The pandemic has shifted the ground under our feet. It has disrupted not just our industry, but all industries. And it is not just the pandemic; other tectonic shifts have left our world fundamentally changed.

There has been a global reckoning on racial and social justice which can no longer be ignored. The acceleration of climate change effects has seen Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance (ESG) rise to a top investor and corporate priority. And privacy and cybersecurity have become the new imperatives to inspiring trust with customers and employees.

The picture is clear: We are living through a time of unprecedented change. And it is only human nature to be anxious when things change that much, that fast.  But remember: Legal operations has always been about change. As a community, we embrace disruption and turn it into opportunity. We do not need to fear this moment. We need to embrace it, to realize its incredible potential for positive transformation.

We are already living through some amazing shifts in our industry, our culture, our world. Suddenly, nothing seems out of reach. For so long, our industry clung to the past. This wave of disruption has swept away much of that resistance. And we meet this moment with more power and influence than ever. As a legal operations community, we have never had more of a voice. We have gone from playing at the margins of the industry to being true stakeholders.

We stand at a crossroads. For years, the way forward was blocked. Now, at long last, the road ahead is open. So where do we go now? As a legal operations community, what is the future we want for our industry?

For me, there are a few big areas where I want to see us focus. I can sum these up in three words: Ecosystem, Technology, and Humanity.

Ecosystem: We need to break down the silos that separate us

I believe it is time to get serious about connecting our fractured legal landscape.

Think about how far we have come in legal operations. In just a few years, we have made huge strides in modernizing and updating our mindset, approach, and practices. We are smarter and more effective in so, so many ways. And legal operations teams are not the only ones who have improved. Law firms, law schools, new types of service providers, have all invested heavily to add capabilities and new skills.

But here is the problem: Everyone is working on their own backyard, their own organization.

We have really strengthened and improved the nodes. No one is really working to connect all those nodes into a coherent, rational system. We are not thinking holistically or trying to solve problems collectively. Even the term “ecosystem” is misleading. The reality is that our industry often does not feel or behave like a real ecosystem. We are more defined by our disconnection than by our connection.

To bring in the next big wave of innovation and growth in Legal, we need to step out of our backyards and engage with the entire landscape. This means bridging huge gaps of culture, understanding, and practice with law firms, technology providers, and all the other parts of our industry.

This will not be easy! But it will be worth our time and investment. By forging stronger and more rational connections across the ecosystem, I believe we can bring new speed and value to our industry.

Technology: We need more connected and usable solutions

We need a fundamental shift in how we consider, adopt, and leverage technology. Not that long ago, we lacked basic technology capabilities and solutions. No more. Now, there are too many. And they rarely seem to work together.

The result? When it comes to legal tech these days, anything is possible… but nothing is easy. The capabilities are all there, but what is the actual experience of the human beings at the center of it all? Are they adopting it, are they using it? Do they have a unified view of the data?

We need platform solutions that give us new insight and operationalize our manual and lower-value tasks. Most critically of all, we need standardization, simplification, and seamless integration.

We have a big role to play here! We need to partner with technology providers and integrators to understand our needs, and to think holistically to create more user-centered, intuitive, solutions that drive business outcomes. And we need to provide clear common standards and expectations that focus on ease of use and unification.

If we fail to address this, the problem will only become even more daunting. It is time to push for and demand more elevated and holistic technology.

Humanity: We need to get better at supporting and serving our people

Finally: I want to talk about how we bring more humanity, inclusiveness, and purpose to our industry.

As a community, we have always seen, and addressed, some things clearly. We are operations people; we all understand the value of process, organization, technology, use of data and so on. And we are really good at taking on these things and finding ways to make them work better.

But what have we not addressed? We have innovated a lot of creative, smart things to help employees be more productive. What have we done to make sure they are satisfied, in balance, and aligned to the values of the organization? Far less.

Today, employees have different expectations and demands. They want to work for an organization that feels purpose-driven. To feel that their employer is committed to things that they believe in, to feel supported and heard. Employees are rising up to apply positive pressure to an industry that has let them down in some vital areas. From our dismal mental health record to slow progress on diversity and inclusion, they are no longer satisfied with empty promises.

We need to stop looking at our employees through a “manage and control” lens and embrace a new relationship. We need to listen and engage, understand and empower. This is new territory for many of us so you can be sure there will be some mistakes along the way. There are many pieces to this, but to me, it is ultimately about culture. We have to invest in defining and strengthening the culture within our teams and organizations.

This is not easy or obvious. But if we in CLOC bring the same level of creativity and focus to this new challenge as we have to the other parts of our mission, we can make a real difference in people’s lives.

Conclusion: The future is now

 For all the pain and hardship it has introduced, the pandemic has left us all with something priceless. It has reminded us that the most important things in our lives are the ties we share. Family, friends… and this community. Without you, our passionate and engaged members, this organization would be nothing.

You know, we used to talk about the future as if it were this abstract concept over a far horizon. No more. The future is now. It is happening all around us. We see it in the huge shifts across our industry and our world today.

And we have the voice, the power, and the determination as a community to influence that future for the better. That is the thrilling mission that we face now… together. I look forward to taking that journey with all of you!

In legal operations, we have an orientation towards constant improvement. That restless spirit, the perpetual desire to do better, is the beating heart of our movement. It is what makes this community great.

We have made huge strides in how we organize and align our teams, bring technology to bear, connect and share information across our community. But no one stops going. We do not sit back, celebrate our accomplishments, and stop trying to push into new areas.

Our vision and mission as an organization reflect that ambition, that drive. “We seek to redefine the business of law.” It is not only about doing it better; it is about doing it right. That spirit is more important now than ever. Because for all the progress we have made, we still see elements of our industry that remain far behind.

This is no time to stop moving forward

This is a strange but exciting moment. Many things that we considered out of reach or outright impossible are now coming to pass. But even as we race forward in some areas, we remain stuck in others. The future is now, but it is not evenly distributed.

The in-house community has improved rapidly over the past decade within our teams and organizations. But we still have a vast frontier of opportunity in expanding that community, in our connections, in how we link up and engage with other players across the ecosystem. We see signs of progress there, but no real change yet. When it comes to another critical area – diversity and inclusion – we still are nowhere near where we need to be. We see promising ideas, an increased level of interest and commitment, but have yet to realize a substantial return on all those efforts. The actual pace of change remains painfully slow.

