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.

As an impactful organization, CLOC is committed to being at the forefront of moving the business of law forward. Offering relevant and innovative content and education to the legal operations profession is key to that mission. Therefore, we are forming an Education Advisory Council (EAC) that will help guide strategic initiatives and develop content and educational offerings. 

We are looking for a cross-section of CLOC membership to serve as volunteers on this inaugural council with the following traits: 

• Sincere, dedicated, conscientious, credible, and principled.  
• Speaks their own mind but can compromise.   
• Has experience with multiple learning formats (virtual, in-person, hybrid)  
• Is a CLOC Member respected among their peers. 

Responsibilities of this role will include: 

• Be a sounding board for the Head of Education and Content in formulating the education strategy of the association.  
• Assist with industry scans, including the economic, social, and political climate in which CLOC and the legal industry are situated.  
• Ensure voices of all constituents and CLOC member segments that need to be heard are encouraged to be part of the conversation related to program planning.  
• Provide assistance building partnerships with other organizations, if necessary, to ensure programming is effectively designed and successfully delivered.  

Serving on this council will offer professional and personal benefits, including  

• It is an honor to be chosen for the EAC. Invitations are extended to those viewed as thought leaders and experts in their field.  
• Participating is an excellent networking and learning opportunity. EAC is comprised of a cross-section of high-level industry participants. Members can extend relationships forged at EAC meetings into long-term working alliances.  
• Current EAC members will receive a discount to attend CLOC events.  

If you are interested in being considered for this opportunity, please review, and complete the application form here. CLOC Leadership will review all applications and reach out to the selected members with an invitation to participate no later than October 29, 2021. 

If you have any questions or would like more information about the role, please feel free to contact CLOC’s Head of Content and Education, Nicole Zafian at: nicole.zafian@cloc.org.  

Thank you so much for considering this opportunity to play an integral role in transforming the business of law! 

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.

The role of the modern Legal Operations professional is evolving rapidly. Not that long ago, agreements were stored in shared folders or worse, in physical filing cabinets, and signatures were inked with actual pens further delaying the process. Today, however, the demands placed on Legal Ops have necessitated change. Because Legal Ops touches every department, from Procurement to Sales, these professionals look to technology as a way to keep up with the growing expectation placed on them to do more with less. Where once Legal was more cautious to embrace technology, today they are embracing it with ever-increasing enthusiasm to bridge the gap across their organization and reduce repetitive, time-consuming tasks that are better suited for automation.

Jumping into the Deep End of the Pool

It can be tempting to jump in to a new technology solution straight away when you want to introduce automation. However, you should start by thoroughly understanding the current processes you want to automate and what you want your future processes to look like. Just as you wouldn’t put on a bathing suit and jump into the deep end of a pool without knowing how to swim, in the same way, you need to begin by identifying what you need to streamline and automate before you can actually do so.

Where to Begin

Here are some practical points to consider when building out your technology requirements.

• Ask yourself where things can be streamlined and improved.
• Identify what entities and departments truly need to be involved in these processes.
• Determine if a new system is needed or an existing one can help.
• Consider what integrations you want with your existing business systems. Keeping users connected to the technology they already love will help ease change management strain and increase user adoption rates.

Templates, Templates Everywhere

A significant area of automation focus for many Legal teams right now is contract management. The number and type of agreements within your organization is likely increasing, and it’s common for business teams within your company to struggle knowing which template they should be using when requesting a contract. A CLM solution can help. Auto-template selection can streamline the contract request experience using a few key data fields that are linked to the correct contract template, and then route it to the appropriate approvers. This type of contract automation can relieve the burden placed on Legal to get involved in every single agreement and free up their time to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Speeding the Signature Process

Signature is another area that can get slow things down. Even with e-signature, the process doesn’t always go smoothly. Especially in a large organization depending on factors like region, entity, department, or contract value, agreements require different signatories. Routing agreements to the right individuals can be time-consuming and potentially fraught with error. By automating the signatory hierarchy in your contract management solution, you can ensure that the correct person is signing each agreement every time, building efficiency into the process and providing compliance peace of mind.

One CLM to Rule Them All

As you consider which CLM solution will help to streamline your contract processes, it may seem impossible that you can find one to work for every part of your organization. However, there are ways to find one solution.

• Involve stakeholders early and often, even bordering on overcommunication when choosing a solution. Solicit feedback using surveys to make sure the product is meeting user needs.
• Keep all   requirements in mind. Be sure to identify what stakeholders need, such as who needs to be notified and when. This will help you navigate involving each party in agreement workflows and not bothering them when unnecessary.
• Select a solution that is flexible enough to be configured to meet the needs of various use cases. Ultimately, the more flexible the solution is, the easier it will be to keep your stakeholders happy.
• Provide plenty of training as it will help in overcoming resistance to change. People learn in different ways, so give them a variety of outlets to help them get accustomed to the new solution (e.g. user guides, training videos, and office hours).

