Category: Business Process Management

Five Signs Your Company Needs a New Way to Manage Contracts

Posted on August 13, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Contract lifecycle management solutions have seen wide adoption over the last five years, so much so that they’ve developed a market capacity worth more than a billion dollars. By 2024, the global market for contract lifecycle management software is estimated to increase to $2.9 billion*.

Why is there such a substantial increase?

Contract lifecycle management solutions offer a significant return on investment. They allow companies to capture, automate and analyze the entire contract lifecycle from initiation through approval, compliance and renewals. By eliminating data silos, automating workflows and reducing the overall time spent, a contract lifecycle management solution drives business value.

In this first of three blog posts, we dissect our latest whitepaper and look at what to expect from a contract lifecycle management solution. The posts will discuss everything from signs that you need one to how to select the right solution for your business.

If you’re the type of person who likes to skip to the front of the line, you don’t have to wait. You can download the entire whitepaper here. For everyone else, let’s begin.

Is it Time to Change How you Handle Contracts? Consider these Indicators.

Contract lifecycle management poses significant challenges, especially when you consider that the process for most companies extends across multiple departments, geographies, versions and external participants. Complex processes that are handled manually can lead to risks and too much time spent on low-yield tasks like following up or locating a contract version. The cumulative impact of these factors can cost your organization an immense amount of time and money.

Here are five signs that your company should explore a new approach.

  1. Inability to Make Changes

How does your company manage changes over the entire lifespan of a contract, from the first draft through renewals? Are the processes and technologies involved flexible enough to anticipate and accommodate renewal data, pricing changes and emerging legal requirements?

  1. Information Silos and Manual Processes

A business can impair contract management progress if it lacks a centralized, accessible location for contract information that tracks changes in real-time. Human error, bottlenecked contract cycles and limited process control – typical in many corporations when it comes to contract management – increase risk dramatically.

  1. Inconsistent Legal Language

Contracts depend on approved and consistent language. Gaps in standardized language introduce risk and confusion. If your contracts consistently have language consistency issues, it may open the door to unexpected risks.

  1. Struggles between Timeliness and Risk

Lawyers, who work to reduce risks, prefer to review contracts in detail. Sales professionals, who have the job of closing deals, have an interest in getting contracts through quickly. If your company is experiencing friction like this, it likely needs a better approach to contract lifecycle management.

  1. Lack of Insight into Contract Processes and Variables

When corporate legal doesn’t have insight into contract terms, obligations and value, it cannot ensure the business is getting the right value for deals, and money may be lost.

The Benefits of Contract Lifecycle Management Solutions

A contract lifecycle management solution – a combination of software and services – gives businesses unparalleled visibility into and control of their contract portfolio without sacrificing speed or time. It illuminates the journey of individual contracts from the initial request to managing obligations. It also applies technology and business best practices to the process to such as financial reporting, operational efficiency and overall contract compliance.

Ready for more information? Our next blog post of this series, coming out next week, will cover how to choose a solution. Until then, here are ways to explore these solutions and how they will impact your company:

 

* Markets and Markets: Contract Management Software Market by Component, 2019

3 Things to Consider When Signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement

Posted on August 11, 2020 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management

Non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) establish a confidential relationship between parties who share sensitive information. A well-drafted NDA can protect sensitive information from being shared with others without your consent. Without NDAs, any information shared can be taken advantage of or publicly disclosed.

Following are some tips when creating and/or signing an NDA to ensure that you protect your best interests:

Q: What is the Scope of Confidentiality?

Make sure the purpose of the agreement is clearly understood and defined. Consider what the permitted use of information is and how long you are expected to keep it secret. Otherwise, the other party could use your information for their own benefit, or you could be expected to keep the information private for years, etc.

Q: What is the Definition of Confidentiality?

It is important to specify the kinds of information you want to protect or exclude from protection under this agreement and make sure to include that in your definition of confidentiality. If you don’t get specific, your discussions may not be legally protected or you may risk accidentally breaching the agreement.

