Category: Business Process Management

Legal Department Operations Survey 2019 Results are Out

Posted on December 18, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Onit is once again a sponsor of the Legal Department Operations (LDO) Survey. In its 12th year, this survey is the leading barometer for trends in legal operations. Onit Founder & CEO, Eric M. Elfman, contributed an article to the survey results package. Please read that article below and download the full survey results here.

Driving Disruption in the Legal Department: Legal Ops and Technology Lead the Way
By Eric Elfman

Legal operations is all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to grow and protect the company it serves. As such, legal departments are seeking a higher level of operational excellence. This is evidenced by their embrace of innovation, increased demand for automation of repetitive tasks and a workflow-centric approach and understanding of how to use technology to create operational wins.

Driving efficiencies and containing costs are two key reasons that legal operations is important and is growing so quickly. Legal departments were forced to adopt a more operationally focused mindset as a result of the Great Recession. The 2008 downturn was so severe, and efficiency and cost-cutting were considered so critical to the survival of the business at large, that it was no longer acceptable to spend freely. Since then, C-suites have increasingly been making their law departments behave more like other business units. This ultimately led to the rise of a profession dedicated to bringing business discipline to the law department: legal operations.

Legal department operations professionals (LDOs) handle the management of vendors, systems, strategic planning, technology, knowledge, financial issues and the myriad other tasks that plague the legal department. Legal operations are all about optimizing the legal department’s ability to support the business and is a multi-disciplinary function that optimizes legal services delivery by focusing on twelve core competencies. The competencies, developed by CLOC, are divided among three levels: foundational, advanced and mature.

Cost control and cost management have always been among the legal department’s greatest challenges. Economic downturns in recent decades served to exacerbate the “do less with more” mindset. In order to meet these intensifying challenges, many departments began increasing the workload of existing resources or bringing on more in-house lawyers. Others have built and started executing technology roadmaps. Technology has been optimizing legal operations in several key areas. Workflow and automation of processes deserve a spot at the top of the list. Data analytics is also important, as analytics can demonstrate the value of technology in the department and the value of the legal department to the business. Technology is assisting with the competitive bidding process on certain types of cases. Automating many routine tasks can shave hours off any busy schedule. Collaboration using  technology gives a whole new meaning to “working together.”

Today’s state-of-the-art technology allows all stakeholders from anywhere in the world – including legal departments, other service providers, and members of the corporation’s accounting team and business units – to be on a single platform. Technology will increasingly play a prominent role, as more LDOs are discovering they can better fulfill their mission by leveraging well-chosen technology solutions to automate processes, track legal spend and deliver key decision-ready information. The increasingly robust alliance of legal ops and technology is now helping to forge the future of legal operations in amazing ways we could never have imagined a decade ago. Onit purpose-built our technology platform to help drive this alliance and enables customers to execute their technology roadmaps over time.

Interested? Request a demo now!

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 5

Posted on December 13, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House CounselLaw.com: Enthusiasm Gap Persists Between Law Firms and In-House Counsel
While law firms are reminiscing about a year of increased demand during this bonus season, corporate legal department numbers show they are looking toward a future recession and having to cut spending back. Even though law department spend is a concern even outside of the prospect of hard times on the horizon, only 40% of law departments responded to an Altman Weil survey saying they increased their budgets, with 38% of departments saying they’ve cut their budgets in the past year (up from 27%). Despite 2019 being a demanding year for law firms and corporate legal departments, Gretta Rusanow of Citi Private Bank’s Law Firm Group mentions that legal matters will still need to be attended to regardless of how departments and firms configure their budgets.


The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers WantAbove the Law: The Insider Guide To What In-House Lawyers Want
As we have mentioned in this blog series before, legal matters are becoming more business-centric and corporate legal departments are increasingly selecting solutions and ALSPs based on how much they fit in with their business’ needs. This Above the Law column says that in-house lawyers don’t just want a service provider that can do the work but want a more full-blown partnership that act on their client’s needs rather than reacting to them. It also asserts that this type of partnership ends up being mutually beneficial as the work providers might be doing could open up whole new revenue streams from previously unknown capabilities. We couldn’t agree more!


