Category: Business Process Management

Legal Tech Trends & Examples in Europe (and Beyond)

Posted on November 6, 2020 by - Business Process Management

In this Q&A, we’re speaking with U.K.-based Derek Southall, founder and CEO of Hyperscale Group Limited and an expert on legal tech trends. He talks with us about how technology is reshaping the delivery of corporate legal services in Europe and around the globe and the shifting relationship between law firms and corporate legal departments.

Q: Tell us a bit about your legal technology experience.

Southall: I started as a corporate finance lawyer and, in the late 1990s, moved into a role as partner and head of strategic development, looking at efficiency and how to use technology for the firm and its clients. After taking a break from corporate law, I started looking into technology developments at the time like case management, intranets, portals, and document assembly. They were crazy times. It was the dotcom boom with firms making huge claims. Law firms were starting to embrace technology and were getting themselves ready to make significant changes – some were saying they’d be supported by huge percentages of digital income within three years. A few wanted to “own the dealroom” while others claimed they would make all their know-how available to clients.

I was effectively appointed as one of the first innovation leaders at partner level in a law firm and commend my former firm for their vision and foresight. It was both a scary and hugely exciting time. You could not even hire people due to the demand from dotcoms.

However, 20 years down the road, sadly, we’re still dealing with a lot of the same issues. Many of the fears did not materialize and the momentum was slower than many expected once the dotcom bubble burst. I’ve realized that very few technologies have made a material difference in speeding up the delivery of law. Most tech is not legal tech but instead is tech – infrastructure tech and focused on storing information.

Q: Has legal technology changed drastically in the last decade?

Southall: It has, in other ways. Today you can break tech into three areas: digital basics, enabling tech and disruptive tech like AI and blockchain. Imagine it as an onion. It’s harder the closer you get to the outside. You have to get under the skin of legal and work cross-functionally with lawyers, which not all lawyers understand. These projects can’t be done for people. They need to be done with them and lawyer time is precious. Also, ROI is lower as you typically have a higher number of projects, each benefiting smaller numbers of people.

Law is a $900 billion global business, and most of the work is still delivered with manual processes. There is technology, but most of it stores information. Still, not much technology actually tackles the delivery of law. But we see a greater appetite for technology, even from lawyers who haven’t grown up with it. It is a huge opportunity.

Q: What are the top legal tech trends in the European legal community right now?

Southall: According to the latest figures, the legal tech market is worth about $15.6 billion, and $9.6 billion of that is corporate. Many new technologies, such as AI, are more beneficial to in-house teams than law firms as they have a greater corpus of similar documentation. The biggest priorities are around financial management, document and matter management and metrics. It’s about knowing who’s doing what work where. Also, there is a huge trend in terms of uptake in contract management as it goes straight to the top and bottom line.

More widely, I also see an increase in analytical tools as many countries are providing data under open licenses which can be exploited. Predictive analysis is becoming very real.

Law firms are in a difficult space. Many are full-service because they’re trying to support their clients as much as possible, but this means it is hard to really improve efficiency in every area. You might have 63 teams in 19 sectors and 18 jurisdictions. How do you prioritize that and help everyone in every market? Some firms have resorted to partnering and others are leveraging no and low code systems. Others are buying productized AI. It is a hard area though.

Q: What do you see happening in other markets?

Southall: Beyond the U.K. and U.S., you can find some great examples of innovation. Impressive things are coming out of Asia and Australia. Singapore has invested massively in driving its startup market. Legal tech is genuinely a global market. The U.S. and U.K. are only one piece of the equation.

Q: How do you see the law firm/corporate legal relationship changing in the next decade?

Southall: Law firms started putting in place best-in-breed technology before corporate did. Now corporate seems to be embracing technology at a faster rate, and that technology lends itself better to their needs. Law firms are ahead, but corporate seems to be accelerating much more quickly and will overtake law firms. The scope and ROI is often larger too.

Work given to firms by in-house legal may well diminish or at least change as their expectations for more efficient work and knowledge of technology increase. Corporations are heavily marketed to by software providers, raising the level of understanding the average in-house lawyer perhaps more so than in many private practice firms.  Virtually every major corporation will have an Alternative Legal Services Providor now , which will also perhaps take more of the routine work away from firms and firms are fighting back by launching their own.