As we confront these important and impactful elements of our industry that stubbornly resist progress, we have a choice to make. Do we simply accept it? Do we go back to the conventional wisdom of a couple of years ago, and say, “Well it’s just too soon, it’s just too hard”?

I think too highly of our industry and the CLOC global community to accept that. It’s just not good enough. We will not tolerate mediocrity and stasis.

We are entering a new stage

Far from resting on our accomplishments, I see us entering a critical new stage of our journey. When we began years ago, CLOC was about “standing up.” We were establishing the basics of the field and spreading the word. We defined and shared the core principles and started building our community.

Then, we went into the “growing up” stage. That is the path we have been on for the last few years, as we spread in importance and influence within and outside our organizations. We have added depth, sophistication and scale.

Now it is time for a new stage. I call it “showing up.” This is the phase we are just beginning, and I believe it will be defined by how we use our strong foundation and base of influence to make our industry a better, more connected, more inclusive space.

I want you to join me in raising our sights, in redefining what is possible. Yes, these are hard challenges; but the only way we will ever make real advances is if we collectively demand change. It all starts with that intent, that determination, that mindset.

We have worked hard to earn our place in the legal industry. Those of you who have been in legal operations for a while know what an uphill journey it has been to win this level of belief, credibility, and acceptance. Now it is time to start doing something with it. We used to worry about proving how we fit in. Now, it’s time to push the industry towards our vision of a more equitable, representative, connected, dynamic legal sector.

Reaching across the ecosystem

We need to explore how we can make our industry work better in every dimension. It’s not enough to simply focus on our own backyard; we need identify, strengthen and leverage the connections.

We have so much work to do to bring our industry together. That is the next big frontier, the next big wave. And that will only be possible if we step out of our own teams, and in many cases our comfort zones, to engage in real conversations with our partners, vendors, law schools, and others. It means pulling in experts and voices very different from our own.

This is one of the clearest lessons we need to take from the pandemic: That we solve problems much better together than we do separately. When we have big, complex challenges, we need to bring different skills, perspectives, and capabilities to bear. This will not be easy – but it is the best way, in fact the only way, to take our industry to the next level.

Making our industry more inclusive, diverse, and equitable

That brings me to the other area that I want to stretch into: Diversity and inclusion. It’s important that we be clear in calling out the lack of progress and impact here. We need to unify in moving from words to actions.

I love that companies are starting to use their market power for good in this area, for example by demanding that law firms become more diverse. That is hugely important and we need to see more of it, but that alone is not enough. Simply realigning incentives and market pressures is not enough.

We must look at access to our industry. How do people, particularly young people, find their way into the field? Some of these paths are too restrictive and need to be expanded to be more inclusive of others from different backgrounds. How can we reach, educate, and engage a whole new generation of more diverse talented legal professionals?

They need us… but we need them more. We need new thinking, new perspectives, new backgrounds in Legal. We need to reflect the world around us if we are to be effective in serving that world.

Our organization should have an important role in the fight to make our industry more representative. We are uniquely equipped to serve as a forum for big ideas and practices that span across the industry. That type of information and idea exchange is at the very heart of our mission and historical focus. I want us to be the place where the best ideas and promising new approaches in D&I are innovated, discussed, shared, and put into practice.

We win when we work together

I want to close with a reminder that this community is defined by innovation, collaboration, and above all, persistence. That tireless spirit, that voice that keeps telling us: We can do it better. That is what has made us great in the past. It is what will fuel this next wave of legal operations progress.

This community is not about me, or those on the board, it is entirely about you. You are the members, the volunteers, the innovators, the fighters who make CLOC what it is. Our greatness, our power, lives in all of you. I want to challenge each of you to be an active part of shaping our collective future. We all have a role in making our industry better, fairer, and more connected. We all have an opportunity to be on the right side of history.

I know that, if we work together, there is no limit to how much we can achieve.

In CLOC’s quest to facilitate collaboration among legal operations professionals and other industry players, we are pleased to support industry organizations and initiatives that support the transformation of the business of law. The below post was a follow-up press release from TechLaw.Fest 2021 co-organized by the Singapore Academy of Law, Singapore’s Ministry of Law and MP Singapore.

Singapore lawyers discussed what is truly owned by a buyer of non-fungible tokens at the closing session of TechLaw.Fest 2021.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) sales have surged to US$2.5 billion in the first half of 2021, up from just US$13.7 million in the first half of last year1. But what are the buyers truly getting for the money they have spent? There are also growing concerns over the rights and protections afforded to NFTs, as well as their associated risks. These issues took centrestage at the closing session of TechLaw.Fest 2021, moderated by SAL member Dr Stanley Lai, Partner at Allen & Gledhill and Chairman of the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore’s Board of Directors.

The session also featured: SAL member Mr Benjamin Gaw, Director at Drew & Napier; Mr Chia Hock Lai, Co-Chairman of the Blockchain Association of Singapore; and Professor Dinusha Mendis from Bournemouth University. To illustrate the purchase of NFTs, audience members were treated to a simulated NFT auction organized in partnership with the Blockchain Association of Singapore.

The day’s discussion was framed by Dr Lai, who noted the intellectual property issues that NFTs raised. “NFT exchanges have to be studied carefully, and attendant risks of cryptocurrency exchanges and wallets are still ever-present. The proliferation of copies of works that are transacted by NFTs will also lead to a dilution of value. But NFTs are not a myth, and may even be a plausible reality, provided that the attendant risks are noted and mitigated.”

1 NFT sales volume surges to $2.5 bln in 2021 first half

Panellist Mr Benjamin Gaw, a Director at Drew & Napier, agreed, advising that the public exercise due diligence before purchasing NFTs. “Buyers of an NFT typically have ownership rights over the token, but usually only have a license to the underlying digital art for personal, non-commercial use, amongst others. This problem is exacerbated as many NFTs do not have clear contractual terms on the exact scope and rights of the NFT owner in relation to the underlying artwork. Purchasers of NFTs must therefore do their due diligence and be fully aware of what rights they are acquiring when purchasing an NFT.”

“Owners of NFTs need to understand their ownership rights as these assets move to the mainstream. Legal professionals also need to be well-versed in the rights and protections afforded by NFTs as well as the risks and mitigation strategies available to better advise their clients. TechLaw.Fest continues to provide a platform for discussion and debate of these cutting-edge legal issues among practitioners, regulators and enthusiasts,” said Mr Rama Tiwari, Chief Executive of the Singapore Academy of Law (“SAL”), which is a co-organizer of TechLaw.Fest.