In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last YearLaw.com: In-House Counsel Say They Have Higher Workloads Than Last Year
According to a report released by alternative legal services provider Konexo, 63% of in-house lawyers report feeling more stressed about their workloads than they did last year, with common pressures being costs, lack of resources and team culture. Even though legal technology has been helping law departments work more efficiently, respondents also cited issues with technology onboarding and the need for them to serve as business partners within their companies. It probably won’t come as a surprise that respondents recommended more holistic approaches than the use of point solutions to make departments more efficient and better equipped for their growing demands. Again, we couldn’t agree more!


Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for LawyersBloomberg Law: Permanent Verification — The Best Blockchain Use Case for Lawyers
We’ve been hearing about blockchain technology and the hype around it since the Bitcoin boom a couple of years ago, but it would be unwise to completely dismiss blockchain as a hype machine without addressing how it can be used for legal contract management. This article says that because blockchain ledgers are especially strong at maintaining authentication the technology has great applications for contract management software and allows lawyers to spend less time on clerical aspects of their contracts. This article contends that as data gets more valuable, blockchain has proven itself to be especially useful for legal records management, and blockchain contract management solutions should definitely be on every lawyer’s radar in the years to come. See what you think!


Penn Law Keeps Its Name — For NowLaw.com: ‘Penn Law’ Keeps Its Name — For Now
In an earlier edition of the LegalOps Highlight Blog, we shared an article about how Penn Law students voiced concerns over the swift change in name to Carey Law. Since then, University of Pennsylvania’s law school has agreed to gradually rebrand to Penn Carey Law by 2022 in efforts to recognize the recent large contribution by the W.P. Carey Foundation. This return from the earlier name change shows that the school’s administration has listened to the hundreds of student and alumni voices and recognizes the prestige of Penn Law.


California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPRTechCrunch: California’s New Data Privacy Law Bring U.S. closer to GDPR
We’ve been covering the CCPA for a little while now because of its implications on data collection and management. It’s also important to note that the CCPA has different language on what it considers personal information under the law, and the writing also shows what companies could be fined for violations. The new law (and others being proposed by other states) shows that the US is on its way to meeting the standard of privacy legislation set by GDPR and gives lawyers an idea of the information management matters they may have coming to them.

5 Common Challenges Facing Contract Lifecycle Management: How to Overcome Them

Posted on December 11, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Digital Transformation

Businesses that implement a seamless contract lifecycle management (CLM) process compress their time to revenue, mitigate risks by having fewer contractual exceptions and increase customer satisfaction. But managing the lifecycle of a contract – from request and creation, review and approval, to execution and renewal — involves a lot of departments, and those departments often don’t have access to the same systems. But there are other hurdles to overcome, such as these five common contract lifecycle management challenges:

  1. Speed vs. Control
    The biggest source of friction in the contract lifecycle comes from the balancing act between speed and control. Because contracts are so critical, legal’s preference is to examine contracts in extreme detail. Sales often has a different interest, pressuring legal to get out of the way so deals can close faster. The main business challenge becomes moving contracts through quickly but with enough oversight to effectively manage company risk.
  2. Lack of Visibility
    Part of what exacerbates the speed vs. control dilemma for legal is a general lack of visibility into contract terms, obligations and value. If you can’t see it, you can’t control it. This becomes a major pain point because agreements outline the terms of the value exchanged, and if you can’t ensure you are getting the right value for your deals, money is slipping through your company’s fingers. Lack of visibility is an especially serious problem for expiring contracts and renewals.
  3. Inconsistent Legal Language
    It’s important to be consistent in the use of terms and language in your contracts. Gaps in standardized language can introduce risk or confusion. If you can’t determine if your contracts contain accurate language, or what is different between contracts, lawyers might have to get involved in every single deal. This is not only inefficient but also increases the risk of being non-compliant or leaving revenue on the table.
  4. Information Silos and Manual Processes
    Managing all of the necessary steps in your contract process is hard enough internally across several departments. The complexity of managing contracts increases exponentially when you have to manage contracts across several office locations, time zones or languages. The ability to have everything centrally located with changes tracked in real time becomes critical. Human error, bottlenecked contract cycles and limited process control can increase risk dramatically when contracts are managed manually. Automating contract management helps companies improve control and visibility and significantly shortens contract creation time.
  5. Inability to Manage Changes
    It’s important to have a mechanism for managing changes over time. You need to be up to speed on renewal dates, pricing changes, emerging legal requirements and other events that will require you to speak to your customer/vendor specifically about your contractual relationship. Your ability to manage the contract, particularly changes over time and the renewal process, will have a direct impact on your customer retention rate.

