is already bringing to legal departments. We hope you’ll join us.

 

Legal Operations Experts Have Hacked the House; Now, We Have a Hackathon Winner

Posted on December 18, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

They came. They saw. They hacked. And now, Onit has a Hack the House winner!

In October, Onit launched its first hackathon – Hack the House. The friendly competition consisted of Onit customers, partners and staff seeing who can build the most useful and compelling workflow and collaboration solution using the Onit Apptitude platform.

Five teams accepted the Hack the House challenge. They include legal and business experts, certified App Builders and project managers. Within three weeks, each group identified a corporate legal department challenge, defined the requirements and built the solution from scratch using Apptitude.

Team Europe created the Data Breach Incident Reporting App to report a data breach in compliance with GDPR and other data privacy regulations. Many organizations currently use spreadsheets, phone calls, and emails – a highly manual process that is the perfect candidate for Apptitude automation. Their Hack the House App simplifies the process and helps meet expectations by regulators in Europe that reporting must happen within 72 hours from the point of breaches.

Team HR wanted to veer away from the traditional goal-setting and reviewing goals with a supervisor with their mentorship and career development App. Their Hack the House solution is a combination of several Apps for mentors, mentees and project opportunities. Users select areas of interest and then anyone across the company can find them and invite them to participate in special projects in their area of interest. Employees then gain more exposure throughout an organization to progress their careers.

Team IP focused on the trademark renewal decision process for Hack the House, one they identified as a challenge for any company that owns a significant number of trademarks worldwide. They combined Apps into a solution that streamlines the communication out to global teams, alerting them that it is time to make decisions about whether to renew trademarks or not. It gathers feedback on why decisions were made and automates the process for trademarks that will unquestionably be renewed. The team also built an additional App that tracks who in an organization has access to which trade secrets.

Team Diversity created an App to help law departments establish a baseline for diversity statistics and tracking. Using the App, a legal operations professional can gather a high-level view of a law firm’s diversity efforts, track historical progress and report on efforts. The App sends law firms a survey where they can upload their diversity stats and initiatives. They based the App on the ABA Model Diversity Survey to align with existing industry standards.

Team Pro Bono Program Management wanted to help pro bono leadership track, manage, recognize and report on time spent by attorneys and be able to thank each one for their volunteer efforts. Their Hack the House App centralizes requests and gives lawyers a space to collaborate with internal resources and third parties such as outside counsel on pro bono initiatives. Users can easily report out the work to different bar associations or internally. Best of all, it helps show appreciation for pro bono work in the form of automated document generation for thank you letters.

Judging Hack the House

The five judges found an impressive array of solutions to evaluate. The panel included:

  • Maria Anassutzi, Lead IP Counsel EMEA, Canon Europe
  • William Hayes, Senior Lawyer, BBC
  • Mary Shirley, Head Of Culture Of Integrity And Compliance Education, FMCNA
  • Jonathan Powers, Director Of Learning & Development, Onit
  • Kristi Gedid, Senior Director, Global Legal Operations, Mylan

They judged based on a variety of criteria, including the ambition of the idea, how closely it fit with the original idea, the ease of use and the constructed App’s completeness. They also had a helping hand from hundreds of voters in the legal space.

“It was awesome to see the level of work and the thought that everybody put into their respective projects,” commented Mary Shirley, a judge and Head Of Culture Of Integrity And Compliance Education, FMCNA. “There is going to be a lot of real-world use for the Apps that have been produced. I had a fantastic time being a judge.”

“This hackathon made me feel empowered – not only as a judge but also as someone who works in and heads up legal teams,” said William Hayes, judge and Senior Lawyer at BBC. “I say empowered because I work with data scientists and technologists and developers, and often we are relying on them to try to get a solution developed. Seeing what the hackathon teams did with Apptitude, I feel like I can take my legal team now and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do it ourselves.’ We can use these tools. We can use these ideas and create something ourselves. So it was empowering. I think that was something that I didn’t expect.”

After much deliberation and admiration for all the teams and their Apps, the judges selected the winner.