Beyond NFTs, TechLaw.Fest 2021 also addressed legal technology cybersecurity. Said Mr Bill Deckelman, EVP and General Counsel of Marquee Sponsor DXC Technology, “The rise in frequency of cyberattacks, combined with the acceleration in digitization of everything, has dramatically changed the risk landscape. An effective eco-system supporting legal tech is the need of the hour. As the Digital Transformation Partner of TechLaw.Fest 2021, we are proud to be a part of the event that has helped to shape meaningful discussions for legal and tech communities – practitioners, academics and students, seeking in-depth learning in technology and legal matters.”

Added SAL member Mr Robson Lee, Partner from Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, “Legal technology has always been integral to our global operations. It has enabled us to provide seamless services to our clients across our 20 offices in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South America and the United States. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the pace of our

digital transformation. The firm continually invests in the latest technological solutions to enhance our capabilities as an integrated international law firm, so as to effectively serve our clients’ needs and the global community from whichever location, which is the new norm.”

The fourth edition of TechLaw.Fest ran from 22 to 24 September 2021 and attracted more than 4,000 global registrants from 100 jurisdictions. The annual conference is organized by SAL, MP International and Singapore’s Ministry of Law.

For more information on TechLaw.Fest visit www.techlawfest.com

TechLaw.Fest is a signature Law & Technology event hosted annually in Singapore. TechLaw.Fest brings together the international community to debate, deliberate, act and innovate in both the law of technology (policies, regulations, legislation, case law and governance) and the technology of law (infrastructure, business transformation and people development). It is co-organized by the Singapore Academy of Law, Singapore’s Ministry of Law and MP Singapore. More information can be found at www.techlawfest.com.

About the Singapore Academy of Law

The Singapore Academy of Law (SAL)’s vision is to make Singapore the legal hub of Asia. SAL works with our stakeholders to set new precedents of excellence in Singapore law through developing thought leadership, world-class infrastructure and legal solutions. More information can be found at www.sal.org.sg.

About MP Singapore

Trusted since 1987, MPI embodies more than a quarter-century of event building, marketing and management experience in both Eastern and Western cultures, practices, and business philosophies. We bring world-class talent, industry expertise, and incredible enthusiasm into the design and management of extraordinary online-to-offline experiences for your organisation. MPI is part of Pico Group, a global group of agencies specialising in engaging people, creating experiences and activating brands for businesses, institutions and governments. As part of the Pico group, MPI has unlimited access to a wide network of industry contacts and resources. Pico Far East Holdings has been listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 1992. For more information, visit www.mpinetwork.com.

About Ministry of Law, Singapore The Ministry of Law is a ministry of the Government of Singapore responsible for ensuring that Singapore’s legal infrastructure is clear, efficacious and transparent. It is currently led by Minister for Law K Shanmugam. The Ministry of Law formulates and reviews legal, intellectual property, land, insolvency, public trustee, moneylending, pawnbroking, legal aid and community mediation policies, as well as legislation and strategies under MinLaw’s purview; provides legal and policy input for other Ministries’ proposed Bills and programs; develops the legal services, alternative dispute resolution and intellectual property sectors; and regulates and licenses all law practice entities and registers foreign-qualified lawyers in Singapore, amongst other its other functions. More information can be found on www.mlaw.gov.

Digital transformation has been rapidly changing the way legal operations professionals do business. Organizations that want to boost efficiency and remain competitive need to be devoting time to transformation initiatives that will implement meaningful change sooner, rather than later. The question that many companies have is how to implement digital transformation quickly and effectively.  

While digital transformation doesn’t happen immediately, the right approach and technology choices can minimize delay and help you see improved efficiencies quickly. At BT Group plc, we know firsthand the efforts required to make a significant digital transformation. We were able to replace manual and disconnected processes and management tools with centralized automation and help our legal operations department manage workload and matters across teams from inception to closure. Better yet, the team behind this transformation was able to complete this in under a year. 

Case Study: BT’s Digital Transformation Journey 

For BT, the sign that we needed to start implementing digital transformation came when we realized we had  processes that weren’t backed up by technology to help them be achievable. Our starting point was to implement a technology that would serve as the backbone for greater transformation across the organization – something that would help us establish effective work management and integration of processes and data flow through our departments and the business as a whole. 

When we started, everything was piecemeal. We were using different technologies, portals, spreadsheets and workflows. Then we implemented a business automation and workflow platform to power our transformation. Using the platform, we were able to build the apps we needed to help manage matters and documents. Within three months, the new system was live for matter management and real-time reporting, empowering the legal department to engage in trend analysis and analytics across work done by the enterprise team. 

Within a year, we had successfully implemented a cutting-edge platform that eliminated manual work and disconnected processes and enabled oversight of workload and matter management across teams from inception to closure. For every hour automation returns to our lawyers, they can reinvest that time back into helping the company grow and succeed. 

Three Tips for Successful Digital Transformation 

If you’re like many corporate legal departments today and you’re considering embarking on a digital transformation journey, there are a few things to keep in mind to make the process go more smoothly. 

1. It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint 

At BT, much of our success is attributable to our team’s overriding mantra: Look for progress, not perfection. Remember, this is a journey, and digital transformation doesn’t happen overnight. When you start thinking about digital transformation, realize that you’re not embarking on a quick fix, but real change in the way you do business. That said, there are ways to eliminate delays and make the process go faster. 

It might be tempting to try to roll your new solutions out to everyone at once, but that’s usually a mistake. Instead, start smaller, rolling out changes to departments or discrete units who can benefit the most or who currently have the greatest inefficiencies. The first users to be immersed in your changes can not only give you valuable feedback but can also help you achieve wider success and adoption across other departments. 

2. Be Prepared to Pivot and Adapt 

It’s natural to think you should plan every bit of your transformation out through every step, but even the best-laid plans will go astray along the way. Successful digital transformation requires the ability to shift, adapt and scale at a moment’s notice. The long-range plan you might think you need right now will likely look very different when implementation is done. 

