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.