And the Winner Is …

TEAM IP!

Congratulations to Team IP and all the teams!

Thank you to everyone who participated in Hack the House.

Team EU

  • Ed Rastelli, Standard Chartered Bank
  • Lee Harrison, BT Group
  • Robert Johnson, Onit
  • Claire Banham, Onit
  • Alyssa Kokilah, Cognia Law
  • Tyler Reno, Onit

Team HR

  • Curtis Batterton, McDonald’s
  • Chris Hultgren, Deere and Company
  • Weston Wicks, Morae Global
  • Brett Baccus, Morae Global
  • Dipish Parmar, Morae Global
  • David Duffey, Onit

Team IP

  • Matt Burdman, Colgate Palmolive
  • Ken Capece, Colgate Palmolive
  • Ed Kelly, Colgate Palmolive
  • Nadine Stuttle, Duff and Phelps
  • Rebecca Cotton, Duff and Phelps
  • Atlantis Langowski, Onit
  • Larry Gianneschi, Colgate Palmolive
  • Josie Johnson, Onit

Team Diversity

  • Eric Kabot, Royal Caribbean Cruises LTD.
  • Michele Compasso, Corteva Agriscience
  • Gregg McConnell, Corteva Agriscience
  • Jesse Viani, Onit
  • Sam Lu, Consilio
  • Lisa Morris,  Consilio
  • Debby Young, Consilio
  • Rhonda Oliver, Onit

Team Pro Bono

  • Nick Panagoplos, Chubb
  • Kim Takacs, Chubb
  • Paige Edwards, Onit
  • Massimo Penzo, Morae Global

Thank you also to Cosmonauts, who collaborated with Onit on Hack the House.

The Latest Onit Acquisition: Your Contracts Drafted 10 Times Faster with Document Automation from AXDRAFT

Posted on December 17, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Hear Onit’s CEO and the General Manager of AXDRAFT discuss Onit’s latest acquisition and what it means for contract lifecycle management, document automation and contract drafting in our latest podcast below.

AxDraft - An Onit Company

Drafting contracts just got easier with document automation from AXDRAFT – now an independent Onit subsidiary.

Onit announced the acquisition of the Y Combinator-backed company today. AXDRAFT – now AXDRAFT, an Onit Company – enables in-house counsel to draft legal documents 10 times faster and complete contracts like nondisclosure agreements and service agreements in less than five minutes.

This is Onit’s second acquisition announcement in 30 days. In November, Onit acquired legal AI company McCarthyFinch and immediately launched Precedent, its intelligence platform, and ReviewAI, software that accelerates contract review by up to 70% and improves user productivity by more than 50%.

Continued Contract Lifecycle Management Innovation

The AXDRAFT acquisition addresses Onit’s commitment to innovating its offerings, especially contract lifecycle management (CLM).

“Disruption is in Onit’s DNA, from launching the industry’s first no-code business process and automation platform, Apptitude, to bringing machine learning and natural language processing to the practice of contracting with Precedent and ReviewAI. We’re also the first in our space to offer two platforms, one for workflow automation and one for artificial intelligence. AXDRAFT is a disruptor to old-line businesses in the document automation space. Our guidance and resources will help the company scale significantly, secure new customers worldwide and contribute to Onit’s aggressive growth strategy,” said Onit’s CEO and co-founder Eric M. Elfman.

Addressing the Challenges of Contract Drafting with AXDRAFT

The contract drafting process comes with multiple challenges – especially when a corporate legal department has a high volume of them to complete. It’s highly manual, repetitive and time-consuming. Plus, as a manual process, there are numerous ways to make mistakes.

AXDRAFT breaks that cycle with its document automation by providing lightning-speed, error-free and multilingual contract drafting.

Yuriy Zaremba, co-founder of AXDRAFT and now its General Manager, understands these challenges firsthand.

“When I was a lawyer, I experienced how routine legal work can be when you draft the same types of documents over and over again. It’s a process that invites mistakes and keeps attorneys from focusing on higher-value contributions,” he explained. “AXDRAFT drafts the contracts and other legal documents in less than five minutes, making it significantly easier for legal professionals to maintain accuracy and collaborate with the businesses they support. We’re excited to join Onit and begin the next phase of our company’s evolution.”