First, you’ll probably try to deliver too much too quickly. Again, start with a smaller rollout and gradually build. Second, by the time you get to the later steps of your plan, they’ll likely be out of date because the world keeps changing. Fewer things change more rapidly than technology, and that’s particularly true as we continue to respond to novel challenges and business demands. Striving for small, incremental deliveries to the business addresses both of these concerns and will put you on the path to successful digital transformation. 

3. The Right Technology Is Key 

It may seem obvious, but you need to make sure you’re investing in the right software to help your transformation succeed. There are a lot of options in the market today, and they’re not all created equal. 

It can seem appealing to buy out-of-the-box software that you implement straight off the shelf, but when you do that, you have to fit within the confines of that box. A crucial part of BT’s successful transformation was relying on an actual toolkit that we can continue to use to build and grow. Our box can change shape and morph into what we need it to be, and that will be one of the keys to our success going forward. 

Results  

The hard work of everyone working on this digital transformation project at BT paid off. We reduced the number of systems running our matters by 75%, so that we now manage our matters in one place. We’ve brought together business, outsourcing and lawyers on a single platform to ensure accurate data capture and a connected workflow to manage the department’s caseload. Our GC and legal directors have a massive amount of data in a digestible format where they previously had spreadsheets, not a tool that offered real insight into their workload and teams. 

We even received industry validation of our efforts. In June, BT was honored to be awarded a prestigious Legal Innovation Award in the category of Future of Legal Services Innovation – In-House Legal Operations. This award recognizes the transformative legal technology implementation that enabled our legal department to bring together business, outsourcing and lawyers on a single platform. Even more recently, in July 2021, BT and Onit were named as finalists for the Legalweek Leaders in Tech Law Awards 2021 in the category of Legal Operations, in recognition of innovation in the legal technology sector and precedent-setting, game-changing projects and initiatives. 

Going forward, we plan to continue building and deploying custom solutions to automate legal operations and compliance processes and better collaborate with business users across the organization. 

If you’d like to hear more about this transformation, tune in to our recent podcast.  

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to digital transformation, but with the right approach and technology, you’ll start to see the results you want more quickly and be able to implement lasting change. 

As workloads continue to increase while budget and resources plateau or decrease, legal operations teams are tasked with finding more efficient ways of delivering the same services. Using digital solutions to automate routine work is one way to boost efficiency—and doing so without requiring time and resource from IT is even better. No-code development platforms empower legal ops teams to get the right tools as needed, without any programming knowledge.

The Pain of Repetition

In-house legal experts face numerous requests, each slightly different from the other, taking time away from strategic work. While legal counsel and compliance managers deal with many bespoke tasks, a big part of the daily “business-as-usual” work is repetitive and relatively easy to assist with software—if the right software is available. Whether the responsibilities of legal ops are managed with a specialized role or by in-house counsel, the goal is typically to streamline as many of these processes as possible.

Digital applications bring an immediately visible, enormous value to legal teams by allowing the automation of low-complexity, repetitive tasks, enabling legal professionals to focus on the more complex, bespoke work. With software tools, legal ops can build and improve business process management, smart spreadsheets, data visualization, workflow automation, web and mobile applications, as well as chatbots and digital assistance tools, and a virtually unlimited number of other use cases.

Typical examples are compliance requests based on gift and hospitality guidelines, or responsibilities based on signature guidelines. Those requests are similar and can easily be sorted, streamlined and answered with digital technology today. 

However, digital resources are scarce: Well-financed legal operations teams in need of software tools might work with either their company’s IT team or external IT agencies to code custom solutions—but this requires waiting for the developers to write and test the code for the application, plus other challenges that accompany trying to explain project needs to an outside team.

The No-Code Promise: Faster, Cheaper, Easier

This is where no-code can make all the difference. Essentially, no-code technology is just what it sounds like: a way to create applications without having to code anything or use IT’s assistance. In operational terms, no-code uses building blocks and forms to design the logic behind the application, creating visual representations of business processes and application flows using logical decision trees.

Compared to traditional manual programming, using no-code to develop digital solutions is much faster. The core idea is similar to constructing ready-made houses: instead of writing custom code from scratch, users only configure, through user-friendly, visual interfaces. Using no-code solutions is so fast, in fact, that the first no-code applications were used by developers themselves to accelerate their work where applications were similar. It also provides a number of other benefits.

3 Key Benefits of No-Code

1. Save time by quickly creating digital solutions that were previously out of reach

While utilizing IT is an option for some, most legal operations teams don’t have enough budget to do so; projects rarely present a sufficient “business case” to win resources from IT. It can take months (or even years) to get a project off the ground because the needs of legal operations are often deprioritized compared with revenue-generating areas of the business.

For legal ops teams that want to adopt digital solutions but lack the time or resources, no-code makes application development fast and affordable. This is why, for many, switching to no-code solutions also means using applications as part of a workflow for the first time, and benefitting from time savings as a result.

If the status quo for writing a contract involves manually entering key information throughout the document, for example, then using a digital tool with form-fills that automatically generates completed contracts will be significantly faster. For Tech Data, one of the world’s largest IT distributors, automating their entire decisioning workflow and using document automation saved the team 95% of their time that was previously spent on manual work.

At ING, Germany’s third-largest bank, the legal ops team used no-code to build self-service applications that saved not only their own time, but also that of their commercial partners—savings that translate directly into higher productivity, improved bottom line and more time to build meaningful relationships with partners.

The virtuous cycle of fast app development also leads to greater adoption of better digital tools. GEA, one of the world’s largest system suppliers for the food, beverage and pharmaceutical sectors, adopted no-code to automate repetitive tasks that were taking up too much time and energy, e.g. amending standard documents for a specific purpose. Since adopting no-code, they have built over 20 applications in one year, including document automation and applications for corporate housekeeping documents.

2. Empower the legal team

No-code technology empowers those with subject matter expertise to build up-to-date apps themselves, quickly and within the approved budget, democratizing access to application development in the same way that WordPress brought web development to all.

Software developers who build traditional tools are typically experts in programming rather than law and will not intuitively understand the goals of the finished product, resulting in back-and-forth and development delays. Legal teams are better equipped to know what they want to get out of the tools they are trying to make.

Being able to create tools immediately—without having to communicate the specifications or wait for software products to be delivered—gives power and control back to the legal team. Change management is also significantly easier when the legal team owns the tool and can instantly edit, re-use and update it to respond to dynamic business needs.