Law firms will have to increasingly leverage tech to be more efficient and to interface with their clients’ systems and the increasing number of platforms emerging in the market. COVID has also accelerated everything and technology adoption at law firms is no exception. Firms wishing to attract the best talent in a post COVID world will also need to ensure they provide their people with the very best systems.

Legal work and how it’s delivered will look very different in the future. Those firms who get this right will reap the rewards in years to come, but sadly the reverse is always true. Someone said to me a year ago, “Why would a technologist want to work in law?” Given it is a $900 billion undigitized market, I would suggest it is a huge opportunity. What is there not to like for great technologists?

Many thanks to Derek for sharing his insight. If you’d like to contact him, you can reach him at [email protected] and www.hyperscalegroup.com.

One more note: If you’re interested in connecting with the greater in-house legal community to share experiences, lessons and successes, sign up to join Onit’s Lean into LegalOps program for Europe or the U.S.

 

How to Reduce Legal Hold Complexities During A Time of Zettabyte-Level Data

Posted on October 29, 2020 by - Business Process Management

As the amount of global data increases exponentially, so do the challenges related to the process of legal holds.

IDC predicts that worldwide electronic data will reach 175 zettabytes by 2025, with an average person creating and participating in up to 5,000 digital interactions a day.1 What does that amount of data look like? One publication explains it like this: “A single zettabyte will fill 1,000 datacenters or about 20% of Manhattan.”2

That’s a lot of data – especially for corporations with hundreds or thousands of employees and locations worldwide.

Now consider this amount of data in the context of a legal hold. When you combine the sheer amount of data with the fact that it exists on multiple systems, mobile devices, cloud-based solutions and in shared and private drives, it vastly complicates the process.

Yet, many companies still rely on email to manage legal holds.

Preserving Data

It’s now more important than ever to preserve electronically stored information (ESI) correctly  – especially when undergoing litigation.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 37(e)3 states that:

If electronically stored information that should have been preserved in the anticipation or conduct of litigation is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it, and it cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court:

(1) upon finding prejudice to another party from loss of the information, may order measures no greater than necessary to cure the prejudice; or

(2) only upon finding that the party acted with the intent to deprive another party of the information’s use in the litigation may:

(A) presume that the lost information was unfavorable to the party;

(B) instruct the jury that it may or must presume the information was unfavorable to the party; or

(C) dismiss the action or enter a default judgment.

If ESI isn’t preserved in accordance to discovery, judges can impose monetary penalties or even rule against the party that lost the information.

The Importance of a Legal Holds Solution

Ideal legal holds solutions work on multiple levels. They enable corporate legal departments to notify custodians of their duty to preserve information in a timely manner while collecting and storing custodian acknowledgements, questions, preserve notices and data in a secure location. It also offers real-time tracking so team members know the status of collection requests, when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention. The tool should also create comprehensive dashboard views, allowing those involved to see when a custodian leaves an organization. From there, they can enable email archiving or suspend the destruction of data.

Automation plays a vital role in a legal holds solution. It relieves the burden of manual work with automated workflows that can be configured to match a company’s legal hold process. It also provides automatic notifications and reminders to support compliance.

Legal Holds Solution Benefits

Aside from these features, how does a legal hold solution benefit a corporate legal department?

First, they ensure compliance. Real-time dashboards, reports and audit trails ensure relevant data is collected and preserved – demonstrating that the proper care has happened to preserve and collect digital evidence. Processes supported by legal holds technology also demonstrate an appropriate level of diligence as automation reduces the chances for human error.

Next, when based on a low- or no-code platform, a legal hold solution enables a quick setup and deployment with little to no IT involvement, increasing time to value.

They also enhance overall visibility into the legal hold process, which is imperative for companies undergoing numerous cases. By being available on multiple browsers or devices, it allows easy access to information.

Finally, a legal holds solution can also reduce costs by tracking budgets and spend by matter, matter type or law firm.

Conclusion

Whether it is for one case or many, technology can reduce the complications of legal holds in today’s data-heavy business environment while minimizing risk. If you’d like to learn more about a legal holds solution, visit here.