Fueling AXDRAFT is a proprietary algorithm created by its co-founder and now CTO, Oleg Zaremba. The algorithm enables streamlined and extensible document drafting in any language, including Chinese and Japanese. It supports live document preview and data integrations to transform complex documents into simple Q&A processes. Another important distinction: AXDRAFT onboards customers’ documents at no cost, making it a truly turnkey solution.

AXDRAFT is available immediately as a stand-alone, out-of-the-box document automation tool.

Listen to the Latest Episode of Onit’s Podcast 

You can hear more about the acquisition in this podcast interview featuring Eric M. Elfman and Yuriy Zaremba.

To find out more about the AXDRAFT acquisition:

  • Read the press release.
  • If you are an Onit customer, speak with your account manager.
  • Visit the AXDRAFT website at AXDRAFT.com.

 

 

Three Surveys of Interest for Legal Operations Management Professionals

Posted on December 10, 2020 by - Business Process Management

Data is the cornerstone of operations, which is why this blog post focuses on three surveys of particular interest for legal operations management professionals.

Data, Business Strategy and Higher Profitability 

In the 20th Global C-Suite Study, IBM surveyed more than 13,000 C-suite executives around the world to learn more about their organizations’ use of data and how they drive value from it. The study identified four stages of the data journey, including highly sophisticated Torchbearers who have aligned their data strategy with their business strategy, and Aspirationals, those who are just beginning to capture and explore the value of their data.

Unsurprisingly, the Torchbearers lead all other levels in revenue growth, profitability, innovation and managing change.

How do they manage this? The study provides numerous details, but one area in particular is especially helpful. To gather, share and eventually drive better business performance with data, Torchbearers adopt and extend their business platforms to external parties like partners and customers. It provides this example: “A platform that links real estate agents, home inspectors, insurers, and mortgage lenders, for example, puts the customer at the center of a more seamless experience.”

This approach can be replicated with similar success within the microcosm of corporate legal. With a unified, intuitive platform, corporate legal can collaborate across the enterprise (marketing, sales, R&D, HR and more) and outside of it with law firms, legal service providers and other stakeholders. Not only is the level of support and responsiveness enhanced, but legal operations are collecting valuable data to analyze for performance, spend and more.

Modernizing Legal Service Delivery

The 2020 Legal Operations Survey from Deloitte found that 86% of in-house counsel see “an opportunity to modernize legal services provided to their stakeholders.” However, they still have obstacles to overcome, such as a high-volume of time spent handling manual tasks (71%) and a lack of metrics to provide insight into completed work for in-house lawyers and external parties.

Legal operations professionals might find this data point especially interesting:

“77% of respondents felt their legal systems were not integrated with a consistent data taxonomy to allow for visibility into workflows and real-time data.”

The Pandemic Proves Just How Valuable Legal Operations Management Professionals Are to Their Employers

A new survey covered by Law.com shows the pandemic’s effect on corporate legal.  Altman Weil’s survey gathered responses from more than 100 CLOs, finding that 66% of them say the pandemic has decreased their companies’ revenues. Unsurprisingly, 44% say they will reduce 2021 budgets. A decrease in money correlates with these data points:

  • One-third said they have requested additional discounts from law firms
  • 11% said their law departments had to lay off employees
  • 77% said their workloads have increased

One bright spot: Legal operations professionals are invaluable during times like these and law departments recognize this. The survey found that:

“None of the CLO participants reported that their companies had laid off a legal operations manager during the past year. Meanwhile, 75% of legal departments with 50 or more lawyers had at least one legal operations manager in the house and half of all CLOs said they had someone in that role in their department … ”

Investing in legal operations has been an ongoing trend. For example, the CLOC 2020 State of the Industry Report found that:

The size of Legal Operations functions has continued to increase through a combination of full-time employees (FTEs) and contractors as teams demonstrate more impact.