Q: What Happens if There is a Breach of the Agreement?

Pay attention to the consequences of breaching the agreement and avoid any extreme penalties, such as liquidated damages or indemnities. Otherwise you may be facing an expensive legal bill.

Being informed empowers you to make smarter legal decisions now and in the future.

Review your next NDA agreement with ReviewAI. Try out the Confidentiality Skillset to find core issues quickly when protecting your confidential information, and further your understanding and obligations of confidentiality.

 

Virtual Court from a Judge’s Perspective

Posted on August 4, 2020 by - Business Process Management

Welcome to virtual court. The judge is in.

Many lawyers and legal professionals have faced the COVID-19 shift, moving from workplaces to home offices. As a result, it’s redefined how law firms and corporate legal departments operate. It also impacts court proceedings. Court systems have faced a far more advanced challenge: how to hold sessions virtually and accommodate counsel, witnesses and legal considerations.

In this blog post, Judge Tanya Garrison of the Harris County Civil Court discusses virtual court, its potential long-term effects and how attorneys can excel in Zoom hearings.

Q: How has your court system handled going virtual?

Judge Garrison: We all got Zoom accounts instantly. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Texas Supreme Court has issued numerous emergency orders to give judges the authority to do what needs to be done during this time. For example, it allowed courts to conduct hearings remotely and court deadlines to be extended as necessary.

One of the concerns we had involved the Open Courts Provision in the Texas Constitution. The hearings have to be open so that anyone can watch. In the early days of COVID and Zoom, it wasn’t ideal to publicly post meeting links. The Harris County Civil Court experimented with multiple approaches like YouTube live streaming. I opted for phone hearings for the first month. That way, I could put the call-in number on the internet to comply with an open court. Finally, the court found a hybrid solution that involves judges and counsel connecting on Zoom and then live streaming the session so the public can see it.

Q: How have you found the change?

Judge Garrison: Everything takes a little bit longer now. We all have to have more patience. I do miss the human interaction and lawyers debating in a courtroom. It’s a hard adjustment but a necessary one.

Q: Has the change affected how your court runs?

Judge Garrison: Trials are all postponed, so most of my work is overseeing pretrial activities, discovery and mediation. I’ve moved more submissions to written ones rather than oral hearings. If I need explanations, I’ll have a call with counsel afterward.

Q: How have attorneys responded to virtual court?

Judge Garrison: The legal profession is filled with a variety of people with a range of talents and abilities. Some lawyers are excellent with technology, and some are learning. While being good with technology is a perceived advantage, that isn’t what I care about. I rule on merit. 

We’re asking lawyers to adapt really quickly to technology. I’m impressed with how well the legal profession has responded. A year ago, an online videoconference would have been implausible. Now, it’s not a big deal.

Q: Do you see virtual court having positive changes for the legal system?

Judge Garrison: The legal profession may realize that we can operate this way and we don’t have to be in the courthouse to do it. We’ll have more efficient hearings. If we continue to connect virtually, clients may end up saving money. A bill for a court hearing may reflect 15 minutes instead of three hours.

It’d have a positive impact on settlement hearings for minors. Moms and dads usually have to take a day off of work to testify. Now, they can give their testimony on Zoom, and it takes minutes instead of an entire day. It saves them time, hassle and frustration. Virtual also allows for depositions over longer distances. It can accommodate someone if they’re out of town.

On the other hand, it may take away educational opportunities for younger lawyers. When I was a young lawyer, I would sit on a docket and watch the cases in front of me. You can learn a lot that way. Now, you join at your time and drop off when done.

Q: What advice do you have for lawyers in virtual court?

Judge Garrison: A good Zoom hearing is similar to a good Zoom meeting. You have to frame yourself effectively with the camera. For example, don’t sit in front of a window. You have to be more patient with the other people on the video hearing and make sure you’re paying attention to nonverbal cues.

