Legal teams are constantly being asked to do more with less — but what exactly does achieving “more” mean, and what does using “less” really look like?
According to a recent survey, 72% of GCs believe reducing the number of technology and service providers will achieve cost savings. And beyond the bottom line, there’s an argument to be made for productivity: piece-mealing different legal technologies together from different places means they don’t always speak the same language or integrate. This can cause data duplication and information silos, along with all of the side effects: difficulty maintaining compliance, time lost searching for the “real” most recent version of a contract, confusion and lack of confidence in data, miscommunication or misalignment between departments, and more.
Let’s Talk Longevity: Point vs Platform?
We’ve discussed the pitfalls of the “one-and-done” approach, or adopting quick-fix point solutions with incompatible features, custom code, and no API integrations. It’s fast, easy to get up and running, and gets the job done— but long term? Don’t expect it to keep up.
The other side of this extreme is implementing a homegrown solution, which can fail when the burden of implementation, upkeep, and customer support pile onto the already-full plates of IT teams or unpredictable variables like employee turnover leave expertise gaps.
A better long-term strategy is to take the admin lift off of your team with an integrated management platform— one that offers the solution you’re currently looking for and opportunities to integrate with more services down the line.
Strategic legal teams build integrations, centralization of data, and process efficiency into their technologies and teams by investing in the right technology and by thinking about their long-term legal tech stack no matter how mature they are when they start.
Your legal tech stack should comprehensively support your legal operations, but two kinds of technologies form the core. Your matter management system should operate as your “single source of truth” across your department and act as the center of information through and to which all other data flows. Your workflow automation tool can then act as the network energy that connects your tools together, and pulls information from your matter management or to it as needed.
Harness the Power of Streamlined Matter Management
All members of legal teams must have immediate and permissioned access to pertinent materials, such as matters, contracts, documents, and status updates. This data must be centralized, or your team risks losing significant time and energy searching for and verifying information. Employees report that it takes, on average, 9.5 minutes to get back into their groove after switching apps – so you can imagine that a bloated technology stack is not only slowing your team down, but also burning them out. When team members rely on disconnected systems, they waste time and risk making the kinds of mistakes that impact your bottom line.
Standardized data keeps your department leaders informed via dashboards and in-process analytics, empowering your organization to proactively manage operations and risk. When you are reviewing your requirements for your matter management system, highlight and underline the criteria for easy integrations and collaborations. Your single source of truth is the place to which all other legal information must flow — so the ability to speak across technologies and empower users between departments to work together — is of the utmost importance.
When legal teams start feeling overly burdened by whatever matter management system they already have in place, or are reaching a point of maturity where their homegrown solution is no longer responsibly managing their data, it’s time to start looking around.
Finding the right platform can be the difference between a team that effortlessly tracks and manages matters and one that mires your team in repetitive tasks and manual work-arounds.
Whether you’ve had your matter management software for years or have just begun your search, we’ve pulled together a list of “red flags” for you to watch out for.
Unlock Your Flow With Workflow Automation
94% of enterprise business professionals would like to unify their automation with one platform rather than rely on disparate systems. Workflow automation is one tool that business leaders rely on to connect data to relieve users of the burden of doing this manually. Think of matter management systems as the beating heart of your tech setup, keeping your team alive and well by centralizing and approving data before it’s circulated further. Now, imagine workflow automation as the veins that transport your data from various input sources to this central hub.
Legal team buyers look to workflow automation as a tool to ferry information efficiently and in a streamlined and standardized way, from NDA requests that funnel through Sales and work across organizations, to matters that are created in Salesforce but rely on workflow integrations to automatically update your single source of truth.
With the right kind of workflow automation, you can build integrations between your applications so that your users don’t need to manually update each application.
But finding the right solution for your team is not like shooting fish in a barrel. Many existing solutions fall short in addressing cross-functional collaboration, compliance, and long-term scalability needs. Check out these helpful “do’s and don’ts” for getting the features and support that your team needs.
Secure Your Success With Managed Bill Review (MBR)
When it comes to reviewing legal invoices and line items, an absence of uniformity in approach can lead to fragmented and erroneous data, miscalculations, and costly mistakes. Not to mention, checking the accuracy of invoices and billing information from law firms redirects focus away from strategic and high-value tasks.
That’s where technology can step in to help mitigate issues that arise in data from blocked or bundled items on the invoice, indistinguishable tasks, or activities on the time entries that are vaguely described. This not only fosters better data hygiene on the back end, but also drives better stakeholder transparency and forecasting down the line.
Some ML & AI-powered line item categorization (like Mitratech’s Managed Bill Review) can assign proprietary, common-language task codes to every invoice line item at 97% predictive accuracy.
Advanced algorithms and generative AI allow teams to process vast amounts of data, providing them with a holistic view of their operations with outside counsel. Meanwhile, while AI technology works behind the scenes, some more advanced managed bill review technology fosters AI-human, offering subject matter expertise who understand legal spend context and can deliver precision, compliance, and actionable intelligence
Want a closer look at AI in legal spend management and Managed Bill Review Technology?
Don’t Miss Out On Effective Legal Hold
Even when considering a new tool that focuses on a specific practice, such as Legal Hold, you must consider and prioritize how it fits in with your larger systems, processes, and legal tech stack.
As any team facing multiple litigation or regulatory matters at the same time can tell you, the evidence, escalations, and attestations quickly pile up.
Can your Legal Hold integrate with your matter management platform, so that legal team members can initiate them from the same platform where they spend most of their time? Are the analytics from legal hold pulled with the same power and complexity as their main reporting tools? Learn more about how an integrated approach to Legal Hold can elevate your results and improve your legal ecosystem.
Let’s Recap:
The truth is, in our shifting market, growth in the legal ops realm is no longer just about expanding headcounts or acquiring more office space; it’s an opportunity to be truly strategic.
Could you use a little help keeping track of the tools and best practices needed to position your legal department for success?
You’re not alone – that’s why we created this complete checklist of all the questions and confirmations to consider when ramping up your legal operations team and tech stack, including:
- An overview of how to align with your General Counsel’s vision
- Tips for teeing up your stakeholders for continued support
- Insights into what makes an evaluation successful and air-tight
- A look at why execution is a continuous process – and how to stay proactive about it