 

1 IDC: Expect 175 zettabytes of data worldwide by 2025
2 Infographic: How Big Is a Yottabyte?
3 Discovery Sanctions under Amended Rule 37(e): A Safe(r) Harbor

 

Legal Department Operations: The Key to Better Partnerships Between In-House Legal Departments and Outside Counsel

Posted on October 27, 2020 by - Business Process Management

The prevalence and role of legal department operations have both expanded exponentially in recent years. While in-house legal departments once operated almost exclusively as silos within corporations, today these departments are undergoing a significant transformation in the face of expectations that they help drive their organizations’ value.

Legal operations is at the center of this transition, helping in-house departments implement the right processes, activities and staffing expansion to help grow their companies through effectively providing legal services.

“Organizations like the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium or the Association of Corporate Counsel had only had a few hundred legal operations members five years ago. Today, they count thousands of members among their ranks,” said Christine Juhasz (C.J.), head of legal operations for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance. “There’s no question that legal operations professionals are connecting more as a community and, as a result, growing their skills and driving the legal operations conversation in new directions.”

That sophistication is paying off. More and more these days, law firms are actively aligning with law department legal operations to become better partners with the companies they serve. This offers many opportunities to deepen relationships between legal and business professionals, including law firm marketing and business development professionals.

In an effort to explore and foster deeper relationships with corporate legal clients, the Legal Marketing Association invited a panel of legal operations leaders to speak at its annual conference on October 22 which included C.J., Catherine Alman MacDonagh, J.D., CEO and founder of Legal Lean Sigma Institute LLC; Kate Villanueva, partner at Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP; and Rhonda Oliver, account manager for Onit. The session, titled “How to Think Like a Legal Ops Professional,” shed light on how legal operations leaders think about engaging outside counsel.

“Legal marketers are challenged,” commented MacDonagh. “They’re the first to go through an RFP or tender papers carefully. They’re painfully aware that clients want factual information and data.”

An Innovative Approach for Stronger Legal Department Operations Partnerships

Legal department operations plays a large role in helping corporate legal departments understand processes, metrics and more. Though the struggle for law firms has historically been that they serve many clients at once, each has its own processes and ways of looking at things. By collaborating with legal operations, these firms can now map out processes for a given client much more quickly and efficiently than they could in the past, making it easier to manage several clients at the same time.

C.J. collaborated with the Legal Lean Sigma Institute to introduce Lean and Six Sigma process efficiencies into outside counsel relationships. The learning and practice of Lean principles evolved into a pilot project and then a mutually successful long-term relationship with Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath. Part of the approach included a hybrid alternative fee arrangement that combined fixed fees and hourly components.

“Most law firms don’t even know that Lean Sigma is so valuable,” explained C.J. “We got in a room and memorialized processes. It was a long-term bet on Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath’s part, and it paid dividends for them. When the firm wants to discuss rates, there’s no debate. MassMutual saves more than 12% per matter each year under the arrangement, and the firm is locking in the business.”

As MacDonagh pointed out, “There’s increased pressure on corporate legal departments. They’re being measured and looking at net promoter scores internally. They need to be ever more efficient, and that trend will only continue. A collaborative approach to improving processes like this gives a law firm competitive advantages. If you’re a legal marketer or in business development, you’re uniquely positioned to help your firm emerge from this pandemic in an even better position. You should be approaching your clients with ideas like these and not waiting to be asked.”

The result of the Legal Lean Sigma approach was a powerful partnership between MassMutual and Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath that never would even have been attempted five years ago. It also earned MassMutual a 2019 ACC Value Champion award and serves as a model for firms looking to better partner with the in-house departments they serve.

Technology and Transformation

Technology has also been at the forefront of transformations like these. Systems such as platforms and enterprise legal management enable legal department operations to capture, manage and report on valuable data.

“In the overall scheme of legal operations in achieving its objectives with less, technology has increasingly played a prominent role. Driving efficiencies and controlling costs in the legal department are being borne, to a significant degree, by well-chosen technology,” said Oliver.

Legal Department Operations Resources

Legal operations is critical to building solid partnerships with law firms in today’s legal market. Here are additional resources from the presenters for those who wish to learn more about legal operations management:

 

4 Core Benefits of the Leading Enterprise Legal Management Solutions

Posted on October 20, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In today’s fast-paced and quickly evolving business environment, corporate counsel and legal department professionals want to work faster, smarter and more efficiently. One of the best ways to do this is by automating manual processes with enterprise legal management solutions.