The biggest tip I have – for live or online – is to write better. I read motions before the hearing. Write a concise, clean motion and articulate why you are entitled to what you need. If you write a bad motion, I don’t fully understand and can’t give you what you want.

Q: What are the limitations of virtual hearings?

Judge Garrison: Unfortunately, online hearings don’t allow for two key parts of the legal structure: presenting physical evidence and witness transparency. You’re not going to have a Tom Cruise in “A Few Good Men” cross-examination moment in a virtual conference. If you’re on a Zoom hearing with a witness in front of the computer screen, it’s hard to know who is sitting behind it. Is there a lawyer feeding the witness answers? That’s an extreme example, though.

Q: What do you see happening when it’s safe to go back to court?

Judge Garrison: I will probably conduct mostly in-person hearings again when the courts can reconvene. However, the positive changes that can come from virtual hearings will hopefully lead me to have more virtual dockets in the future, if possible.

Thank you to Judge Garrison for sharing her virtual court experience.

About Judge Tanya N. Garrison

Judge Garrison was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She graduated from Oklahoma State University in 1997, where she met her husband. After graduation, the Garrisons moved to Houston, where Judge Garrison attended the University of Houston for law school, graduating in 2000 with honors in both oral advocacy and academics.

During law school, Judge Garrison began working at the law firm of Weycer, Kaplan, Pulaski & Zuber, P.C., where she practiced law until being elected judge of the 157th in 2018. Prior to taking the bench, Judge Garrison’s law practice consisted of entirely civil litigation with an emphasis on appellate law. She is board certified in civil appellate law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization and a proud member of the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Five Crucial Components of Enterprise Legal Management Solutions

Posted on July 31, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

The most meaningful enterprise solutions help grow a business.

Enterprise legal management solutions are no exception.

With robust enterprise legal management technology, corporate legal departments can generate gains in efficiency, productivity, business insight and cost savings – all valuable commodities when priorities are quickly shifting.

In this blog post, we’ll run down five of the most valuable parts of enterprise legal management solutions. But first, let’s talk about data vs. process.

Data vs. Process

At the beginning of legal operations management, lawyers and legal professionals relied on tools like spreadsheets, emails and documents to manage information. As corporate legal departments grew in size and complexity, they turned to traditional enterprise legal management vendors that provided a database-centric approach to handling legal operations. Their technology platforms worked as systems of record that only tracked or measured data put into it.

However, and this cannot be over-emphasized, your competitive legal department needs a system of engagement – a system that supports the highly collaborative nature of legal work.

An app-based focus addresses process problems and offers a workflow-based approach. It provides the power of comprehensive enterprise legal management broken into individual task-based solutions and processes, conforming more closely to how people work. Users can also extend their collaborative reach with other corporate departments by incorporating capabilities and components of broader company-wide systems as needed.

Working faster and smarter

When exploring enterprise legal management solutions, ensure that the prospective system can be built around the way teams work. After all, you’re trying to streamline your operations and avoid the old standards of relying on email and spreadsheets to get the job done. In today’s fast-paced legal settings, lawyers need to be able to work faster, smarter and more efficiently. The best way to do it is by automating legal department processes.

There are quite a few benefits of a cutting-edge enterprise legal management solution, including cost savings,  flexibility and robust reporting capabilities. Equally important are the numerous crucial processes that it can help your team with – especially since you’re working towards improving processes.

Here are five of the top components to look for in an enterprise legal management solution:

  1. A single platform for collaboration that captures notes, documents, attachments and email communications in one secure location. With all your processes centralized in a single, robust platform, operations are streamlined and optimized to the fullest.
  1. Improved collaboration and knowledge sharing that provides more transparency to your operations. Legal departments of any size can reap the benefits of a technology platform that supports the highly integrated, collaborative legal work that reinforces an enterprise’s business goals.
  1. Workflow capabilities that match your business requirements and are simple to change, alter or adjust. Different work types, such as matters related to employment, litigation, or mergers, have unique processes. Workflows must be able to evolve quickly as corporate legal departments grow and re-prioritize.
  1. Seamless integration with vital systems and the ability to be highly configurable. Corporate legal departments have a wide variety of systems in their technology ecosystems, including document management, intellectual property management, accounts payable and other back-end systems. This allows information to flow and populate as needed automatically across technologies.
  1. Reporting and dashboard views that make it easy to analyze invoices, evaluate performance against budget and see trends across your matter portfolio. Intuitive interfaces allow legal professionals to focus on the process and results instead of how the application works. Little or no training is required, which dramatically reduces the time and cost of solution deployment.