3. Reduce the risk of project failure

The beauty of no-code solutions is that they are quick and easy to implement and use, which means new applications built with them can be finished before they have a chance to be derailed by competing priorities. Large-scale, homegrown IT projects are slow, often delayed, and can be upended by a key person leaving the company—and even after substantial resource investment, they aren’t guaranteed to work.

No-code, in contrast, is built incrementally around an agile core, meaning value is delivered right away. A simple no-code application can be built to achieve one goal first, with verifiable success, and additional functionalities can be added on later without impacting the other capabilities. The speed of no-code development reduces time to value and mitigates risk.

Power to the people – Power to your Legal Ops team

Legal ops professionals are already making use of no-code technology in a variety of ways and achieving immediate and long-term benefits, from time-savings to better risk management. For many organizations, no-code can be a key part of technology and process support, enabling legal experts to transform their expertise into custom-made apps.

Corporate General Counsel and outside counsel fundamentally want the same thing – to be strategic partners to the organizations they serve. There is, therefore, a strong incentive to work collaboratively towards business outcomes.

Yet relationships with law firms can often become adversarial. Money is a particularly challenging issue. Many clients don’t engage law firms as early as might be ideal (for both sides) because they worry that the law firm will be “on the clock”. At the tail end of an engagement, there is the risk of surprise fees and errors which cause invoices to be challenged.

But why does the money matter so much? Because it’s a barrier. The commercial relationship automatically creates an arms’ length approach and a risk of being transactional, when in fact what every business wants is external advisers who are as connected, capable and proactive as the in-house team. A business wants partners, not service providers.

Moving to, and maintaining, an honest and open relationship therefore requires a proactive approach. It will take effort on both sides to escape the traditional approaches of the past. Here are some practical steps you can take:

1. Act now, because now is the right time

COVID-19 has changed everyone’s expectations overnight. Network Rail GC Dan Kayne commented in our recent webinar, “Conversations are more collaborative; I think there is a much more human approach to what we’re doing. And that’s essential. I don’t think we can allow something of this magnitude to happen and not see a shift in working styles, patterns and behaviors.”

Smart firms are recognizing the inherent value of collaboration itself. Addleshaw Goddard’s Anna Heaton also noted, “One thing we found really useful is to create small communities of GCs and other clients in similar sectors, who then have an outlet to swap ideas and share experiences. What has changed for the positive is that people are much more prepared to collaborate. The need to find answers quickly is so important that they are okay talking to their competitors at the moment, if it’s allowing them to gain more insight for the greater good. I know that sounds somewhat utopian, but I do think there is a genuine change in terms of how people are working together.”

This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rewrite the rules of collaboration.

2. Invest time in communication

The move from a client-supplier relationship to involving law firms as valued, trusted advisers takes time. It requires law firms to understand their clients’ strategies and priorities. This works both ways though: GCs also need to invest time, by explaining their requirements to outside counsel. Meet your law firms quarterly for an exclusively forward-looking (rather than a business as usual) conversation.

Damian Honey, Partner at HFW, said, “What I’ve found useful is to have fixed, regular meetings across a broad range of skill-sets, that we as a firm are providing to the client; where you can sit down and have an open and honest conversation. Relationships are two way, and we as a law firm can provide constructive feedback as to how the client could be more efficient, but equally, we want to know how we are performing and how we can be more efficient.”

3. Work out loud

Futurist (and former IBM Global Managing Partner) Andrew Grill recently told an Apperio webinar of legal professionals, “You’re probably using tools like Zoom, Slack or Yammer right now. But the way to use them properly is to adopt a methodology called ‘working out loud’. It means talking to our communities and networks about the things we’re working on. That doesn’t mean breaching client confidentiality; it means sharing ideas by default, so that others can chip in with their ideas and contributions. Because your value to an organization isn’t what you know, it’s what you share. In the old days, information was power: I would guard what I was working on, and I would become more powerful. In the new age of work, it’s more important and advantageous to share what you’re doing. That sharing then becomes valuable to the organization.”

Share across the client/provider boundary and you’ll create real partnerships.

4. Set some KPIs

Trust is built on relationships, but also shared expectations. Consider agreeing common goals and related metrics. By acknowledging what’s important to each side, you can build a successful win-win relationship, with quantifiable outcomes. As well as professional and service targets, with fiscal transparency your KPIs can, for example, include the number of matters going over budget and ratio of complaints to open matters.

5. Make time to make contact without an agenda

Dan Kayne commented, “It’s so important to have regular conversations that don’t necessarily worry too much about specific issues – just to check in and see how people are doing. Law firms have often struggled with that historically – they don’t want to waste the time of the GC. But it’s actually quite an important thing to do. People really appreciate when suppliers, particularly partners, as we describe ourselves, take time out to pick up the phone and just say, I know it’s tough for you right now. But we’re here to help.”

6. Get the best minds in the room

For the most part, teams are not refreshed on a regular basis. Many fine legal careers are built on personal relationships, but with a data-driven approach, you can build teams on the basis of the best skill-sets. Recognize that the modern business environment is fast-moving and, as needs on both sides change, different people will be appropriate for different types of work. With the right data, you can broaden your team options; safe in the knowledge that value is being preserved.

7. Use multiple channels

COVID-19 has seen a renewed focus on managing relationships from afar. Email, which allows lawyers to maintain a certain level of control over the dialogue but is not necessarily what’s best for the relationship, had become the default and somewhat “lazy” communication tool.

With inboxes overrun though, lawyers have been forced to adopt new technologies. For example, video conferencing tools have enabled lawyers to fully adapt and substitute non-personal email chains with face-to-face (albeit on a screen) interactions to re-dress and truly strengthen these relationships.

8. Beware of the robots

If you needed a final nudge towards collaboration, Futurist Andrew Grill says, “Any job that can be done by a robot, will be replaced by a robot. What you do must have that extra level of information that comes from intuition.” The transactional aspects of the legal profession will be progressively eaten up by machine learning.

The high-value work that humans can do will either be at the cutting edge of the law, or advisory: engaging professionally as subject matter experts, embedded in the offices, challenges and ambitions of their client businesses.

The future is collaborative, not just because it’s friendly, but because it’s more effective – and the legal sector’s livelihood will one day depend on it. COVID-19 has accelerated our technical skills and therefore our ability to connect on multiple platforms. It will suit both sides to continue to break down those barriers, so that legal professionals can fulfil the strategic advisory role where they are most valuable.