Manual processes are sneaky. They manage to irritate most knowledge workers but don’t always provoke a full-fledged resistance. The work has to get done, so the processes – which often include manual components – have to be completed as well.

However, the time spent on manual process accumulates drastically during a week. According to this survey, over 40% of workers spend at least 25% of their week on repetitive tasks and nearly 60% say they could save six or more hours a week with automation.

A Modern Approach to Enterprise Legal Management

Modern enterprise legal management solutions are systems of engagement, built on a platform that can easily accommodate new Apps and solutions to handle evolving business process needs. They employ automation, such as the review of documents and assigning tasks, to help law departments better serve their businesses while improving operational efficiency. While they provide valuable matter management and legal spend management, they aren’t limited to those solutions. The one-two punch of a platform combined with automation offers a  foundation for current and future needs, accommodating solutions such as contract lifecycle management, legal holds, Apps and more.

With this in mind, here are four simple, core benefits that an enterprise legal management solution can provide.

  1. Maximize Savings

Process automation with an enterprise legal management solution can cut operating costs by up to 90%, while at least 45% of current paid activities can be automated. It allows you to easily manage, track and analyze legal spend to minimize company risk and exposure. With these tools, legal departments can create visibility into spend and a strategy to manage it going forward.

  1. Increase Efficiency

An enterprise legal management solution drives process improvements in all areas of legal operations. It helps corporate legal realize more efficiency with reduced billing error fees, increases productivity and reduces time spent on matter management. Optimal enterprise legal management solutions are simple to configure, easy to deploy and address complex everyday problems.

  1. Enhance Collaboration

Collaborative tools are proven to have a high impact on businesses, regardless of department size or geographic location – especially now with a rise in remote working. A solution that supports and tracks the multiple contributions often associated with each piece of legal work improves collaboration between internal and external stakeholders. It also encourages greater collaboration across the enterprise, as corporate legal departments automate intake and speed response times with HR, procurement, compliance, marketing and more. Two items offered by modern enterprise legal management solutions enable all of this. First, they provide a consistent and familiar App-based interface, thanks to the platform. Second, a platform that allows unlimited users encourages higher usage and adoption in-house, across departments and with outside counsel.

  1. Simplify Work

With automation, enterprise legal management software streamlines the way lawyers and their legal staff work and get work into the department. It integrates data-driven decision making into standard work processes. It also offers an App-based approach to legal operations that breaks complex tasks into individual, task-based solutions and processes. Both elements simplify work drastically.

If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of enterprise legal management solutions, here are some helpful resources:

How DaVita’s Corporate Legal Department Stays Synced with Evolving Business Needs

Posted on October 15, 2020 by - Business Process Management

In its 23rd annual CEO survey, PwC found 83% of U.S. CEOs prioritize operational efficiencies to drive growth over the next 12 months. The pandemic has forced many businesses to reassess and pivot quickly – meaning that corporate legal departments have had to do the same to stay aligned with strategic initiatives. At the same time, they want to enact change and accommodate new workflows efficiently.

How can a corporate legal department enhance efficiency while quickly adapting to changing business needs? According to Daniel Lee, Director of Legal Operations – Technology & Analytics at DaVita, you need Apps. In this on-demand webinar, he shares how DaVita has invested in building apps to support what he calls “the other lanes” in the corporate legal department. As a result, they’ve streamlined workflows and accelerated change management for areas such as marketing intake and conflict waiver tracking.

Before and After Apps

For example, he describes the “before and after” of their process for reviewing marketing materials. Before, the legal team created and worked from color-coded spreadsheets and email tags – a process that demanded a lot of valuable time to maintain. The company’s legal operations team saw an opportunity to increase efficiency. Working with Onit’s workflow and business process automation platform as the foundation, they built a marketing intake process App. Marketers can request legal review online, uploading information needed for review. Then, the App automated the process, capturing work product, redlines and more. It also gave them weekly reports that help them calculate the type of work associated with these projects.

As a result, Daniel reported that they expect enhanced task management and collaboration, knowledge is stored in a system instead of shared mailboxes, metric generation is simplified and distribution automated.

A Platform Advantage

This is one example of how DaVita has increased efficiency. With Onit Apptitude as its technology platform, the corporate legal department has combined the power of an enterprise legal management solution with the ability to launch Apps to solve critical business challenges quickly. As a result, they can configure their workflows to their specific needs and data and reports are consolidated in one place to make reporting easier and more meaningful.

