Category: Business Process Management

Using an Inferior Legal Hold System Hurts Your Bottom Line

Posted on January 13, 2017 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In the 2014 Ethicon legal hold case, the court awarded monetary sanctions against the defendant, as they had failed to implement a comprehensive and timely litigation hold notice. The court concluded that defendant’s failure to properly preserve data after it should have reasonably anticipated litigation was negligent, but there was no evidence that the defendant acted willfully or intentionally to delete evidence. Instead, the court found that the system used by Ethicon to implement litigation holds was “riddled with holes.” Part of the problem occurred when an employee left the company and a technician in the IT department unknowingly deleted or repurposed the hard drives.

A key point here is that even though a company issues a legal hold in a timely manner, other things can go drastically haywire if something is missed along the way. For example, if the issued hold was not broad enough in scope, some employees failed to comply with the order, or the company’s legal hold system was simply “broken,” severe court sanctions may result.

Some of the lessons learned from this case:

  • Litigation holds should be specific to the case at issue, but also broad enough in scope to preserve potentially relevant information
  • Companies must take all necessary steps to adequately implement any litigation hold in place and ensure compliance in a timely manner
  • Companies must institute policies and procedures for lifting the hold when the company no longer has a duty to preserve evidence
  • A robust legal hold system must be in place so the company is prepared for the threat of legal holds

In our new white paper, “Is it Worth the Risk? How to Implement a World Class Defensible Legal Hold Process” we discuss the significance of legal holds in today’s corporate environment, why you need gold-standard legal hold automation software and the strategies to fuel your company’s path toward a robust legal hold process.

Download this new white paper to discover how a cutting edge legal hold platform allows team members to gain real-time access to the status of collection requests, know when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention.

Our new white paper offers the following insights:

  • Why you need a world class legal hold process
  • A little history of recent landmark legal hold cases and why they should concern you
  • Current best practices of legal holds
  • Essential features to know before shopping for legal hold software
  • The problems associated with using antiquated or inappropriate legal hold tools

A powerful legal hold solution offers a quick and highly cost-effective way to supercharge your automated business processes, as well as your bottom line. Reduce the ever-present risk of costly court cases. The stakes are high, and the time to act is now.

Reduce the Peril: Best Defense Against Legal Hold Threats

Posted on December 14, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In our new white paper, “Is it Worth the Risk? How to Implement a World Class Defensible Legal Hold Process” we discuss the significance of legal holds in today’s corporate environment, why you need gold-standard legal hold automation software and strategies to fuel your company’s path toward a robust legal hold process.

Legal holds involve the preservation of information when litigation is reasonably anticipated. Recent legal hold cases and their subsequent negative outcomes for the corporations involved have highlighted the need for companies to be highly proactive in dealing with legal holds. Among these negative outcomes were several multi-million dollar fines imposed on corporations; one fine was in excess of $29 million dollars.

In recent history, landmark legal hold cases such as Zubulake v. UBS Warburg have underscored the importance of companies maintaining a tight grip on their legal hold processes. As we continue learning from past mistakes, there are fewer excuses for not implementing a strong legal hold process. Simply put, companies must have a well-documented process for executing legal holds, and exercise the proper care to preserve and collect electronically stored information.

Download this new white paper to discover how a cutting edge legal hold platform allows team members to gain real-time access to the status of collection requests, know when actions were issued, which tasks are in progress and which legal actions require immediate attention.

Our new white paper offers the following insights:

  • Why you need a world class legal hold process
  • History of recent landmark legal hold cases
  • Current best practices of legal holds
  • Features to know before shopping for legal hold software
  • Problems associated with using antiquated or inappropriate legal hold tools

A powerful legal hold App offers a quick and highly cost-effective way to supercharge your automated business processes, as well as your bottom line. Reduce the ever-present risk of costly court cases. The stakes are high, and the time to act is now.

Click here to download the eBook today.

Change is a Good Thing: Why Enterprise Legal Management is So Much More than Just E-billing and Matter Management

Posted on December 2, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

For quite a few years, enterprise legal management (ELM) has focused on matter management and spend management. It’s fair to say that effective ELM platforms were, and still are, good at what they do best – only matter and spend management. But many of these platforms were designed solely for the storage and access of data; not a whole lot more than that. This is the problem and these systems need to be laid to rest.

