Team

Have you undertaken an automation process?

Augmented Lawyers Club, episode #2

On the occasion of the 2nd round table around automation issues, we organized a study around the expectations and needs of a legal department.

Each week we will share with you a key figure which allows you to better understand where the Legal Directors are, what their expectations are, what projects have been initiated, for what purposes and for what result.

 

Legal Departments at work

Contrary to popular belief, many legal departments have undertaken a process of modernization and digital transformation. Some frequently meet software publishers and Legaltech able to provide them with high value-added services. Others, more enterprising, create their own functional bricks around the automation of NDAs or online forms to capture legal direction around a given subject.

Legal departments prove once again that the degree of maturity has evolved significantly in recent years on subjects linked to innovation: they are aware of the need to evolve methods and tools to better respond to future challenges. As today's indicator shows, more than half of them have implemented automation projects around legal issues, either with partners or on their own.

We are therefore far from a passive and isolated legal department. The majority of them have decided to take their destiny into their own hands. This involves taking ownership of the new services and new solutions available to them.

 

A positive dynamic that must be mastered to succeed

However, it is also notable that almost half of the Legal Departments surveyed indicated that they had reached a standstill after multiple attempts. The reason for this observation? They are in reality multiple. Very large companies can come up against internal obstacles: trust in the partner, technical audits and compliance with security policies, required interactions with existing solutions, organization of deployment, training, support for change, etc.

Medium-sized structures may encounter financial obstacles, team involvement, and a lack of preparation in defining needs and objectives.

The need for support will sometimes be necessary when the legal department does not have sufficient maturity or the ability to properly frame the process, set milestones, and define priorities. Those who obtain the best results in terms of adoption of new digital tools are those who have equipped themselves with a CDO (Chief Digital Officer), a CLO (Chief Legal Officer) or a COO (Chief Operation Officer). .

Whatever the name given to it, this role is key in the coordination of projects which can involve several other departments of the company (DSI, Commercial, Financial, etc.) and several partners (publishers, integrators, auditors, etc.). It also gives consistency to the entire approach to modernizing practices, over a long period of time (generally 3 to 5 years).

 

SaaS solutions, real facilitators?

Faced for too long with long and tedious projects, the management of large companies is reluctant to initiate new projects. This is all the more true for legal departments who are less accustomed to this type of project, both in terms of human and financial aspects.

Fortunately, the purchasing and financial departments intervene to support their efforts to compensate for this lack of experience. But the real novelty is the availability on the market of SaaS solutions, operated by the publisher or in the client's environment. This creates a real opportunity that was previously inaccessible, and on several levels.

First of all because a SaaS solution is deployed quickly, especially since it has been designed around natively available APIs and connectors. They easily connect to the repositories available in the client's IS.

Then, they have intuitive interfaces. Using the same navigation principles as most applications used on the web, users quickly get to grips with them. The usage rate is rising quickly. Legal departments obtain the first benefits almost immediately by providing practical solutions to the daily requirements of their teams.

 

Next week we will see how automation projects are perceived by the teams themselves.

What is your automation priority?

Augmented Lawyers Club, episode #2

On February 5, the 2nd round table was held around automation issues. On this occasion, we organized a study around the expectations and needs of a #legal department. Each week we will share with you a key figure which allows us to better understand where the Legal Directors are, what their expectations are, what projects have been initiated, for what purposes and for what result.

 

Management to better guide performance

💡Second indicator and new surprise! The Legal Directors interviewed asked for management indicators for better control of their activities. Today they have few or no tools that can meet this requirement. As a result, they do not have an overview that is precise and reliable. It is therefore difficult for them not only to measure the performance of their teams and more generally of the entire legal department. Therefore, and very logically, the Legal Directors are unable to provide reliable information to General Management or to other operational departments. However, being able to communicate with other entities in the company is one of the major challenges of a modern legal department and one that must establish itself as an active partner.

 

Seize new opportunities

👉This is therefore the opportunity to seize an important issue in a process of modernization and digital transformation. Legal directors and their lawyers now have several solutions at their disposal to manage their activities, by branch, by office, by hierarchical stratum.

The solutions for contract automation, EDM, collaborative platforms, digitalization of AGs and boards, legal research, beyond the services inherently offered, provide dashboards that are as precise as they are intuitive, delivering information qualified information in real time.

The announced end of Excel tables? Ultimately yes, without a doubt. First of all because they are time-consuming and boring to create. Collecting the right information, compiling it, formatting it and distributing it takes considerable time. It is common to see that employees spend several days there with results that are often imprecise and incomplete. In addition, you have to get back to work every month. It's as demotivating as it is exhausting.

New generation dashboards automate this manufacturing process. Legal directors and lawyers, as well as CFOs and General Management, have reliable and up-to-date information in real time. The most advanced dashboards allow you to create your own indicators. It is thus possible to create personalized reports, specific to certain services and specific needs. One more thing? Tools like Jarvis allow you to schedule the sending of reports in PDF format to your email box on a regular basis. This is a sure way to never miss important information.

 

Give a new dimension to the Legal Department

It is therefore also a way to better promote know-how by teaching other departments through clear graphics that are understandable to all. The Legal Department can thus establish itself as a business partner and overcome the image of the “speed bump” that has stuck with it for too long.

The Legal Department is increasingly integrated into operational processes. Moreover, the workload expected in 2020 for in-house lawyers is expected to increase by 85% (source: Gartner). A challenge that is impossible to take on without clear management that makes it possible to monitor and act on everyone's work.

It is therefore a challenge that Legal Departments must quickly take up to ensure a constant level of quality despite a constantly increasing workload. But it is also an opportunity for them to promote their daily work, to demonstrate the role they play alongside financial and commercial departments, for example.

 

Next week, we will see if the Legal Departments have decided to act on the issues of digital transformation or if they have decided to wait