So what can we do to meet these contract lifecycle management challenges head-on and with limited resources? You guessed it: technology is the clear winner in this category. The profound impact of technology on CLM is gaining momentum globally as more companies are realizing its extensive benefits as a business value driver. These cloud-based solutions offer painless integration, user-friendly interfaces, increased workflow and reduced costs across the board. Collaboration in handling projects is becoming more prevalent and sought-after, and CLM software companies have responded in kind by injecting more collaborative functionality into their products, another benefit of the SaaS model.

The best CLM solutions offer an array of features and benefits to fit organizations of all sizes and needs. A contract lifecycle management solution should offer complete control and visibility of your customer contracts, in all stages from review to approval to execution to renewal. The best CLM solutions simplify the submission, review, approval and management of contracts in one easy to use tool. Team members should never have to search their inbox or hard drive for the latest version or keep an Excel spreadsheet to manage their contracts. Powerful business analytics and reporting engines are additional hallmarks of the best CLM solutions, and are crucial in helping team members with their reporting, configuring notifications and other tasks.

Another important consideration in the value of CLM is how high the cost of non-compliance with regulations can be, and CLM is well-prepared to assist with this. Efficiency and transparency in reporting is another much-welcomed feature of these solutions, as well as the ability to flag possible problematic contracts before they reach the execution stage. Collaboration is a key ingredient in any operation involving many people, and contract management is a good example. Oftentimes, solution providers miss the mark (or ignore it altogether) on collaboration ability in their software. The interaction of multiple stakeholders such as legal professionals, attorneys and accountants requires that the CLM solution enable and encourage collaboration from inside and outside of the organization. Team members are then able to leverage knowledge from one another, and in turn be more productive and conserve the amount of time spent on projects.

If you’d like to see a demo of Onit CLM, click here.

CLM Management Software: Is Yours Driving Business Value?

Posted on December 4, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Digital Transformation

The rising need to reduce, eliminate, or mitigate risks related to legality, financing, and procurement is driving the contract lifecycle management (CLM) market growth. Additionally, CLM software allows users to maintain documentation related to pricing, dates, and information regarding internal & external entities involved and signatories. The growing demand for a central repository for efficient contract lifecycle management software among enterprises across various sectors is proliferating CLM market growth. The profound impact of technology on how contracts are managed is gaining momentum globally as more companies are realizing its extensive benefits as a business value driver.

We need a CLM solution that goes far beyond the basic necessities. We need a solution that offers a number of ways to drive business value. CLM should help organizations maximize the value from their core contract assets. In our new white paper, A Roadmap to Evaluating Contract Lifecycle Management Technology, we offer some useful insights about:

  • CLM Market Trends
  • Sources of Business Value
  • Features and Benefits of the Best CLM Solutions

The market for best of breed contract lifecycle management solutions has grown significantly in recent years and all signs indicate that this momentum will only increase in magnitude in the near and long term. Companies now expect more than just the basics in a CLM solution; they want a system that not only handles all the workflows involved in contract management, but also a solution that drives business value. Learn how to identify the most important business value drivers to look for in a contract lifecycle management solution in our white paper.