Conclusion

Legal operations management professionals continue to approach their data-driven discipline with innovation. Here are three examples.

  • The Onit Hack the House hackathon, where they had three weeks to create Apps that address critical business challenges across IP, HR, compliance and more. (Voting on the winning App is open to everyone, by the way. Your vote enters you for a chance to win an electric scooter. The link also includes demos.)
  • Three teams of legal operations experts debated the best way to control costs for a fictional corporate legal department. You can see who won here.
  • The Legal Marketing Association Annual Conference featured a presentation with a head of legal operations, a partner for an AmLaw 200 law firm and a Legal Lean Sigma expert to explain how they worked together to create stronger relationships and results. You can read more about that here.

The Great Debate: Three Teams of Legal Operations Management Experts Explore How to Reduce Outside Counsel Expenses

Posted on December 2, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The general counsel of your $30 billion conglomerate approaches you with a request. As the new GC, she’s looking to make her mark while addressing the unique challenges brought on by COVID. She’s tasked you with a critical mission: Discover how the corporate legal department can reduce outside counsel expenses.

This was the hypothetical scenario presented in a recent debate hosted by Buying Legal Council and Onit. Three teams of legal operations professionals examined how to accomplish this for this fictional company, which has $200 million in legal spend, a panel of 100-200 law firms and 75 internal staff in multiple countries. Here’s an overview of what each team proposed.

Team One: Bring More Work In-House

Members:

  • William Bremner, Sr. Director, Law Department Management, Consilio (captain)
  • Vianka Wong, Sr. Corporate Paralegal, Tronox
  • Roycee Hasuko, Director of Product Engagement, SimpleLegal

The first team proposed in-house staffing optimization, including work analysis and skills assessment, to preserve in-house positions while maximizing existing resources. This included a value review of all outside counsel work based on a level of complexity, quality and cost. Based on this research and resulting analytics, the team proposed a Legal Entity Management beta program that brought more work in-house and resulted in 60% program savings. When extrapolated to an entire year, the team found a potential for outside counsel savings of $34 million.

Team Two: Leverage Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs) More

Members:

  • Robin Snasdell, Managing Director, Consilio (captain)
  • Jo Ellen Hatfield, Sr. Manager, Procurement Professional Services, Bunge Ltd.
  • Brad Rogers, COO and Chief of Staff, TIAA

Team Two determined that the best way to achieve savings with the lowest risk and better results is to leverage ALSPs. This “replacement cost revolution” relies on new firms offering alternative ways to get work done at a lower cost.  Lawyers spend 25% of their time below their license and permanent staff can eventually end up overqualified. The ALSPs offer numerous opportunities, including costing three to seven times less than in-house or law firms, instant access to talent and expertise and the ability to “plug and play” repetitive tasks with established and consistent performance metrics.

Team Three: Renegotiate Terms With Existing Outside Counsel

Members:

  • Silvia Hodges-Silverstein, Buying Legal Council (captain)
  • Greg Kaple, Sr. Director Legal Department, Kaiser Foundation
  • Richard Brzakala, Director Global Legal Services, CIBC

Team Three advocated for renegotiation to focus on transparency, partnership and innovation. In this scenario, the company’s relationship with firms goes beyond transactional work. However, there is still the need to balance the value of those relationships with the company’s fiscal responsibility to shareholders ahead of a potential economic downturn. The team recommends cost management actions such as a temporary moratorium on market-rate increases, budgeting, leveraging technology to reduce costs and an emphasis on working effectively and efficiently. As a result, cost savings could measure up to $1.75 million with information security mitigating against higher costs on items such as class action litigation and increased insurance premiums.

After a round of questions from GC judges Stasha Jain of Onit and Michael Flanagan of Consilio, debate attendees selected the winning team.

We won’t spoil the results here, but we do invite you to watch the recorded debate to learn about the strategy and tactics recommended by each team. Congratulations to all the teams on their insightful work.

This debate is part of  Lean Into LegalOps, a virtual learning and networking program for legal operations professionals worldwide. For notices of future educational events, sign up here.