As we shifted from traditional office roles to COVID-induced remote work being the norm, businesses across most industries adjusted and adopted new policies and tools to stay afloat and, in some cases, succeed. Now, as lockdowns ease and restrictions change, 2021 finds us watching as more businesses move into a hybrid workplace.

A myriad of questions face organizations. Some of the major ones are concerns across the board, regardless of where in the world you’re located. Will your staff be willing and allowed to work in the physical office? How many companies will remain flexible about remote work? With findings showing that remote workers are more productive than they were in the office, most will likely offer the opportunity in the long run.

In fact, according to a report by Owl Labs, respondents felt that if they were no longer allowed to work remotely post-pandemic, 66% would stay but be less happy, 54% would stay in their roles, but be less willing to go the extra mile, and 44% would expect a salary increase.

A new strategy is needed

As more questions materialize, it’s time to formulate and implement a strategy for how best to support and manage employees to succeed in the new hybrid workplace. You dealt with the shift to remote work – can it really be that much more difficult? Short answer: yes.

“In a lot of ways it’s going to be more disruptive than when we went all remote,” said Brian Kropp, vice president of research at Gartner, to The Washington Post.  In short, Legal Ops plays a huge role in helping the rest of the organization address the issues that a hybrid workplace may face, from business continuity challenges to implementing effective automation at a time of confusion.

Legal Operations needs to prioritize building a legal tech stack that can securely and productively unite an ecosystem of in-house teams, outside counsel, and service providers. What are the essential technologies that can get you started on this path?

Legal Workflow and Process Automation

If your Legal Operations employees are disseminated across various locations and scenarios, it’s paramount to ensure that your work processes are efficient, collaborative, and trackable (in case of a future audit). This means it falls to legal ops to implement the right technology – i.e., workflow and process automation to unite the hybrid workforce around optimized, digitized processes.

An end-to-end automation solution that spans your organization and covers all of its needs is ideal, particularly one with legal and operational best practices and security measures embedded within it. The effectiveness of your hybrid workforce greatly depends on workflow automation. Your technology solution should offer flexibility, ease of use, and transparency.

Enterprise Legal Management

Efficiency has taken on a whole new level of importance post-pandemic, and it’s crucial to cast an eye over your daily operations and reevaluate each one, especially through the lens of information governance. An effective ELM solution should support an array of corporate legal needs, ranging from matter management to spend management and much more.

An ELM should provide a centralized matter management capability. This is of paramount importance in managing multiple matters being handled by far-flung staff.  Also, your ELM should also be your single source of truth for all your legal matters. In this new hybrid environment, all your Legal Ops team members need equal and immediate access to materials, documents, status updates, and so on. Having disconnected systems for information retrieval will result in wasted time, effort, and money.

That’s why your ELM should also enable a complete audit trail of all changes made to information assets or documents, mitigating compliance and security risks.

Expanded Integration Capabilities

As work-from-anywhere becomes the norm, collaboration tools have experienced a surge in popularity. You would be hard-pressed to find an organization that doesn’t currently use Slack, Microsoft Teams, or a similar platform for internal and/or external communications.

As the number of collaboration tools and platforms increases, it’s crucial that your solution offers expanded integration capabilities to let it work seamlessly with them – particularly in the case of workflow automation.  Not only does this help ensure efficiency across the board, it gives greater functionality to your legal tech stack since the right workflow automation solution will connect and accelerate other solutions, even legacy platforms.

Addressing the needs of hybrid Legal Ops

There are three major “must-haves” that Legal Ops needs to consider as it assesses technologies to support hybrid working environments. The first is flexibility– your technology solution should be able to easily accommodate different scenarios as they arise, especially ones as unique as we have experienced in the past year. Second, your solution should be agile and able to pivot quickly to address these scenarios. Finally, your Legal Operations team should ensure that any solution adopted supports business continuity. Whatever operational or organizational changes may happen, or disruptions occur, your tech tools should always enable you to keep fulfilling the legal objectives and strategy of your enterprise.

The three technologies we’ve covered are crucial, but they’re just the tip of the iceberg. Watch our sponsor session, “Justin Time! The Legal Ops Ecosystem of Today and Tomorrow” at CLOC Global Institute on Wednesday, May 12th at 9:00 AM-10:00 AM PT. The virtual session will address the cornerstone technologies that make sense for legal ops to adopt to meet near-term needs, and future solutions that incorporate collaboration tools, big data, and machine learning for the long haul.

If there is one thing that no legal professional wants to hear as they endeavor to ‘return to normal’ from COVID-19s, it is that there will likely be another contagion — or calamity — that requires legal teams to shift their legal operations altogether. However, it is our job — as legal, risk and compliance professionals — to consistently prepare for changes in the marketplace and the rest of the world.  Ask yourself, then, if you started to think seriously about legal digital transformation in preparation for that next large-scale crisis. 

When the so-called ‘coronacrisis’ hit, I was the in-house general counsel (GC) for a New York City-based multinational technology company, which provides artificial intelligence, cognitive, and autonomic solutions to other global businesses. One key element in the organization’s survival was the successful adoption and implementation of an advanced, end-to-end contract management system (CMS). It  did not have anything closely resembling a CMS, which prioritizes the needs of the corporate legal team, when I joined the company in 2015.  

A CMS makes contracts and related documents readily accessible, no matter where you are — so long as you have internet access, of course. It allows in-house corporate attorneys to remain productive pretty much anywhere in the world, at any given time. It prevents the office-bound issues that inflict misery on companies — being perpetually stuck in manual contracting mode or using herky-jerky legal technology! 

But how do legal departments and operations begin their digital transformation journey and encourage user adoption in the first place? During my time as a GC — with more than a modicum of tech savvy — I have used best practices to improve contract management processes and methodologies, increase overall productivity, and ensure business continuity during times of crisis. Here are four critical success factors: 

Realizing the Legal Team’s Role 

The role of legal teams in selecting, implementing, and customizing a contract management solution can never be understated. When legal is not involved in the selection and rollout, the project is most likely doomed. The importance of legal professionals embracing the solution wholeheartedly cannot be stressed enough either. If they are not comfortable using the system, the rest of the company will not be either.  