Now for the good news. Onit has spent decades studying what’s worked for other legal corporate legal departments to develop enterprise legal management (ELM) solutions that are flexible and easy-to-use. In our eBook, “Matter and Spend Are Just the Beginning: A Guide to the Enterprise Legal Management Paradigm Shift” we outline the evolution of these solutions.

There has been a distinct paradigm shift and evolutionary branching off from those older ELM systems. Nowadays, the best ELM platforms facilitate engagement, are focused on process, offer an environment where the user experience is crucial and can be augmented to manage other legal processes.

While matter management tracks various details in a centralized database and spend management gives good visibility into financial information, it would hardly be accurate to say that these areas make up the totality of what law departments need to track and manage. In truth—there is so much more. Today’s definition of ELM includes all of the following tasks:

There are solutions available that are highly focused on each of these tasks. Many innovative legal departments have acknowledged the evolutionary ELM paradigm shift and have augmented their matter and spend management arsenal with this cutting-edge technology.

With clients like ADM, The Home Depot and Under Armour – Onit is one of the most trusted names in the industry. Check out our customer success stories and learn more about bringing your legal department into the future with Onit’s ELM solutions.

Schedule a demo today for more information about the many benefits of ELM.

The Evolution of Matter and Legal Spend Management

Posted on November 17, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Onit has spent decades studying what’s worked for other legal corporate legal departments to develop enterprise legal management (ELM) solutions that are flexible and easy-to-use. In our eBook, “Matter and Spend Are Just the Beginning: A Guide to the Enterprise Legal Management Paradigm Shift” we outline the evolution of these solutions.

Today, ELM systems are in use among 20% of legal departments and that number is expected to rise to 50% by 2020 according to Gartner. As the pace of business increases, legal departments find themselves required to provide a wider range of services with less resources and time. At the same time, data breaches have become more common and the risks associated with them have gone up a great deal.

These and other trends conspire to create an environment where robust ELM solutions are required. But do the big players in the field offer solutions that really respond to those needs?

Today, companies require in-house counsel to accomplish much of what outside counsel was entrusted with in the past. In decades past, a semiannual process may have been sufficient for the small internal legal staff with a focused set of responsibilities. 

As internal teams get bigger and the scope of work grows, old processes tracked on Excel spreadsheets or rudimentary databases no longer fulfill the team’s needs. On top of falling short on tracking and data storage, these solutions either do not include process enhancements that are slowly becoming standard or will require a significant ongoing development investiture that a company may not be able to afford to maintain.

With 15% of legal teams using homegrown solutions, (on top of a third using none at all and another third claiming they “don’t know,”) the true value of intelligent ELM will continue to become more pronounced as the gap between early adopters and those left behind grows….

Click here to download the eBook and read more.

 

Onit is the industry leader when it comes to Enterprise Legal Management (ELM). Our solutions are flexible, lightweight and easy-to-use. Click here to schedule a demo with one of our ELM experts.

The Past, Present and Future of Enterprise Legal Management

Posted on October 12, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

In our latest eBook, we outline how Onit is transforming the way legal departments drive operational and process improvements.

While traditional enterprise legal management (ELM) systems were built “database-out,” companies today need systems that augment and facilitate engagement, instead of merely providing access and storage. What a business needs today to empower “a better way to work” is a system built from the user perspective with a focus on process.

Technology has come a long way. By expanding our concept of ELM to include more of the day-to-day work that limits legal’s ability to contribute to the bottom line, we can improve process, collaboration and workflow to achieve a higher level of performance that better serves current and evolving business needs. In addition to matter management and spend management, ELM also includes (or rather, should be understood to include):

The Future of ELM 

Gartner predicts the adoption of ELM Solutions will increase from 20 to 50% by 2020. While traditional ELM systems require constant IT maintenance and attention, modern ELM solutions are lean and nimble and tend to work in a more straightforward manner. In many cases, users can configure, deploy, and support Onit solutions with no corporate IT involvement. This is because they are designed and built in an intuitive, “no code” environment that can be learned without even the need for a training session. 

Click here to read the full eBook.

Learn more about bringing your legal department into the future with Onit’s ELM solutions. Schedule a demo today or check out our blog for more information about the many benefits of ELM.

Top 4 Reasons Why You Need An Enterprise Legal Management Solution from Onit!