Download our new white paper, A Roadmap to Evaluating Contract Lifecycle Management Technology.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 4

Posted on December 2, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights


The California Consumer Privacy Act: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask - 100 Days Out, Part TwoLaw.com: The California Consumer Privacy Act: Everything You Wanted to Know But Were Afraid to Ask – 100 Days Out, Part Two
The CCPA is on its way like a bat out of hell, and just like during the time between GDPR’s enaction and implementation, the uncertainties about the legislation are causing lawyers and law organizations quite a bit of anxiety. In 2019, 15 other states also proposed similar privacy laws, and American companies across the board will have to overhaul their web policies to make it easier for users to obtain an audit from companies about what of their data has been collected and opt out of having their data sold. Just like with GDPR, this new regulation will require companies to get a better understanding of the personal information they’re collecting, and over time this understanding should help any American company employ a more effective and valuable data collection design.


What In-House Legal Looks Like in Russia's 3rd-Largest Bank: A Q&A With Gazprombank General Counsel Elena BorisenkoLaw.com: What In-House Legal Looks Like in Russia’s 3rd-Largest Bank: A Q&A With Gazprombank General Counsel Elena Borisenko
Running the legal department for the third largest Russian bank (by assets) is no easy task, especially because there are countless ingress points where customers’ personal information might be at risk. Leading a department of nearly 300 lawyers, Elena Borishenko has been monumental in integrating her exceptionally solution-oriented department with other business units. Borisenko also expands on her role in creating the International Legal Forum, which has helped departments all over the world collaborate to build the best standards for compliance and regulation.


Bloomberg Law: INSIGHT: An Open Letter to In-House Counsel and Legal Ops Managers—Work With ProcurementINSIGHT: An Open Letter to In-House Counsel and Legal Ops Managers—Work With Procurement
Dr. Silvia Hodges Silverstein (executive director of Buying Legal Council) and Dr. Evelyn Paetsch (Deutsch Bahn AG) are back again with another open letter, detailing how working with procurement department specialists might help your department save more than 15% in legal services and technology costs. The authors assert that even though lawyers are more well versed in exactly the solutions they need, procurement officers can help negotiate rates and save departments millions of dollars. Even though you shouldn’t count on procurement personnel to make the final decision on what products and services to buy, they are trained negotiators and their tactics can save corporate counsel a lot of time and energy that can be better spent managing their departments.


5 Considerations to Make When Shopping for AI Legal TechnologyLaw.com | Legaltech News: 5 Considerations to Make When Shopping for AI Legal Technology
As we’ve spoken about before, AI has more than its fair share of hype around the tools that employ it, and there are some important things to consider. Victoria Hudgens at LegalTechNews shares some insights from Brad Blickstein (author of the Legal AI Efficacy Report) and Deloitte’s AI Ethics survey report which address some of the most formidable concerns any legal operations professional would have about employing an AI solution in their workflow. These tips can prepare any legal organization for the change management that comes with deploying AI solutions and provide a solid roadmap for how AI tools can be used to achieve best results.


2 Recent Publications For Legal Operations ProfessionalsAbove the Law: 2 Recent Publications For Legal Operations Professionals
This week, Mike Quartararo from Above the Law is recommending two recent releases for all legal technology professionals. The first is a paper on processing electronically stored information written by Craig Bell, and the essay is an expertly written piece on the types of data that get processed, the personnel leading the process and the tools used to make the process easy for the everyman in e-discovery. The second is ILTA’s 2019 Technology Survey report, which details legal operations’ shift from on-premises solutions to cloud point solutions and elaborates on some hardware and services used most predominantly by the legal operations industry. Both pieces provide in-depth perspectives on legal technology, and reading both might help professionals get a better handle on industry trends.