Naturally, legal teams do not have to handle every single step, but they do need to have a hand in creating the company’s vision for the CMS. They can then assign others, who have proverbial ‘skin in the game,’ to handle other parts of the digital transformation project. 

Valuing the Engagement Manager 

Although legal teams must be invested in the decision-making around a new CMS, engagement managers’ involvement is vital as well. For the most part, engagement managers are people who can say confidently, “Here is what I want to see happening.” They show business teams how to configure what they truly want out of their new software and facilitate communications between each. It is not nearly enough for a paralegal, for example, to merely run with it as is. Companies, whether medium- or large-sized, require sound expertise and ongoing technical support. They also need users who can test — and retest — the new solution to see if it meets the business use cases. 

A word of warning, though: the legal team must continue to have a stake in the project. That is because a fully configured application must work for lawyers, first and foremost, while supporting other users in sales, finance, or IT when necessary. With an effectively implemented contract management platform, basically, “you adapt to it, or it adapts to you.” 

Defining CMS Needs 

It is true, though, that most GCs and legal executives will say they just “don’t have the time” to define what they need at the outset of a digital transformation project. But they will end up getting “whatever works” if they do not. Accordingly, they should invest some of their time in the software selection process. After all, they will not have nearly as much of it when they have to constantly adjust the software to mirror their business processes.  

The question then becomes whether GCs and legal executives should be involved in decisions around users’ experience, digital workflows, and other lovely technical details. My answer to that is, “yes — 100 percent!” Even if they do not describe themselves as a technologist, they need to help define the look and feel, capabilities, and other aspects of the CMS. They need to get to the point where there is project buy-in from stakeholders. 

Alternatively, if they allow a technology vendor to do all of the above instead, they will get the kind of general practices that work across many other companies. This is perfectly fine, of course, if they ask the vendor to recommend best practices. However, general practices and vendor recommendations do not always reflect companies’ unique business processes. GCs and legal executives should be involved in communicating their wants, needs, and individual practices, accordingly. 

Getting Even More Involved 

In the context of selecting and implementing a CMS, ‘getting involved’ really means being an active project participant from the very beginning to the end. This significantly improves the chances that a legal digital transformation will be successful for legal and other teams. Participants’ questions for vendors should revolve around software capabilities — not only from a corporate legal perspective, but also from those of their business colleagues. Their close working relationships with customer success managers should not only be established, but also maintained. 

When they are engaged fully and ask the right questions, it helps deliver the results that legal departments and operations demand and deserve.  

Starting Your Legal Digital Transformation Journey 

Ultimately, deploying a contract management solution makes contracting easier at just about every level. The further along you are in your legal digital transformation, the less human intervention is needed for contract assembly, review, and analysis, as well as other functions. What this translates into is increased efficiency, enhanced agility, and — better yet — improved business continuity. It prevents legal professionals from falling way behind. Say, for example, in the middle of a global pandemic.  

With these implementation best practices in mind — and a powerful digital tool in hand — GCs and legal executives can begin to increase the value they bring to the table and take on some of the biggest organizational challenges, both today and in the future. They can aspire to use a framework like CLOC’s 12 core competencies for legal operations, reaching new levels of optimization and maturity.  

Learn More from ContractPodAi 

Do you want to find out how legal digital transformation can help you to be more flexible, both operationally and commercially? At the CLOC 2021 Global Institute, ContractPodAi was joined by Steve Rigler, Inmarsat’s Director of Contract Operations. Together, we discussed how Inmarsat went about streamlining and simplifying its day-to-day contract management.  

If you didn’t catch it during the live event, make sure to watch the discussion on-demand. To find out more about ContractPodAi and legal document management platforms, please contact us.  

The current environment has triggered uncertainty and has accelerated change in law departments in struggling and thriving industries. To best manage an ever-changing environment and, at the same time, advance their evolution, law departments must embrace three critical characteristics: they must be agile, value-centric, and tech-enabled. The foundation for this future state is a mature and data-driven legal operations program.

Agile: Nimble, Responsive, and Proactive

Only one thing is evident during the pandemic: everything you think you know will change—and probably more than once. Returning to the office is just one example of that uncertainty: in roundtables over the last several months, HBR asked law department leaders what percentage of their employees they expect to return to the office in 2021. Over the previous quarter, an increasing number of law department leaders anticipate less than half of their department members return to the office in 2021.

To respond to the ever-shifting environment and clients’ ever-changing needs, law departments must be agile and responsive, continually flexing to meet emerging areas of need. The ability to be responsive to emerging client needs requires effectively allocating and empowering resources in an organizational framework.

Alignment with client needs. While the practice of law is often reactive, there is now a heightened need for structured, proactive alignment with client priorities. Business needs to address a variety of new or urgent priorities quickly.

Leverage model. With the appropriate mix of experience within their attorney ranks and the proper allocation of non-attorney resources, law departments can easily assign work to the right resource level. With the right mix doing the appropriate work, productivity will increase, costs will be lower, and employees will be more engaged.

Organization structure. Concentrating repetitive work such as contracts or research into centralized resource groups (centers of excellence) can allow other resources to flex to areas of need that require more nuanced support.

Resource empowerment. Agile law departments have a culture that empowers individuals and teams to make decisions and react quickly in a fluid environment. Ongoing professional development and cross-training will give team members the skills and knowledge to be confident. In the current climate, creative and continued employee engagement is also critical.

Value Centric: Emphasizing Value While Managing Cost

Value-centric means ensuring that a department’s resources, internal and external, are focused on the highest value tasks and activities. Value centric law departments analyze the work to be done, optimize the processes for performing it, rationalize external spend on law firms and other service providers, and monitor their performance.

In the current environment, cost is a significant value consideration for law departments. Our roundtable polls indicate that law department operations leaders’ priorities have shifted since the onset of the pandemic. In April, talent-related issues were top of mind, as departments scrambled to adjust to the work-from-home environment. By June, the top priority was cost management, even in industries less adversely affected by the pandemic.

Internal value. With new work and personal issues drawing on people’s time, law departments need to maximize their leverage models’ effectiveness, finding new ways of working, and focusing on the highest value activities and tasks. Increasingly, forward-looking departments are working to track and monitor team activity to ensure the department focuses on the highest value work.

External value. To maximize the value received from outside counsel, law departments tighten their partnerships with existing preferred panel firms and rationalize which firms they choose to use based on the alignment between cost and the value received. When reviewing RFPs, leading law departments look for differentiating value—external providers’ opportunity to demonstrate their understanding of client needs.