Posted on July 18, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

1. Efficiency – Enterprise legal management (ELM) from Onit are flexible, lightweight, and easy-to-use. To us, ELM is more than just matter and spend Management. Our ELM platform that lets you solve the “whole” of your legal department’s needs, whether that is for contract management, NDA creation and distribution, Legal Holds, SEC filings, eDiscovery or IP issues.

2. Quick Setup – In today’s environment, most ELM initiatives take between nine to 12 months for scoping, implementation and final execution — if not longer. ROI is typically not measured for months after completion. Our implementation process is unique in that no other ELM vendor can offer such quick deployments. Our typical ELM implementation beats the average implementation process by months.

3. Highly Regarded Solutions – From Gartner to Legaltech News, the legal industry is talking about Onit. It’s big news in the industry that no other ELM solution provider approaches legal department operations with “process” as its foundation.

4. Be Ahead of the Curve – Gartner predictions from the February 2016 Market Guide Report suggest that the adoption of ELM solutions will increase from 20 to 50% by 2020. Save your legal team some time by implementing early on.

Onit’s configurable solutions can help corporate legal departments of all sizes. Schedule a demo with us today to learn more. You can also check out our blog for additional articles to learn more about ELM.

Enterprise Legal Management is “Hot” Topic at Summer Tradeshows

Posted on July 1, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

Onit’s had a very busy summer so far. We’ve been attending conferences and tradeshows all over the country to educate corporate legal departments about the benefits of enterprise legal management. Last month we hosted a session at the CLOC Corporate Legal Institute, “Process Matters: ELM Redefined – Beyond Traditional Legal and Spend Management – Law Department Operations for the 21st Century.

Lead by Onit founder and CEO, Eric M. Elfman and David Cambria, Global Director of Operations – Law, Compliance and Government Relations, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the two thought leaders discussed trends in the Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) space and highlighted how “process” is redefining how legal department operation managers provide “continuous” value to their company.

Brad Blickstein, a contributor to Legaltech News attended and wrote an awesome article inspired by our session titled, “Next Generation ELM Must Be About Process, Collaboration, Automation.” Below are some of our favorite excerpts from the piece:

“Last month, I spent the better part of a week at the inaugural CLOC (Corporate Legal Operations) Institute in San Francisco. CLOC is a grassroots organization of law department operations professionals, and the Corporate Legal Operations Institute was their first effort at a conference. It was a big success, with legal operations leaders from more than 130 companies getting together for three days of networking and education.

One of the sessions I was most interested in was one of those forward-looking sessions, titled “ELM Redefined: Beyond Traditional Legal & Spend Management—Law Department Operations for the 21st Century.” The main speaker on the session was David Cambria, global director of operations, law, compliance and government relations at Archer Daniels Midland Company. David and I collaborate on the annual Law Department Operations Survey, and he’s about as knowledgeable as they come in this area…

…So what should a “next generation” ELM system look like? For starters, managing a legal enterprise in today’s environment requires a lot more than just information about matters and spend. “Of all the things we spend time on, 80 percent are not supported by the tools that supposedly provide enterprise legal management,” says Cambria. According to the 2015 Law Department Operations survey, an LDO’s time is split quite evenly (between 5 and 17 percent of their day) among seven different areas: outside counsel management, technology, law department strategy, law department administration, vendor management, financial reporting/forecasting and electronic discovery. If a system is going to call itself an “enterprise” system, it needs to help the department manage all those areas, and more.

Read the complete article here.

Thank you to everyone who attended our sessions over the past few months. Your presence and eagerness to learn more about ELM means the world to us. We appreciate your time and hope that if you’ll be able to join us again soon. If you have not had a chance to attend one of our sessions, check out our calendar of upcoming events. We’d love to see you this fall!

For more information about how ELM can help your corporate legal department, check out The Plain and Simple Facts about ELM.

The Plain and Simple Facts about Enterprise Legal Management

Posted on June 10, 2016 by - Business Process Management, Enterprise Legal Management

To get started, let’s first start with a few definitions:

  • The term Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) was coined about 12 years ago to connote broad support of everything that Legal Departments are involved with. The term is also practically defined and referred to as simply Matter & Spend Management.
  • Matter Management is essentially the database that legal project information is stored in, such as parties, details, vendors, etc.
  • Spend Management is the system that handles the electronic invoices, runs business rules against the line items providing audit and validation functions. It’s also the system where financial analytics are run.