Apptitude minimizes the need for technical resources. It bridges the gap between technical and business users, providing a no-code platform and a visual drag-and-drop workflow builder with an intuitive visual interface for building and managing workflows. Plus, it allows an unlimited number of users, meaning other departments and contacts can use any Apptitude-powered app without having to incur costs.

In this recorded webinar, you can hear Daniel share the corporate legal department’s vision for enterprise legal management and how they use a platform and apps to supercharge efficiency.

Lean Into LegalOps

The DaVita webinar is one in a series of virtual learning and networking titled Lean Into LegalOps. The program, available in both the U.S. and Europe, brings Onit customers and the greater in-house legal community together to share experiences, lessons and successes through formal webinars, virtual discussions, customer demonstrations and more informal check-in calls. Join Lean Into LegalOps today to get periodic updates on upcoming events and new content, as well as invitations to the virtual events and bi-monthly check-in calls.

 

Are Legal Operations Professionals Ready to Hack the House? Hack, Yeah!

Posted on October 13, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

The next time you’re tapping your iPhone or reviewing a contract on your MacBook Pro, you might want to thank hackathons.

In 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club met for the first time in Menlo Park, California. The group of technology enthusiasts – a group credited as the originator of hackathons – united to talk shop and Altair 8800, swap parts and share information on how to DIY computers. Members influenced by the club included … wait for it … Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who credited the organization with inspiring Apple’s founding.

Hackathons organized more concretely in 1999, with groups collaborating on cryptographic software and a program for Palm Vs. Throughout the years, hackathons have grown in size and frequency, creating companies including GroupMe and Zapier and finding new ways to solve problems. For example, one hackathon focused on discovering how digital technologies can support the epilepsy community. There’s even a company that operates a league for student hackathons.

What’s a Hackathon?

We hear the word a lot. While some may be quite familiar with it, others may not. So let’s define it. Hackathon is a meshing of “hack” and “marathon.” In a general sense, it’s a collaborative group that works together to solve problems using technology.  For example, Onit united with Consilio and Adobe earlier this year to create the Evergreen Donation Emergency Network (EDEN) for a hackathon to solve complex COVID-19 problems. The app, built on Onit Apptitude (a workflow and business process automation platform), connects donors with excess supplies to organizations in need. You can view the EDEN demo here.

Who can Participate?

Hackathons aren’t just for coders. The best results come when people with different strengths and backgrounds are involved. They bring their perspective to the project, which creates stronger results. For example, coders can build a workflow to solve a problem. Still, you need people with intimate knowledge of (for example) the corporate legal operations or process experts to ensure you get the best outcome.

Hack the House

Now, Onit continues to foster innovation with the launch of a new hackathon: Hack the House.

Sign up for Hack the House updatesHack the House, a collaboration with Cosmonauts, is a friendly competition between Onit customers, partners and staff to see who can build the most useful and compelling workflow and collaboration solution using Onit Apptitude.

Each team consists of legal and business experts, certified App Builders and project managers. The teams will have three weeks of virtual hackathon time to identify a challenge to solve, define requirements and build the solution.

Hack the House has of five teams, with each one focused on a particular challenge theme: Team IP, Team HR, Team Europe, Team Diversity and Team Pro Bono.

Once each team builds its solution, the Onit sales engineering team will help them put together a demo story and short video to highlight the solution’s strengths. A judging panel of in-house legal leaders and a public vote open to everyone will determine the winner.

That’s right – you can vote on which team should win. To keep tabs on the hackathon’s project, sign up for updates here. You’ll want to sign up soon because the team members will be released next week.

We’ll announce the winner in early December. Good luck to all the teams!

Workflow and Business Process Automation for Corporate Legal Operations

Corporate legal departments have used Onit Apptitude for years to build innovative solutions to solve enterprise challenges. More than 5,500 apps and 130 solutions have been built on Apptitude, with varying uses such as enterprise legal management, automating the TREAD reporting process and managing the necessary business processes, reviews and approvals for the transfer of assets between portfolio companies. You can read about all the different ways corporate legal has leaned on Apptitude here.

Remember, sign up for Hack the House updates. You’ll be hearing more soon!