Four Compelling Ways Corporate Legal Departments Use Matter Management and E-Billing Solutions

Posted on November 10, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Roughly 30 years ago, the idea of computers managing in-house matters and outside counsel billing was an appealing concept. Paper ruled those processes, with lawyers slogging through reams of bills and digging through filing cabinets for documents.

Thanks to advances in software, hardware, the cloud, mobile computing and more, matter management and legal e-billing solutions are now fundamental parts of corporate legal departments’ toolkits. The technologies help legal professionals understand data, create efficiencies and increase business contributions. With this in mind, here are four exciting ways in-house professionals are leveraging eBilling and matter management.

Workload Management

Internal time tracking for in-house legal professionals can shed light on the type of work lawyers and staff members are assigned and performing and enable immediate changes based on this data. With reporting, you can identify surface administrative versus substantive assignments, as well as unique, high-risk matters versus repetitive work. G.C.s can review data to ensure equitable matter staffing and projects. Such data may also be used to guide recruiting efforts, justify budgets and navigate future hiring.

Diversity and Inclusion  

In March 2019, more than 60 U.K. and European general counsel – including G.C.s from the GC 100 and the European G.C. association – signed a letter demanding more diversity from their law firms. The U.S. has also prioritized diversity, with G.C.s signing pledges and joining forces with law firms to jump-start new diversity-related innovations. Now, matter management and eBilling support the cause. Using these systems, in-house counsel can review demographic information on timekeepers from law firms. The data reveals how work was assigned, guides changes, allows monitoring of those changed practices and leads to a continual cycle of improvement.

The same tactic can be used in-house, with G.C.s reviewing internal staff to ensure they reflect the company’s efforts to move the needle on diversity and inclusion programs within the law department and across the overall company.

Proven Value

The pandemic has forced many companies to rethink and reset. As a result, initiatives arise to increase efficiency and control costs. Automation with matter management and eBilling supports both of those priorities, streamlining administrative work and decreasing the time it takes to complete work. By capturing the new efficiencies, time saved, advances in work made possible by time savings and increased output, corporate legal departments can align with corporate initiatives.

More importantly, matter management and legal eBilling solutions enable a legal team to justify why funds are being spent and effectively communicate and quantify how much risk was mitigated through legal spend. For example, consider a high-stake matter that may significantly impact a company and its abilities. In a situation like that, any amount of spend less than that value may be seen as a win.

Enterprise-Wide Operations

Corporate legal work stretches beyond the corporate legal department’s boundaries and across the entire enterprise, touching H.R., compliance, marketing, sales and more. Having a single platform for technology, including matter management and eBilling, allows corporate legal to use Apps to increase cross-departmental efficiencies and responsiveness. The Apps also encourage adoption since most of the users are already familiar with the platform and its solutions’ general look and feel.

This approach also enables a legal team to work cross-functionally and eliminate the “black box” perspective. Other groups can send information to legal for review and work with legal to appropriately engage outside counsel. Legal still has oversight but is also able to see broad risk management wins.

Here are a few examples of how Apps amplify the power of matter management and spend management:

  • An international automotive manufacturer uses an App to automate reporting for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability, and Documentation (TREAD) Act, reducing manual work and ensuring the company complies with the act.
  • A Fortune 500 global consumer products company relies on an App to centralize marketing challenge requests, increasing knowledge management and enabling analytics to understand the consistency and success rates of challenges.
  • One company uses an App to help manage all of the necessary business processes, reviews and approvals for the transfer of assets between portfolio companies and generates the legal documents needed to memorialize the transactions. As a result, the company can handle even more complex financial transactions with the same size staff.

Doubtless, use cases for matter management, legal e-Billing solutions and other vital legal operations systems will evolve as technology does. Automation, AI and more will continue to help legal operations further the efficiencies, insight and savings for their corporate legal departments. 

Many thanks go to Rodolfo Christophersen, Regional Legal Operations Manager of Mercado Libre, who joined Onit experts for this piece. It was originally posted on the International Legal Technology Association’s blog here.