With an average cost savings of 4-7% of outside counsel spend, process-oriented enterprise legal management solutions also represent a new paradigm that drastically improves the delivery of legal services. Process-driven solutions integrate workflow and collaboration and allow you to explore and define the legal business processes critical to your organization.

Are you interested in learning more? Here are three steps to help.

  1. Explore what other leading corporate departments are accomplishing with a platform and process approach to enterprise legal management. For example, Corteva used technology provided by Onit and our partner PERSUIT to build a global panel of law firms. As a result, its legal operations leader helped the company significantly reduce average prices across vendors – by up to 60% in some cases – and increase outside counsel engagement
  2. Join Lean into Legal Ops. The comprehensive thought leadership initiative, offered at no charge, provides legal and business professionals masterclasses, case studies and discussions with industry thought leaders and innovators. For the U.S., join here. For Europe, join here.
  3. Learn about building better workflows and how they can help you build a better business by asking for a demonstration of Onit Enterprise Legal Management Solutions.

 

How to Work through Legal Operations Challenges as a Community

Posted on July 16, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

How do you get through challenging times? Most likely, with a little help from your friends.

The COVID-19 pandemic has critically changed work as we know it. Companies closed offices and employees switched to work from home. A decentralized workforce brought new challenges like the complexities of remote access and virtual collaboration. Businesses had to pivot immediately and reexamine strategies and budgets. As a result, corporate legal departments faced a renewed need for efficiency and cost savings.

It is now more important than ever to connect with your peers and leaders within legal operations. Sharing experiences can inspire and highlight innovative approaches to today’s challenges.

That why we created Lean into LegalOps.

The online learning initiative, offered at no cost and open to all legal operations professionals, connects thousands of Onit and SimpleLegal customers, in-house counsel, technology experts and more. To date, leading legal operations executives from McDonald’s, BT and Colgate-Palmolive have shared their experiences with timely topics such as:

  • How to use workflow tools to manage a distributed workforce
  • Implementing technology strategies that deliver immediate cost savings and ROI
  • Quantifying and defending the value of a legal department
  • Change management best practices in a challenging environment

The program also offers regular peer discussion groups, with members tackling top priorities and providing insight into how to address them.

The positive response to Lean into LegalOps inspired us to extend the program into Europe. Robert Johnson, the managing director of Onit’s London office, discusses Lean into LegalOps Europe and the state of legal operations in Europe here.

We invite you to view these on-demand recordings at your convenience. Hear how our customers have successfully realized cost savings and enhanced efficiency during these troubled times.

Get invitations and links to future presentations and peer-to-peer discussion groups by joining Lean into LegalOps or Lean into LegalOps Europe.

5 Must-Have Features to Supercharge Enterprise Legal Management

Posted on July 9, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Enterprise legal management (ELM) has come a long way since its introduction years ago. Before ELM, paper ruled almost every aspect of legal operations – from matter intake to bill submissions. As a result, the processes that powered critical legal operations workflows often lacked visibility and efficiency.

Now, with the cloud and other advances in technology, ELM solutions give corporate legal departments the ability to drive meaningful business improvements and cost savings.

How can you improve and drive even more ROI from enterprise legal management?

Concentrate on creating better workflows.

The very best ELM solutions represent a new paradigm changing the legal operations landscape. They drastically improve the delivery of legal services, allowing the exploration and definition of critical legal business processes.