Three Challenges to Anticipate – and Avoid – During Your Contract Lifecycle Management Technology Implementation

Posted on September 29, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Today, Onit welcomes Michael Stevens, managing director of Duff & Phelps, as a guest contributor and an expert in contract lifecycle management technology implementations. We announced last week that Duff & Phelps reached the Premier status of the Onit Strategic Alliances program. Duff & Phelps has been a trusted Onit partner since 2017, having worked on more than 20 projects in the U.S. and Europe across various industries such as pharmaceuticals, insurance, high-tech, oil and gas, manufacturing and more.

Managing contracts is a complicated business. The process for even just one contract may often spread across multiple companies, departments, stakeholders, versions and systems. Tracking progress and capturing feedback in spreadsheets and emails rely on manual updates.

And that’s just to get a contract signed.

The management must continue beyond execution to maintenance and renewal. If businesses are not diligent about receiving or delivering everything agreed upon, the advantages gained through negotiations will be forfeited.

More corporate legal departments are adopting contract lifecycle management technology, as evidenced by data and – in my case – experience in the industry. First, workloads are increasing. I’ve heard and seen this during my corporate legal work, but numerous surveys have verified this trend. Second, COVID-19 has impacted general counsel, with this report showing that 67% of general counsel participants consider contracts as a top legal risk in the wake of the pandemic. Finally, let’s look at the numbers. Analysts anticipate that the global software market for contract lifecycle management software will reach $2.4 billion by 2024, growing at a rough rate of 14%.

Altogether, these statistics and trends set the stage for large-scale adoption of contract lifecycle management solutions.

I’ve worked with corporate legal departments on technology implementations for more than 30 years and on over 50 contract lifecycle management technology implementations. My colleagues at Duff & Phelps and I have compiled some of the top challenges to implementation and how to address them.

  1. Legacy Data Migration

There are significant benefits in migrating at least the current active contracts into a contract lifecycle management software and removing them from existing repositories. First, it creates a one-stop shop for users to find existing contracts and request new ones. Second, when doing a new amendment, it is essential to have the original contract and all existing amendments readily available to be able to file the new amendment appropriately. Identifying all existing repositories of contracts is a critical step.

  1. Integrations with Other Business Systems

Every contract documents a business transaction that is being executed by one or more business groups. Those business transactions are often managed in one or more business systems. For example, a sales opportunity may start in the customer relationship management (CRM) system, which leads to the need for a contract. Once the sales contract is signed, order processing and fulfillment may be managed in different systems. For a sales contract, you may wish to integrate with both the upstream CRM system and the downstream order management and/or ERP systems. It is crucial to define all the contract types you wish to automate in the contract lifecycle management software and the corresponding business systems that govern those transactions.

  1. Counterparty Source of Truth (Master Data)

To integrate with other business applications or share useful data with the rest of the company, it is beneficial to integrate with a company-designated source of truth for counterparties. This is a directory of customers, vendors, suppliers and other companies that the target company does business with. Here are the key questions when exploring whether your company has a single source of truth for counterparty and whether it will be useful for contract management.

  • Is there a single source of truth for ALL counterparties or separate sources for customers vs. vendors/suppliers vs. partners/other types of counterparties? Some companies maintain different directories for customers and venders/suppliers. The challenge with separate sources of truth by counterparty type is that sometimes the same company is both a vendor and a customer, thus creating duplication.
  • Do all geographies/business units share the same source(s) of truth? If not, this creates the same duplication problem as above.
  • Does the source of truth contain prospective counterparties and not just approved/active customers and vendors? If it does not contain prospective counterparties, this is problematic for contract lifecycle management software because you need to be able to enter into NDAs and start contract negotiations for other types of contracts with prospective counterparties.
  • Does the source of truth use counterparty legal entity as the foundational data element, and does it capture the relationship between parent and subsidiary legal entities of the counterparty? This is important because contracts are with legal entities of counterparties, not bill-to or ship-to addresses, which are secondary attributes of legal entities. Also, knowledge of the counterparty’s legal entity structure is useful because contracts are often written to allow subsidiaries to operate under the contract with the parent company.
  • How good is the data in the source of truth, and is there a data governance protocol?

Visit here to learn how Duff & Phelps can analyze and enhance how your company manages contracts throughout a lifecycle.