Hundreds Sign Petition Calling to Change New Carey Law Name Back to Penn LawThe Daily Pennsylvanian: Hundreds Sign Petition Calling to Change New Carey Law Name Back to Penn Law
In the legal community, prestige is a large concern as the name of the law school on a resume might signal to employers that a recent grad is not an ideal candidate for a job. This concern has come into view as student at University of Pennsylvania’s law school, now named the Carey School of Law after a $125 million donation from the W.P. Carey Foundation, worry that this name change won’t give their education the name brand they believe it deserves. Nearly 500 students and alumni have signed the petition, criticizing the school administration’s lack of transparency and rapid onset of the name change that they feel takes away from their attendance at a highly ranked law school.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 3

Posted on November 8, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights

Most Innovative In-House Operations Team of the Year: Pure StorageLaw.com | The Recorder: Most Innovative In-House Operations Team of the Year: Pure Storage
Pure Storage has found the keys to scaling efficiency while staying within budget constraints, and that’s why they are the Most Innovative In-House Operations Team of the Year as part of The Recorder’s California Leaders in Tech Law and Innovation Awards. In The Recorder’s interview with Michael Moore and Niki Armstrong from Pure Storage’s Legal Operations team, Moore and Armstrong address how their tools help provide efficient service on a lean budget. Moore and Armstrong also detail their recipe for success and how each of the tools they use are keeping them on top.

There's an Emerging RFP Market and Corporate Legal Is Riding ShotgunLaw.com | Legaltech News: There’s an Emerging RFP Market and Corporate Legal Is Riding Shotgun
The wide adoption of RFP software is inevitable, believes Frank Ready at ALM’s tech desk. Even though lawyers have traditionally approached new technologies with extreme caution, RFP tools have proven themselves to be excellent tools to help lawyers move away from spreadsheets and towards automated solutions that will ultimately make their lives easier. Even though this sector of the legal tech sphere is still in the early adopter stages, RFP software companies have already proven their worth with their reporting and process automation capabilities.

Uninformed or Underwhelming? Most Lawyers Aren’t Seeing AI’s ValueLaw.com: Uninformed or Underwhelming? Most Lawyers Aren’t Seeing AI’s Value
While there is a lot of hype surrounding AI in legal tech, AI solutions are quickly becoming a more viable solution across the legal industry for big data ingestion. According to a new ABA report, lawyers’ top concern about AI is how accurate it completes processes, with some legal organizations being let down by their AI experiences. However, automation and deep learning solutions are proving their worth as they plow through tasks that would normally take extensive resources and manpower to complete. As a result, firms of all sizes have reported adopting AI solutions, proving that the technology should at least be given a deeper look before being cast aside.

Are We There Yet? Reconciling The Hype And Reality Of Legal TransformationForbes: Are We There Yet? Reconciling The Hype And Reality Of Legal Transformation
Service delivery has become a pillar of business development for any successful customer-facing company, and that ideal has put the legal business at odd with the generally inward focused legal profession. While legal professionals set their sights on practicing law and setting the price for their services fairly, the legal industry is metamorphosizing into a multi-disciplinary field that is clearly in touch with its customer service and technological capabilities. According to Mark A. Cohen from Forbes, the business of law is currently surfing a mammoth wave of industry transformation that’s improving customers’ relationships with the legal system.

Penn Law Announces New Future of Legal Profession InitiativeBig Law Business: Penn Law Announces New Future of Legal Profession Initiative
Law organizations have been clamoring for law schools to improve their JD programs to prepare new attorneys for the multifaceted challenges they are likely to face after they get hired, and Penn Law’s new Future of Legal Profession Initiative is a major leap forward. Penn Law now joins other elite law schools such as Stanford Law, Duke Law and Harvard Law with a program that takes budding lawyers through an innovation and entrepreneurship focused curriculum. The new program seeks to answer top professionals’ prayers to guide new lawyers through the enterprise aspects of legal matters and prepare them to better deliver legal services.