By streamlining and automating essential workflows, an ELM solution also offers a true system of engagement. Users can immediately see the benefits, encouraging them to adopt it in higher numbers. With these supercharged workflows, the efficiencies will multiply from there.

With this in mind, here are five features critical to workflows that will take your ELM results to the next level.

  1. Workflow capabilities that match business requirements and are simple to change, alter or adjust. Different work types, such as matters related to employment, litigation, or mergers, have unique workflows that an ELM solution should accommodate.
  2. Comprehensive visibility into invoices at every stage, including submission, review and approval
  3. A single, secure platform for collaboration that captures notes, documents, attachments and email communications
  4. Reporting and dashboard views that make it easy to analyze invoices, evaluate performance against budget and see trends across your matter portfolio
  5. The ability to be highly configurable for a legal department’s needs, offering seamless integrations with important systems such as accounts payable, document management, IP management and other back-end systems

If you’re interested in hearing how corporate legal departments have supercharged their legal operations, consider joining the Onit Lean into LegalOps program for the U.S. or Europe. The online learning initiative offers educational presentations and virtual discussions from innovators and industry thought leaders.

Two examples of Lean into LegalOps events include:

How the Cloud Impacts Corporate Legal Operations

Posted on July 2, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events, Enterprise Legal Management

When it comes to the cloud, efficiency, and automation, companies may not have to look far for corporate legal operations inspiration. According to Jed Cawthorne, director of security and governance solutions at NetDocuments, legal knowledge management teams and IT offer examples that corporate legal can reference.

As he explained in this recorded Onit webinar presentation, legal knowledge management has over a decade of experience with leveraging collaboration technology, electronic form libraries, intranets, and search applications. IT has made great strides in operations as well. Many IT departments have adopted cloud-based workflow management platforms for submitting requests, assigning jobs, and tracking progress – all to automate tasks and create efficient working environments.

Jed draws from a wealth of experience when it comes to the cloud and legal operations. He has 20 years of experience in information and knowledge management, including document management systems, intranets, and collaboration. He also spent almost five years as director of knowledge management in the legal, corporate, and compliance group at the Bank of Montreal. NetDocuments, an Onit Strategic Alliances Partner, has more than 2,750 enterprise customers worldwide and offers a cloud-based content services and productivity platform that includes document management, email management, and collaboration technology.

In the recording of the webinar, titled “The Impact of Cloud on Legal Operations,” Jed discussed:

  • Questions concerning high-quality service delivery at lower costs using the cloud
  • How efficiency impacts a corporate legal department, including individual attorneys and the department on a whole
  • Examples of how the cloud drives ROI in a corporate legal department

The webinar is part of Onit’s Lean into LegalOps, an online learning initiative that connects legal operations innovators and industry thought leaders. The program recently featured a virtual discussion with BT and Buying Legal Council on optimizing resources inside and outside the legal department and a discussion lead by Pearson, Onit, and Morae on transforming legal services delivery and enabling self-service.

We hope you’ll take some time to view the NetDocuments webinar and discover more about Onit by clicking on the resources below.

8 Crucial Items for Your Procurement ReviewAI Checklist

Posted on July 1, 2020 by - Artificial Intelligence, Business Process Management

No matter what company you work for or which industry you’re part of, procurement contract review is likely part of your daily life as a member of the legal team. Whether it’s ordering basic office supplies to keep your workplace running or more complicated like buying raw materials in bulk for multiple products, you should have a procurement process in place to make the purchasing process move smoothly.

Procurement is an important element of a company’s overall corporate strategy as it directly relates to the bottom line. Given the required collaboration between multiple departments, it’s important to have a procurement contract review checklist available to make sure the legal document’s terms are in line with corporate standards, helping avoid any delays or rejection of procurement.

Here are the top 8 things you should look for when redlining a procurement contract.

