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Onit Delivers the Next Generation of Its Platform and AI-Based Portfolio to Optimize Complex Legal Workflows for Matters and Contracts

The OnitX platform tightly integrates with the AI-enabled products of Onit Catalyst to provide business-critical ELM and CLM workflows that empower corporate legal teams to make better decisions faster

HOUSTON (March 20, 2022) — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions, including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced OnitX, the next generation of its configurable platform for automating complex legal workflows, and Onit Catalyst, a family of AI-enabled products purpose-built to transform ELM and CLM.

OnitX evolves and expands capabilities from the company’s original Apptitude platform, optimizing customer workflows across their legal operations spectrum — from managing spend and matters to contract lifecycles and risk. Onit Catalyst provides legal teams with insights at the point of need, enabling them to swiftly make better data-driven legal and contracting decisions and proactively manage their law firm business relationships.

The release and integration of OnitX and Onit Catalyst are purposefully timed. As enterprises operate in uncertain economic times, both help corporate legal departments optimize their operations by addressing three rising challenges: increasing volume and complexity of matters, unclear ROI and changing dynamics between Legal and internal clients.

According to HBR Consulting, in-house legal teams anticipate an 84% increase in demand in the coming year. In addition, new data from Onit’s 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report reveals a decline in the quality of interactions that Legal has with various departments, particularly with revenue-impacting functions. A year-over-year comparison shows a 30% and 27% drop in the quality of Legal’s interactions with Sales and Marketing, respectively.

OnitX and Onit Catalyst support customers to improve internal client experience, optimize spend and increase the efficiency of legal operations at a time when executive teams are searching for new ways to drive growth and EBITDA.

New Integrations and Product Developments Increase Value for ELM and CLM Customers

OnitX gives large, global enterprises flexibility in running its legal operations with a business-critical platform that is configurable, automated, smart and extensible. The OnitX platform seamlessly integrates with Onit Catalyst, a family of AI-enabled products from several recent strategic acquisitions — including Onit’s Precedent and Bodhala — to form ELM and CLM solutions that provide insights at the point of decision.

Several key product developments for the OnitX platform and Onit Catalyst will be demonstrated at Legalweek New York 2023:

  • Benchmarking for smarter spend management: OnitX Spend Management’s integration with Onit Catalystenables legal operations teams to make better timekeeper rate approval decisions faster by using external benchmarks versus conducting a time-consuming and expensive separate analysis.
  • A complete European ELM solution: OnitX Matter Management’s integration with Onit BusyLamp provides European corporate legal departments with flexible and configurable means to manage legal matter workflows, including outside counsel spend using BusyLamp capabilities designed to address specific European currency, regulatory and tax requirements.
  • Smarter contract lifecycle management: Onit Catalyst ReviewAI and Catalyst Contract Extraction help streamline the contract lifecycle pre- and post-signature processes by using AI to review contracts and extract essential data — such as key terms and obligations, dates and other relevant information — to quickly identify contract risks and opportunities.
  • Seamless litigation compliance: OnitX Legal Holds Management streamlines litigation compliance management and reduces the risks associated with pending litigation.
  • Visual forms builder: Build custom applications powered by the OnitX workflow engine to address simple legal-related requests like invention disclosures, trademark or logo usage and data breach incident reporting.
  • Application and data integrations: OnitX leverages scalable technology from Workato, an industry-leading iPaaS technology provider, to integrate with applications such as Salesforce, SAP Ariba and Microsoft 365 so users can work in their preferred tools while data flows into other critical business systems that support revenue and operating expense management.

“Onit’s mission is to elevate Legal’s stature within the enterprise by automating business-critical workflows that drive material impact,” said Scott Wallingford, President of Onit’s Enterprise Business. “With the next generation of our platform in OnitX and key product updates from Onit Catalyst, customers can optimize legal workflows across their entire enterprise — from ELM functions like matter and spend management to CLM functions like contract management and review. Macroeconomic pressure influences enterprise functions to show value in new and visible ways, and we’re partnering with our customers to do just that. Legal’s moment of impact is now.”

Learn more about OnitX on March 20 – 23 at Legalweek New York 2023, where the company is offering live demonstrations of all its ELM and CLM solutions.