Think You're Done Your M&A Deal? Not Until You Can Answer These Data Breach QuestionsLaw.com | Legaltech News: Think You’re Done Your M&A Deal? Not Until You Can Answer These Data Breach Questions
Mergers and acquisitions are already complex matters that take extensive amounts of time to finalize, but data breaches can immensely set these types of deals back. In this article, Phillip Bantz from Legaltech News provides detailed analysis of the risk assessments done by the most data secure companies during their mergers, serving as vital insight for any legal department that’s about to undertake the data of another enterprise. Even if mergers and acquisitions can lead to impressive service delivery improvements, the risk of insider threat is still immense. Use these data breach questions to help your department assess readiness for that risk.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and LegalTech Updates Vol. 2

Posted on October 25, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights

5 Ways Law Departments Can Drive Organizational ChangeLegaltech News: 5 Ways Law Departments Can Drive Organizational Change
Change is constant, but managing that change, be it innovation, mergers and acquisitions, or budget cuts is possible and necessary. Kevin Clem, Chief Commercial Officer at HBR Consulting reports his analysis on a recent survey taken at ACCXchange, and his insights can help organizations keep their leadership, communication and goal setting strong in the face of major shakeups. HBR Consulting is one of Onit’s industry partners and we believe these tips can help any company facing major law department changes.

3 Reasons RFPs are the Secret Answer to Your Law Department’s AFA WoesCLOC: 3 Reasons RFPs are the Secret Answer to Your Law Department’s AFA Woes
Law departments have been reluctant to run RFPs because they believe that engaging outside counsel is best for easier and more repeatable matters and not suitable for their more complicated commercial litigation matters. David Falstein, Director of Client Strategy and Success at PERSUIT (an Onit industry partner) argues that part of the reason why firms engage in competitive bidding for these matters is because firms are hungry for them and believe they can produce the most competitive rate, which is ultimately easier than dealing with complex AFAs later in the engagement. At the very least, running an RFP process gives the client important insights about the ambiguity of their projects and has the potential to give clients important leverage on billing to help them save millions on their largest and most complex matters.

Expert Says New European Whistleblower Protections - Leave the US in the DustCorporate Counnsel: Expert Says New European Whistleblower Protections ‘Leave the US in the Dust’
While whistleblowers in the US have come under attack for their recent reporting of alleged political corruption, the EU parliament passed sweeping new protections for whistleblowers, which must now be taken back to member countries to adopt into their own laws. The highlights of the new protections include strengthened protections against retaliation, more support from the EU in legal actions and a shift in the burden of proof to the employer. These new EU laws are reportedly much stronger than any protections or laws set in place in the US and aim to much more effectively protect those working to uncover crime and abuse of power within their organizations.

More Than 100 Law Firms Have Reported Data Breaches. And the Problem Is Getting WorseLaw.com: More Than 100 Law Firms Have Reported Data Breaches. And the Problem Is Getting Worse
If there’s anything your IT departments try to drill into every employee’s head, it’s that anybody is at risk for a data breach, and everyone should be extra careful because malicious actors have a number of ways to compromise your security. In the first entry in a series on data breaches, Law.com staff writers Christine Simmons, Xiumei Dong and Ben Hancock detail how the rising reported number of data breaches signals a much larger data security issue. Hackers are only getting better at identifying which ingress points are the easiest targets for breaching. This article can help you and your personnel wise up on the most common methods hackers employ to break down your information security measures.

The Legal AI Efficacy Interview Series: Jim Michalowicz Of TE ConnectivityAbove the Law: The Legal AI Efficacy Interview Series: Jim Michalowicz of TE Connectivity
AI has been thrown around as a feature of a lot of products made to make lawyers’ lives easier, but if the consumer tech industries have taught us anything, it’s that sometimes the product doesn’t match the hype. In this first entry in a series of abridged interviews presented on Above the Law, Brad Blickstein, publisher of the Legal AI Efficacy Report, interviews Senior Manager of Legal Operations at TE Connectivity about how implementing AI at TE Connectivity helped them reduce cycle time by 67%. The full interview, linked in the article, details TE’s selection process, how they dealt with issues and change management and their next steps in their process.

The Secret to Successful Lawyer LeadershipABA Journal: The Secret to Successful Lawyer Leadership
Leadership is a skill most won’t learn through schooling alone, but it’s no secret that the most successful attorneys and business people have taken a crash course or two. Author Liam J. Montgomery details how feedback is one of the keys to successful leadership and lends us experiences from his days in the US Navy that pinpoint the best ways to give feedback. Ultimately, giving people in your organization the feedback they need when they need it is the most certain way to get the best performance from your whole organization.