  1. Determine the level of delegated authority. Nail down who is responsible in your organization for routine purchases, who controls the acquisition of all the company’s requirements, etc.
  2. Define cost restraints. Establish the types of commitment and pre-set financial limits that staff are permitted to enter into so it’s clear for the legal team reviewing.
  3. Doublecheck the basics. It’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of the contract, but don’t forget about the nuts and bolts: parties’ names, price and dates/deadlines.
  4. Look for automatic renewals. Get familiar with the steps your company will need to take if you do not want the procurement contract to renew, and any associated penalties. If you do make the call to let the contract auto-renew, verify that the terms are favorable for your organization and are fair to both parties.
  5. Put safety and quality first. Part of your job is to ensure that only reputable suppliers are used. Make sure to include contractual obligations such as compliance with local health and safety laws and require updates regarding safety information for substances and industrial products directly in purchasing documents.
  6. Search for how changes will be processed. Requiring advance written notice for processing changes in purchase orders to the organization is always advisable.
  7. Verify the duration of the contract. Determining your corporate standards for the duration of contract is an important legal detail. Whether it be 12 months or 36 months, make sure the entire legal team is aware and on the lookout for the duration clause during the legal contract review process.
  8. Implementing a procurement contract checklist in your contract review workflow can help avoid costly mistakes. However, the best way to ensure that no stone (or legal clause) is left unturned is to supplement the human lawyer’s efforts with legal automation technology.

There are many types of contracts that are related to the procurement and supply chain world. ReviewAI now supports the following:

  • Purchase and Supply Review: Quickly check for common key issues when reviewing purchase and supply agreements such as payment terms, warranties and termination rights.
  • Statement of Work: Save time reviewing statements of work by being alerted to common issues, such as termination, liability and dispute resolution procedures.
  • Letters of Engagement: Use this review to quickly check for key issues in engagement letters, including scope of service, payment terms and warranties. In addition, the new procurement skillset automatically takes you to the key issues when engaging in procurement-focused contracts and helps you understand your contractual obligations. You can use this skillset to build reviews to evaluate your supply chain, risk exposure and contract management lifecycle.

As you start defining your internal contract review process, be sure to arm yourself with the best legal technology and knowledge to improve efficiency, decrease risk and promote effective procurement. Learn how ReviewAI can help.

Introducing a New Resource for the Europe In-House Legal Community

Posted on June 30, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Onit is excited to announce that it has extended its Lean into LegalOps virtual learning program to the Europe in-house legal community. Members of Lean into LegalOps Europe will have access to exclusive Europe-focused educational materials. They will also receive invitations to virtual legal operations discussions featuring Onit customers and partners and be included in a bi-weekly, peer-to-peer discussion group for European members only.

We sat down with Robert Johnson, managing director of Onit’s London office, to talk to him about the program and the state of legal operations in Europe.

Q:  What are some of the challenges that the Europe in-house legal community face?

A: In-house counsel in Europe encounter legal operations challenges that drastically differ from their U.S. colleagues. First, compliance with data and privacy laws is exceptionally complicated and varies by country. You also have EU-wide laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that corporations must address. If a corporation does not meet these compliance levels, they may face steep fines or government investigations.

Second, in the last five to 10 years, large organisations in Europe have been growing rapidly and often by acquisition. As a result, they may have multiple duplicative systems in legal as well as other departments like accounting or HR. They’re shifting their focus from “how to get by” to best practices and overcoming the challenges of, for example, 10 different systems that come with worries about integrations, silos, and more.

Q: What’s important when it comes to EU legal operations management?

A: Since Europe is not as litigious as the U.S., European companies generally don’t place a high priority on cost savings for legal operations as the U.S. does. Instead, the focus is on leveraging and understanding data and creating efficiencies to reduce the time spent on lower-value work. Legal departments are also bringing in new types of job roles, such as analytic specialists who can code and work with large data sets.

Q: How does Lean into LegalOps support the Europe in-house legal community?