Additional Resources
Learn more about Onit’s recent integrations here. For more company news, industry trends and best practices from corporate legal innovators, read the Onit blog and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth. The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Enterprise Study Magnifies Material Impact From Corporate Legal Departments on Revenue Growth and Operational Efficiency in Times of Macroeconomic Uncertainty

Onit’s 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report reveals Legal’s direct impact on business — from sales and innovation to brand and corporate culture — hinges on ability to evolve relationships with internal clients demanding better communication and efficiency

HOUSTON, March 15, 2023 — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions including enterprise legal management and contract lifecycle management, today released the 2023 Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report, an annual multinational study spotlighting year-over-year changes in the brand image of corporate legal departments through the eyes of their internal clients. The study reveals the linkage between Legal’s relationship with the business and material impact — from revenue generation and operational efficiency to innovation and corporate culture.

In November 2022, Onit commissioned Provoke Insights, a New York City-based market research firm, to conduct a study of 4,000 non-legal enterprise employees and 500 corporate legal professionals in the United States, United Kingdom, France and Germany. The study helps corporate legal teams and executive teams understand areas to improve working relationships, accelerate legal workflows and transform the function’s strategic role in large enterprises.

The 2023 ELR Report reaffirms one of the most prominent findings from its inaugural edition in 2022 — Legal’s enduring image as a trustworthy protector of the business. About four in five (78%) non-legal enterprise employees view the legal department in this light. However, the 2023 report reveals a changing dynamic between Legal and its internal clients. In one year, the quality of interactions noticeably decreases across every function. The decline is most evident between Legal and public-facing, revenue-impacting departments. A year-over-year comparison reveals a 30% and 27% drop in quality among Legal’s interactions with Sales and Marketing, respectively.

Employees Continue to Bypass Legal and Its Policies

According to the 2023 ELR Report, employees are concerned about Legal’s responsiveness, communication and efficiency — or perceived lack thereof. These concerns are further exacerbated by macroeconomic distress and the subsequent pressure on employees to show value by improving operational efficiency amid cost-cutting measures and demands to execute faster. The need for speed and collaboration exposes that legal departments are viewed as slow or non-responsive. Seven in 10 (71%) non-legal enterprise respondents say it often takes days or weeks to receive a response from Legal. For the second year in a row, just two in five (41%) view Legal as efficient. As a result, only one in four (27%) consider Legal a good business partner.

Apparently, enterprise employees are not waiting around. Two in three (67%) admit they bypass Legal and its policies — up from 65% in 2022 — because Legal is overly bureaucratic (31%), slows employee productivity (30%) and does not understand their business needs (23%).

These findings put Legal in a unique position. How the profession chooses to adapt will dictate Legal’s relevance and impact during an uncertain time when businesses are searching for cost efficiency and growth from every corner of their enterprise.

Legal’s Golden Opportunity to Impact Sales, Revenue Generation, and More

Despite nagging concerns affecting Legal’s brand within its businesses, the 2023 ELR Report shines a spotlight on the function’s opportunity to foster better relationships with internal clients. According to the report, greater support through communication and collaboration will not only improve Legal’s image as a good business partner but also contribute to directly influencing enterprise growth and efficiency, particularly amid economic uncertainty.

The study reveals an overwhelming belief that Legal positively impacts multiple revenue-impacting functions around the enterprise, including contract renewals (64%), sales and revenue operations (56%) and deal cycles (51%). This is where Legal’s stellar negotiation skills provide major material impact — three in four (76%) employees acknowledge impressive negotiation skills.

“Legal is at a crossroads — a difficult macroeconomic climate has presented the department with an opportunity to evolve into a better partner and material business driver,” Onit CEO and co-founder Eric Elfman said. “As CEOs and executive teams search for new strategies to achieve greater growth and EBITDA, the 2023 ELR Report spotlights Legal as a relatively untapped resource within enterprise organizations that can add a meaningful and material impact.”

The ELR Report concludes that increasing communication and deepening collaboration will enable Legal to improve its interactions with the business, decrease the frequency in which employees bypass its policies and directly influence materiality, growth and efficiency.

Other key findings that further magnify Legal’s material impact across the enterprise include:

  • Enterprise employees believe Legal has a positive effect on corporate brand (61%), procurement (54%) and innovation (48%).
  • Six in 10 (60%) acknowledge Legal’s positive impact on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); 57% say the same regarding corporate culture.
  • The most frequent types of interactions with Legal involve contract review and signing (46%), compliance (46%), HR matters (37%) and patents, trademarks, copyright and intellectual property (IP) matters (25%) – fundamental activities that protect and enable its businesses.