Tech Enabled: Supporting Agility, Value Centricity and More

The current environment has brought technology to the forefront – technology tools have helped some departments thrive while others have recognized their deficiencies. Technology can drive efficiency, improve decision making, and consistency in delivering legal support and services, including providing underlying support and measurement for departments’ efforts to be agile and value-centric. But with the proliferation of available technology tools and cost management pressures, it is essential for law departments to ensure that their legal tech stack is (a) aligned with their strategic objectives and (b) adopted by end-users to provide its intended value.

Alignment with strategic objectives. Law departments should continually recalibrate their legal technology strategy, aligning technology strategy with the department’s overall strategy. In the current environment, that alignment includes taking into account the “new normal,” such as working from home and enforcing controls more effectively. Still, it is crucial not to lose sight of longer-term strategic goals.

Enabling technology tools should be right-sized for their intended purpose and support efficient processes, consistent tracking, and robust reporting. Generally, a law department’s operational model should leverage an enterprise legal management (ELM) system as one of its central tools, supported by additional tools to address practice area-specific needs. For example, while transactional functions have sometimes felt underserved by traditional, litigation-focused technology, leading law departments are now leveraging workflow and contract lifecycle management (CLM) technology to serve transactional functions better. HBR’s roundtable discussions indicate that law departments are currently prioritizing analytics tools and workflow tools instead of more nascent technology such as AI. Analytic tools can facilitate decision-making regarding spending, resource allocation, and more, and workflow tools can help a department more agilely, timely, and equitably respond to client needs.

Maximizing investment through adoption.

Based on HBR’s roundtable discussions, we find that most law departments focus on maximizing their existing investments—completing implementations and working to ensure adoption by end-users to justify the investment. Most roundtable participants are currently seeing a significant or moderate uptick in user adoption (necessity can drive use), but much of the information they gather is anecdotal or based solely on log-ins. To understand the actual level of adoption, law departments must measure actual usage and monitor relevance. As a result, HBR and others are developing new tools to help law departments better track how users are interacting with legal technology.

Conclusion  

To continue to evolve, law departments must be proactive in shaping their future, taking a strategic, forward-looking view. The concepts presented here are not new, but the current environment offers a unique opportunity to accelerate the evolution towards becoming agile, value-centric, and tech-enabled law departments of the future. Simply reacting to the pandemic’s challenges and its fallout is not enough—seize the moment because the future is now.

Organizations credit digital transformation with reducing costs, increasing agility, and delivering enhanced and new services. A possible unforeseen outcome of digital transformation is a rising volume of digital documents and information generated by business systems.

Digitally managing this increasing volume of documents presents a particular challenge for the legal industry. Law firms and legal departments require easy document accessibility and specific needs around workflow and collaboration.  There is no time in history when these needs have been more acute than in 2020 when remote working is the norm rather than the exception.

Traditional document management systems focused on helping enterprises organize and manage their documents. As these systems’ use increased, users found that they could not meet modern law departments and legal professionals’ needs.

Defining Modern Document Management

Modern document management is the next stage in the evolution of productivity solutions for corporate legal departments and users. These systems deliver an intuitive, consumer-like experience that empowers professionals to work more productively and collaboratively. At the same time, they enable corporate legal departments to be more efficient, agile, and responsive to the changing business environment.

1. Value to the User: The central tenet of modern document management is to empower the user by delivering a dramatically better experience. Its platform mirrors consumer applications like Amazon and Google, with intuitive features that work the way users want to work and requires minimal training. Modern document management starts with a clean, modern interface, accessible on any device, including personal computers, phones, or tablets. These systems store documents and emails with their associated project or matter, so users see the complete picture without bouncing between information silos. And it is seamlessly integrated with the authoring applications that people use every day, including Microsoft Word, Outlook, Gmail, and others.

2. Value to the information: Modern document management adds smart features and capabilities to enhance the value of information stored in documents and emails. For example, it displays document history and other metrics in intuitive visual dashboards and timelines. It anticipates user actions with smart document previews, suggested filing locations, and personalized search. And it integrates seamlessly with the tools legal professionals use, including matter management, contract management, and workflow software.

3. Value to the organization: Improving the individual user experience while enhancing the value of information delivers profound benefits at the organizational level. Modern document management helps legal organizations become more efficient and productive and deliver better outcomes for the business. Increased user experience drives user adoption and increases the amount of content stored in an organized and secure environment.  The system reduces the time spent – across the department – searching for the correct document. More importantly, it retains the department’s institutional knowledge, captured in documents and emails.

4. Comprehensive Governance and Security: The final tenet of modern document management is comprehensive security and governance. Legal organizations have stringent requirements for document security from both internal and external threats. This content requires comprehensive security protections, built on established industry best practices, to secure information assets and govern who can access them. Data is encrypted at every stage of the process, with security permissions defined by content type and automatically applied across all documents or email.

Real-World Case Study

To further illustrate these concepts, it’s helpful to consider a real-world law department example. A large multinational corporation with operations in 180 countries worldwide recently evaluated its legal technology environment. Their in-house team found that they struggled to manage their information resources effectively and identified specific pain points associated with finding, sharing, and uploading information. Their analysis showed that legal department employees needed to search and access four documents every day. The searches fall into three main categories:

• “Easy” searches for documents the user has personally touched recently – 10-20 minutes
• “Warm” searches for documents where the user has some confidence – 30 minutes-2 hours
• “Precedent” searches where the user is looking for previously created content – 1-5 days

When calculating the business impact of this challenge across the department, it became evident that the productivity loss associated with inefficient document search was substantial. They found that data was stored in silos leaving users no single source of truth for business information. The result was a loss of speed and accuracy in searching for information, significantly limiting their ability to find and leverage precedent.

After conducting an evaluation and proof of concept, Legal Operations determined they would roll out a modern document management solution to enable knowledge sharing and leverage their information’s power. They based their decision on believing that they could deliver measurable value by better enabling legal work processes and products. Their objective was to deliver more than a traditional document management system.  They wanted to provide a complete legal information, knowledge, and workflow management solution. A modern document management solution’s core value is transforming how legal professionals get work done, improving productivity, enhancing user experience, increasing knowledge sharing, and improving the overall quality of legal services delivered to the business.