To learn more about reducing costs and increasing profits by automation the contract lifecycle, visit Onit Contract Lifecycle Management. 

About our Guest Author 

Michael Stevens is a managing director of Duff & Phelps and has been helping global companies improve contracting processes and systems for the majority of his career. Stevens is a part of the Duff & Phelps practice group that helps clients with a range of operational improvement and compliance initiatives including contract management, information/document management and governance, legal department operations, intellectual property and merger and acquisition integration.

The Global Spread of Data Privacy Regulations and Their Potential Effect on Legal e-Billing

Posted on September 24, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Gartner estimates that 50% of the world’s population will have personal information covered under local privacy regulations similar to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) within two years. Indeed, governments worldwide, including Australia, Canada and Brazil, are creating new privacy laws or updating existing ones. States in the U.S. are actively legislating in favor of this, with California, Maine and Nevada enacting comprehensive privacy laws.

While this represents a positive to individuals’ data protection, it adds a layer of complexity for companies working across states and countries. Jane A. Bennitt, founder of Global Legal Ebilling and president of the LEDES Oversight Committee for 14 years, talks with us about a development in European Data Privacy that directly impacts legal e-billing.

Q: Tell us about your e-billing and technology experience.

Bennitt: I have nearly a quarter-century of hands-on experience in implementing legal technology, and my specialty is global e-billing. Regularly I work with law departments, insurance claims organizations, law firms and vendors needing assistance with workflows, compliance, automation and metrics. With the nature of my job, I research rules and regulations which apply to electronic invoicing for my clients.

Q: What did you discover recently when looking into EU data privacy laws?

Bennitt: The U.S. government routinely requests information on users from large corporations like Google, Facebook and others. Based on a case out of Ireland, the European court has invalidated the data privacy shield that allows the transfer of personal information on EU citizens to U.S.-based servers. Contractual-based data transfer from the EU to U.S.-based servers is still allowed, which is fortunate because that is the basis for data transfer in legal e-billing. But that also may be challenged in courts.

Q:  What are the implications for corporate legal departments?

Bennitt: Data privacy litigation is hot across the globe. More countries are considering and enacting stricter data privacy regulations, and it is not limited to the EU. I predict there will be a time when there are similar requirements all over the world. The California Consumer Protection Act, which went into effect on 1 Jan 2020, offers protections modeled on GDPR, for example. These regulations provide more comprehensive protections than seen previously,  especially with GDPR. We’ve seen companies hit with massive fines for non-compliance with GDPR and we will see more in the near future.

If your corporate legal department is involved in e-billing and cross-border operations, find out where your e-billing data is hosted. You may need to consider storing e-billing data on multiple global servers in jurisdictions with stringent data privacy regulations. If you’re based in Europe, have a server in Europe. If you’re in Brazil, have your data stored in Brazil or South America.

Q: What advice do you have for corporate legal departments?

Bennitt: I’m not a lawyer, but here are common-sense steps to take to protect your e-billing and its data:

  • Talk with your e-billing vendor and find out the steps they have taken or are considering regarding compliance to regulations such as the GDPR.
  • Reach out to corporate counsel and look at your contracts. Make sure you have covered all the bases for contractual-based data exchange with your e-billing vendor. Also, consider your employee contracts to ensure they allow for the collection of this type of information that may survive their employment tenure.
  • Contracts between legal e-billing vendors and their clients should identify the type of personal data collected and include a clause allowing data transfer.
  • Outside Counsel Guidelines should similarly identify the personal data collected and grant permission for this collection.
  • Companies should proactively explore options if contractual-based data transfers are invalidated. Better yet, work with your e-billing vendors. It’s better to work proactively.

Thanks so much to Jane for sharing her insights into e-billing and regulation trends. If you’d like to contact her, you can reach out via LinkedIn or email.

To learn more about legal e-billing and legal spend management from Onit, visit here. 

A Legal Industry Expert Shares Secrets for a Successful Corporate Legal Department Metrics Program

Posted on September 22, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

How can corporate legal departments assess performance in an objective, tangible and quantified manner? According to Mary Jummati, managing director of Morae, the answer lies with setting up a metrics program. She dropped by our virtual podcast studio to discuss corporate legal department metrics, technology’s role and the best-kept secrets for a successful metrics program.