To learn more about Legal’s brand image in the eyes of its internal clients, download Chapter 1 of the 2023 ELR Report, register for the ELR webinar, visit Onit at Legalweek New York 2023 or read the 2022 ELR Report.

About Onit
Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.

Media contacts
Mike Nadeau, [email protected]

Onit Incorporates Recent Acquisitions Into Comprehensive Portfolio of Solutions That Optimize Legal Operations by Enabling Smarter, Faster Business Decisions

Onit bolsters ELM offering with new product integrations that increase rate accuracy and drive efficiency across legal business operations

HOUSTON (March 8, 2022) — Onit, the leading provider of legal workflow solutions, including enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM), today announced a set of integrations to its ELM solutions that further incorporate two of its recent acquisitions into its comprehensive portfolio for managing advanced legal workflows. The integrations, which stem from Onit’s acquisitions of Bodhala and BusyLamp in September 2021, optimize legal operations in two key areas — financial benchmarking and localized support for Europe.

The new integrations with Onit Spend Management and Onit Matter Management address three common industry challenges: lack of supporting industry insights at the point of decision, data silos and tool proliferation. Onit Spend Management leverages Bodhala’s comprehensive benchmarks from data that includes more than $47B in legal billings. This provides a breadth of comparison for proposed changes to current timekeeper rates and evaluation of new rates. For European legal departments, the integration of Onit Matter Management and BusyLamp eBilling.Space offers a proven ELM solution with a configurable matter management workflow that eliminates the double entry of matter information. Collectively, these integrations enable sophisticated legal departments at large multinational corporations to make smarter, cost-efficient choices at the point of decision.

Benchmarking for Smarter Spend Management

Onit Spend Management’s integration with Bodhala’s AI-enabled technology pulls data from 200,000+ timekeepers and nearly 9,000 law firms, improving the accuracy of benchmarks and providing germane data points so legal teams always understand the going rate for timekeepers against the context of an individual law firm, the company’s entire panel of law firms and the market at large. By providing insights at the point of decision, legal departments eliminate the need for time-consuming and often costly ad-hoc rate analysis as they now have the unique ability to quickly approve new timekeeper rates resulting from outside counsel promotions, raises or additions to a firm.

A Complete European ELM Solution

Onit Matter Management’s integration with BusyLamp’s legal spend management solution provides a single system of record with specific capabilities for European corporate legal departments. Matters can be created in Onit Matter Management and then synced with BusyLamp with the click of a button for matters where outside counsel is engaged. This offers a flexible and configurable matter approval workflow capability while also leveraging specific currency, regulatory and tax capabilities that Busylamp provides for the European market today, without having to manage legal matters in two different systems.

The integrations with Onit Spend Management and Onit Matter Management will be widely available to customers in July.

“The transformation of legal operations begins with smart, integrated solutions that evolve with your business’ unique needs,” said Scott Wallingford, President of Onit’s Enterprise Business. “These integrations are the first of many we have planned to ensure improved collaboration across Legal and greater access to actionable insights that help make smarter and faster business decisions. At Onit, we are tying together our corporate acquisition strategy and product portfolio’s evolution to help customers optimize their legal operations.”

Learn more about the new Onit Spend Management integration here and Onit Matter Management integration here. Onit is also offering live demonstrations of all its ELM and CLM solutions at Legalweek New York 2023 on March 20 – 23.

Additional Resources

​For the latest company and industry news, legal operations trends and best practices from corporate legal innovators, read the Onit blog and follow us on LinkedIn.

About Onit

Onit is the leading provider of legal workflow solutions for enterprise legal management (ELM) and contract lifecycle management (CLM). Onit’s comprehensive product portfolio customizes AI-driven workflows for managing matters, spend, vendors and contracts. With Onit, companies can evolve the legal department’s role as a business protector and transform it into a business driver that materially influences the enterprise by improving operational and cost efficiency while simultaneously contributing to faster revenue generation and business growth.

The Onit portfolio of products includes SimpleLegal, AXDRAFT, Bodhala, BusyLamp and SecureDocs. Learn more at onitprostg.wpengine.com.