Matter and Spend Management are foundational but represent just a fraction of the needs of a corporate legal department. Learn more about Legal Service Requests, Legal Holds, Contract Management, and NDAs.

The Benefits of ELM Solutions for Your Corporate Legal Department

Law departments must provide better service to their businesses and improve operational efficiency:

“In addition to the responsibility of managing documents, e-billing, matters and outside counsel, it’s equally important for corporate legal departments to be involved in business processes and continuously optimize the organization’s processes to improve business performance against goals and objectives. In an enterprise legal management context, BPM includes the automation of manual processes through methods such as workflow and collaboration functionality.” – Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Legal Management, 23 Oct. 2013

The future is now and with the proliferation of enterprise solutions that respond to the full range of business needs, it has become increasingly hard for organizations to justify selecting or retaining an aging ELM system.

ELM solutions from Onit are flexible, lightweight, easy-to-use, and directly provide increased operational efficiency and decreased IT labor. We help corporate legal departments keep their practices and businesses running more efficiently.

This isn’t just a trend. Gartner predictions from the Feb. 2016 Market Guide Report suggest that the adoption of ELM solutions will increase from 20 to 50% by 2020. Get ahead of the technology curve and save your team some time by implementing early on.

Learn more about how Onit’s can customize solutions just for your corporate legal department. Schedule a demo with us today or check out our additional reading on ELM below.

Enterprise Legal Management Needs to Grow Up
4 ELM Code Phrases to Fear
Ten Things You Need to Know About Enterprise Apps and How They Relate to ELM
The New Technology Curve
The 4 Axioms of Enterprise Legal Management

Legal Hold and Legal Service Requests in a Black Hole?

Posted on May 18, 2016 by - Business Process Management

Both Legal Holds and Legal Services Requests are hot topics in the legal technology community right now. Just last month LegalTechNews.com had experts discuss legal hold processes and what to look for in a solution.

Legal Holds

TechTarget.com does an excellent job outlining and clarifying legal holds, citing:

“A company must preserve records when it learns of pending or imminent litigation, or when litigation is reasonably anticipated. Litigation hold prevents spoliation (destruction, alteration, or mutilation of evidence) which can have a catastrophic impact on the defense… 

…Implementing a litigation hold process can be challenging for storage administrators. All companies must establish a sound retention policy and apply that policy to their storage systems.”

Onit’s Legal Hold solution helps corporate legal departments: 

  • Notify custodians of their duty to preserve information in a timely manner
  • Automatically assign tasks to the appropriate in-house team member
  • Gain real-time access to the status of collection requests
  • Minimize company risk and increase defensibly
  • Ensures all relevant data is properly collected and preserved. 

Lawsuits happen and though it’s not fun to think about it’s wise for your company to be prepared. Onit’s Legal Hold solution makes it easy to demonstrate that your company has exercised the proper care in preserving and collecting digital evidence.

Legal Service Requests 

Business partner requests for legal services are often tossed into the legal department sporadically by email, text, or informal conversations from various departments. Tracking and assigning these requests can be a major headache if there is no standard process in place.

Onit’s Legal Service Request solution simplifies the intake process by: 

  • Giving business partners a simple portal to interact and engage with the legal department
  • Providing the legal department with a comprehensive view of all legal service requests
  • Automatically generating notifications to keep business partners updated
  • Offering clients an easy way to keep track of the status and resolution of their legal service request

As legal technology advances, stay ahead of the curve. Let Onit’s Legal Hold and Legal Service Request solutions help automate your processes and save you time. Click here to schedule a demo and learn more about how Onit can help your legal department.

Contract Status?

Posted on April 20, 2016 by - Business Process Management

Swimming in hundreds of contracts but can’t manage to wade through them all? Is your manual contract management method slowing you down? It’s time to simplify your review and approval process with Onit’s ReviewAI & Approval App.

Check out the video below to learn more about how to streamline your contract management process:

Now that Onit’s ReviewAI & Approval App has all of your comments and revisions in one convenient place – what about the documents themselves? Are you still digging through files to locate years old contracts? Take the headache out of contract administration with an App that’s easily accessible at the click of button.

For more about how Onit’s Contract Administration App can help you get organized and put your contracts right at your fingertips – Check out the video below:

To learn more about improving your contract management and contract review processes, download our white paper – “Simple Contract Management: Apps That Improve Efficiency, Reduce Cycle Times and Help Legal Departments Run Like a Business” or schedule a demo.