Mary helps improve organizational performance of legal operations through technology and has more than 25 years of experience in strategic planning, leadership, project and program management, software selection, enterprise software implementation and change management. She believes in serving the legal community in the most foundational way possible—by helping clients solve complex problems.

In short, she knows what she’s talking about.

In the podcast, Mary discusses how a formal corporate legal department metrics program:

  • Articulates business impact
  • Promotes understanding of the work performed within the corporate legal department
  • Helps inform data-driven decisions

Morae and Onit – A Winning Partnership

Morae is a valued Onit partner that brings a deep understanding of how attorneys work to Onit implementations – especially with a platform approach.  As Mary explains in the podcast, “The biggest thing our clients see when implementing Onit is the visibility into the reporting and metrics using the dashboard. It makes it easy to analyze and evaluate performance against budget and to see trends across your matter portfolios. The platform allows you to tell that story in a very meaningful way like never before.”

Take, for example, Pearson. The company partnered with Onit and Morae to create a transformational shared service center to support commercial transactions worldwide for more than 10,000 users. Powered by contract lifecycle management technology and Apptitude platform from Onit and Morae’s expertise, Pearson achieved a 30 percent improved contract turnaround time. As a result, the company earned the prestigious ACC Value Champion Award from the Association of Corporate Counsel. You can hear about their journey here.

Many thanks to Mary for joining our podcast.

To hear her podcast, visit here.

To hear more episodes of the Onit podcast, visit here.

More Data and New Legal Technology Will Force Lawyers to Expand their Digital Skillsets

Posted on September 22, 2020 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

Data proficiency has become a “must-have” for law firms, as technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) continue to change the legal profession forever. Categorizing the sheer amount of data housed in legal databases, automating standard tasks such as due diligence and contract reviews are all much easier and more accurate with legal AI solutions.

It’s also important to understand how these advances in legal technology and increasing adoption will impact junior legal workers, whether it be the latest class of incoming lawyers fresh off the bar exam, or graduates outside of law school being recruited to man the new legal data infrastructure.

As Alex Smith of Reed Smith points out, not being equipped with skillsets in data analysis will soon be a barrier to getting legal jobs at all, as will the lack of core technical knowledge. This alone should be enough to convince today’s law students to seek technical training as part of their curriculum, but there’s more to it.

As Smith notes, the demand for graduates in STEM fields, as opposed to traditional law school graduates, will only increase as firms and legal divisions look to stay ahead of the curve and meet market demand. It won’t be unheard of for math, science and engineering graduates to be brought in to help develop and maintain legal databases and technology tools.

That being said, the junior legal class of today still has time to build up their digital proficiencies and better understand where the market is going. Part of this is understanding what legal advising means in this digital day and age. At the very least, anyone in a legal role will need to know the legal and privacy implications of technology.

You might look at this picture and assume it means far less junior-level positions will be in the mix due to automation, but that’s not the case at all. A recent report by consultancy firm AlphaBeta says only 15% of work conducted by legal professionals will be automated by 2030, much less than fields like mining or construction. The Law Society of England and Wales even points to an increase in hiring of junior legal staff members, largely as a means to parse through all the data being generated by digital tools.

Jean Yang, our VP of the Onit AI Center of Excellence, had a proof point earlier in her career that demonstrated the importance of automating tasks through technology. One of her assignments in her first year as a junior lawyer was repetitive, manual and time consuming, so as an experiment she asked a developer she knew to write some code to automatically complete parts of the tasks, which she then went back and manually reviewed.

This test turned a five-day task into a two-day task and left her ample time to consider the substantive issues in the case, and tackle things from a more strategic level. Having this time to work on client needs was beneficial for her growth, which is something junior legal team members are always hungry for.

It’s only a matter of time before law firms start to search for graduates who can help them merge technology and the law, both putting the pressure on law schools to train their students in a broader range of skills and opening opportunities for grads who are tech-savvy and adaptive. Keep in mind, this marriage of worlds goes the other way too, with STEM jobs increasingly needing soft skills like good judgment, decision making, deductive reasoning, critical thinking and problem solving that legal graduates have in spades. In short, it’s time to bridge law and STEM and take advantage of them, before the field gets too crowded.

Interested in learning more about legal automation? Hear how Pearson used automation to transform legal service delivery.