LegalOps Highlight: News, Trends and Legal Technology Vol. 1

Posted on October 11, 2019 by - Business Process Management

The LegalOps Highlight is a bi-weekly blog series that features relevant news, market trends and legal technology updates from the legal ecosystem. The content is curated from legal and business trade publications, consulting and analyst firms, and Onit | SimpleLegal partners, customers and subject matter experts. Be sure to subscribe and follow Onit and #LegalOpsHighlight on LinkedIn and Twitter for updates!

Highlights

ANALYSIS: Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Poorly Managed PoliciesBloomberg Law: ANALYSIS: Avoiding Common Pitfalls of Poorly Managed Policies
OCC has settled with the SEC for $20 million for their cited policy violations, and everything they’re doing as remediation can be used as a model for any firm to update their policies. Managing policies can be challenging or overwhelming at times, but automated solutions are only becoming more widely used, they can help offset some of this burden. This analysis goes over some of the most common organizational policy pitfalls and how to avoid serious risks. At Onit, we are dedicated to helping customers automate processes to avoid the type of risk outlined in this article.

The Growing Threat of Ransomware: How to Protect Your FirmLaw Technology Today: The Growing Threat of Ransomware: How to Protect Your Firm
Anyone who has ever received an email from their CEO asking you to “do them a quick favor” and “get a bunch of gift cards” has probably had the net cast on them from a phishing operation. Tomas Suros outlines all the increasing cyber security threats law departments and firms face every day and what legal professionals can do to protect themselves from malicious attacks on their sensitive data. Suros mentions that there’s a new ransomware attack every 14 seconds, but legal professionals can take just a few precautions to substantially reduce their risk.

Finalists of SRA Tech Challenge RevealedThe Law Society Gazette: Finalists of SRA Tech Challenge Revealed
Recently, legal operations and services have been on a kick to become more ubiquitous and accessible. The Solicitors Regulation Authority Legal Access Challenge in the UK has dwindled its 117 entries to just eight finalists, all of which have received a £50,000 investment in their venture. Highlights from the finalists include a chatbot designed to give legal advice to those with learning disabilities, a tool for document workplace harassment and bullying and a preparation AI tool for workplace tribunal claims. Two winners will be chosen from the top eight in March.

Legal Services Market Worth $1,045.2 Billion by 2025 | CAGR: 4.1%: Grand View Research, Inc.Yahoo Finance: Legal Services Market Worth $1,045.2 Billion by 2025 | CAGR: 4.1%: Grand View Research, Inc.
Grand View Research just released a report that outlines how law firms are changing to meet the multifaceted requirements of their clients. The report also says that corporate legal services is about to be the most rapidly-growing segment, and this could be attributed to the rise in accessible auditing and reporting tools and the ever-rising quality of data recording. This article outlines some of the highlights on how legal services delivery is evolving and which fields service providers should be looking out for most.

New Program Offers Law School Grads an Alternative Career PathAbove the Law: New Program Offers Law School Grads an Alternative Career Path
Top legal professionals have been clamoring for law schools to get with the program and start teaching newer classes of lawyers how to be better businesspeople to better deliver their services to clients. Consilio and University of Florida Law’s eDiscovery Program have developed a new summer internship program to potentially shape new lawyers into eDiscovery specialists. This program is designed to give law students a holistic view of the eDiscovery lifecycle and seems to be a huge benefit to both UF Law grads and Consilio’s eDiscovery team. Onit is proud to partner with Consilio as part of our Strategic Alliances Program.

The Future of Legal OperationsLaw.com: The Future of Legal Operations
Onit and SimpleLegal CEOs Eric M. Elfman and Nathan Wenzel could be classified as legal meteorologists considering how often and accurate their forecasts for the legal operations landscape tend to be. Both CEOs have pooled their legendary legal ops experiences to tell us where the industry is headed and how legal ops teams can best bridge the gap between lawyers and the business of law. This article summarizes the key findings in their report Driving Disruption in the Law Department, and it’s a perfect diving off point for anyone who wants a better idea of how to use legal ops to improve performance on more tactical parts of their legal function.