A: Lean into LegalOps taps into the ingenuity shown by legal professionals in Europe. People are always intrigued by what other people are accomplishing. The program allows them to connect, share stories and best practices, and demonstrate how they’ve used Onit technology to address formidable challenges. The educational resources will vary from informal Q&As, customer demos of how they’ve used Onit technology like Apptitude or contract lifecycle management, and examples of working across departments such as HR, marketing, and more to efficiently address business functions and build transparency.

About Lean into LegalOps Europe

Onit began the virtual learning and networking program in response to the global pandemic.

This online learning initiative highlights programming from the Onit and SimpleLegal customer base, industry thought leaders, and innovators in the space. The masterclasses cover topics such as how to use workflow tools to manage a distributed workforce, how to implement technology strategies that deliver immediate cost savings and ROI, and how to quantify and defend the value in the legal department. There is no cost to join. If interested, please sign up here.

Spend Reduction in COVID: How Contract Lifecycle Management and Enterprise Legal Management Solutions Contain Costs

Posted on June 25, 2020 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

 In the first blog post of this three-part series on process efficiency and collaboration during COVID-19, we addressed the types of tools and tactics that legal departments are considering when building their solutions. In the second blog post, we explored how automation supports remote working and efficiencies. In this final blog post of the series, we focus on ROIs for tools such as enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management.   

Cost containment is urgently becoming a top priority for many companies during these challenging times. The technology that enables it will transform the ever-evolving business landscape and provide a lasting impact. General counsel, in-house counsel and other corporate legal professionals have a viable path to support their companies through the strategic adoption of technology.

An essential component of containing costs is addressing efficiency. An IDC survey found that businesses can lose 20-30 percent of revenue each year based on inefficiencies such as redundant processes, outdated or siloed technologies and bottlenecks. Addressing that deficiency alone will streamline operations for a corporate legal department and curb expenses.

The legal department can contribute to containing costs for their corporations through the adoption of technologies that offer automation and process efficiency.

Operational Efficiencies with Enterprise Legal Management (ELM)

ELM solutions provide valuable automation to corporate legal departments looking to examine their spend. A McKinsey research report cited that business automation can save up to 60% of occupations almost one-third of their time – allowing employees to focus on more impactful contributions in support of their company.

ELM solutions offer wide-spread control of all the facets of a legal function through process streamlining and accessible metrics. They’re exceptionally agile and cover a wide range of tasks that often fall under corporate counsel’s purview including contract management, NDA creation and distribution, legal holds and legal service requests. In terms of hard cost reduction, ELM solutions have multi-year savings potential meaning your legal team can perpetually maintain lower spend.

ELM savings: The International Association for Contract & Commercial Management (IACCM) estimates that ELM can deliver 5-12% in savings each year. Onit customers have said they save between 10-50% on legal spend alone.

Agreement Automation with Contract Lifecycle Management  

Contract review and assembly can chip away at your day – primarily if it relies on ineffective technologies or processes. CLM solutions provide the basis for standardized processes that allow legal departments to capture and analyze related data, as well as a centralized location for all documents and files. They offer an intuitive dashboard that allows counsel to easily create or review contracts and mitigate risks by having fewer contractual exceptions.

CLM savings: Onit clients report that CLM solutions have helped their legal departments reduce their time spent in the contracting process by nearly 20%. Likewise, IACCM reports that CLM systems can save more than 9% annually.

Data-Driven Departments Set Themselves Up for Success

Lawyers everywhere know spend is tricky regardless of how the economy is doing. However, more than ever, legal departments must drive efficiencies with their spend data.  For corporate counsel and legal ops professionals trying their best to exert more control over their departmental spend, we think you’ll find our whitepaper titled Driving Savings, Process Efficiency and Collaboration in the Legal Department in a Post-COVID-19 Environment quite helpful.

Determine your Potential Savings

 Ready to explore your ELM and CLM ROI potential? Onit offers a suite of savings calculators built to help justify technology spend amid the recent market uncertainty from the global crisis. They use a combination of metrics and industry data to give insight into what these solutions can do for your business, including quantifying potential benefits and analyzing long-term effects of potential investments.

You can request a savings analysis here.