2019 Law Department Operations Survey

Posted on September 30, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

20 Minutes of Your Time Can Impact the Entire Legal Operations Profession

What do the next 10 years hold for legal ops? According to the Blickstein Group, it’s likely to be more change at an even faster pace in law departments, in law firms and industrywide. More and more general counsel agree on the need for LDO professionals and the skills they embody. They are also actively pushing their lawyers to conduct business with the level of “operational awareness” required to succeed in today’s legal market. What is a quick way to make an impact toward improving the LDO profession as a whole? Take a survey!

Onit is excited to be a sponsor of the Blickstein Group Law Department Operations Survey and we invite you to take the survey, which is the only way to receive the full results with unique and valuable insight into law department management trends.

Blickstein Group’s Law Department Operations Survey is the longest running research specifically covering legal operations. It is designed solely for the professionals who manage complex legal department operations for their companies. Onit has been a part of it for years and are thrilled to do so again.

The survey will take you only 20-25 minutes to fill out. There is no cost, but only survey participants receive a copy of the valuable proprietary results – including 300 data points you can use to benchmark and better understand trends in legal operations!  You can access previous years’ survey reports, with a summary analysis of results, here.

All responses will be kept strictly confidential, and data will only be used in aggregate form.

Please complete the survey by October 4.

Onit Launches Contract Lifecycle Management Software

Posted on September 26, 2019 by - Business Process Management, Company News and Events

Contract management has always been a siloed entity from the rest of the company that is normally handled by the legal department or dedicated contract managers with legal knowledge. But for those who aren’t familiar, what is contract management? In simplest terms, contract management is the process of managing contract creation, deliverables, deadlines, terms, conditions, and execution, while ensuring all parties involved comply with the signed agreement until the contract lifecycle ends. Many companies still use manual processes to manage their contracts but this can become a very labor-intensive and time-consuming operation that ultimately ends with an overflowing file cabinet that is eventually lost or forgotten. When contracts aren’t managed or analyzed properly, companies can unknowingly become non-compliant or miss substantial profits.

Therefore, by driving technology and automation to manage the contract management lifecycle, companies can dramatically increase efficiency by reducing contract processing times, mitigate risk by tracking all contract agreements and improve overall customer and vendor satisfaction in the process. Onit observed that most customers experienced this pain when it came to the management of their contracts and decided to take action.

Today, Onit launched its new contract lifecycle management (CLM) software which empowers legal and business teams with end-to-end automation of their entire contract management process. Onit CLM is a cloud-based contract repository with automated functionality that supports all phases of the contract lifecycle from capture and creation, through negotiations and approvals, to execution and post-execution management.

onitfinaostage.wpenginepowered.com Contract Lifecycle Management Dashboard

With Onit CLM, companies can automatically generate well-formed custom contracts and include/exclude clauses based on a robust rules engine and contract metadata. It also empowers users with Microsoft Word integration, allowing them to create, review, approve, and execute on contracts straight from their preferred word processing tool while maintaining a secure link to Onit CLM. Seamless eSignature integration with DocuSign and Adobe Sign is another out of the box feature that comes with Onit CLM, to ensure convenient and rapid execution.

Onit developed CLM to allow companies to not only dispose of their outdated manual processes or legacy systems but to combine the management of contracts throughout the enterprise into a single cloud-based platform. Deployed in the world’s most advanced cloud platform, Amazon AWS, companies are able to achieve maximum performance, reliability, and scalability. With this cloud-based approach, Onit CLM is accessible on all major web browsers and mobile devices allowing end-users to access their business-critical contract information anytime, anywhere.

In conclusion, technology is paving the way for organizations to maximize control, speed, and provide greater insight throughout the entire contract lifecycle. Effective contract management can maximize reward, minimize risk and ultimately create powerful business relationships and pave the road to greater profitability over the long term.

Click here to read the entire press release or listen to a podcast from Onit’s CLM product manager Victor Cizinauskas.