Looking Ahead – Metrics Rule!

Once you have contract automation in place,  you’re ready to measure  success and see where additional efficiencies might be needed. Helpful metrics include:

• How often you are using your own paper versus third-party paper?
• How many people route signatures through your CLM?
• How long is your average cycle time?
• How many contracts need Legal involvement and how many do not?
• How many times are you using standard language instead of non-standard?
• Is your contract volume changing month-to-month?

Automatic reporting on these key performance indicators (KPIs) can help determine where improvements are needed. And let’s not forget that having these KPIs often helps you justify additional spend or resources as you grow.

About Malbek

Malbek is today’s most modern, cutting-edge, and AI-infused CLM solution that empowers Legal Ops professionals to do more with less. By supporting the growing contracting demands of your entire enterprise, including Sales, Finance, Procurement and other critical business units, Malbek’s CLM solution delights every user. Malbek provides end-to-end contract management with out-of-the-box integration to popular business applications, like Salesforce, Coupa, Workday, Slack and others, allowing your contract data to flow seamlessly while dramatically reducing cycle times. That’s contracts reimagined! To learn more visit www.malbek.io.

Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with Eric Ortman, the senior director of legal operations at BeiGene.  

If you’re not familiar with BeiGene, their work is pretty inspiring: in pursuit of the next generation of cancer treatments, they are taking a truly global approach to their research. They have trials running across five continents, with major operations in Australia, China, and the U.S. Their company motto says it all: “Cancer has no borders. Neither do we.” 

This cross-border work doesn’t begin and end with research. BeiGene’s legal department is constantly looking for ways it, too, can work seamlessly across borders so they can support the company’s mission—an effort that Eric and the legal ops team must support through better systems and processes. 

In my conversation with Eric at the 2021 CLOC Global Summit entitled “Contracting without Borders”, Eric noted, for example, the compliance requirements around contracting that the legal department must comply with across the many jurisdictions BeiGene operates in. 

“There are some ways of doing business and also legal issues that vary between the U.S., China, Australia, Europe, and so we needed to make sure that certain contract workflows were designed to support business processes in each jurisdiction,” Eric said. 

Leveraging CLOC Competencies to Work Globally 

Historically, a company may approach this challenge by setting up small legal teams in each country that operate independently, with little effort put toward comparing performance or best practices across geographies. 

However, by leveraging one core CLOC competency—Technology—Eric and his team have been able to leverage another—Business Intelligence. 

CLOC notes that Business Intelligence allows Legal Ops to “Uncover hidden trends, find new efficiencies, and focus your team on clear and measurable outcomes that make a difference to the business.”  

Contracts define what a company buys, what it sells, and how it runs. When managed correctly, contract data can provide high-value insights to the business—call it “contract intelligence.” These insights range from the fairly straightforward (e.g., how long does it take for a contract to get approved) to the highly complex (e.g., which clauses are associated with better business outcomes post-execution).  

From a compliance standpoint, Eric noted the importance of being able to pool data in order to quickly report out on what contracts fall under various regulations due to their component parts. 

“When we have someone from a regulatory agency, say the FDA comes in, and they want to see a list of the contracts that are related to a specific study, you’ve to be able to quickly run that report, and prepare that, and share that list,” Eric says. 

Given the global nature of BeiGene’s operations and the local considerations of its contracts, creating a single source of truth for this business intelligence required legal ops to take a different approach to managing its agreements. 

This is where leveraging the CLOC Core Competency, Technology, came into play. 

How Contract Management Software Helped BeiGene Realize Its Vision  

CLOC recommends legal ops departments use technology to “automate manual processes, digitize physical tasks, and improve speed and quality through the strategic deployment of technology solutions.” 

Eric shared with me that, when he arrived at BeiGene, the fast-growing company did not have a contract lifecycle management (CLM) system in place. Eric immediately identified CLM as a critical asset for BeiGene to unify its global contracting operations due to its ability to harmonize processes across geographies and create a system of intelligence for all of a company’s entitlements and commitments.  

Advanced CLM pushes beyond contract management and ensures that all agreements are in compliance and commitments are upheld, that changing conditions dynamically trigger the appropriate actions, that high-value insights are available in real time, and that new information makes the whole system increasingly smarter and faster. 

Deploying Technology Solutions to Last 

Importantly, one piece of guidance CLOC provides on technology is to “create and implement a long-term technology roadmap.” 

Too often, companies embarking on a CLM journey choose a rudimentary solution that can be stood up fast, avoiding a comprehensive solution they perceive will take years to implement. 

BeiGene’s story demonstrates why this is a short-sighted choice. When it set out to choose a contract management platform, it did not just look at what it needed in the immediate term but took the time to scope out what it ultimately wanted from the solution in the years to come. It crafted this ambitious plan by bringing together a diverse set of stakeholders: What did the clinical trials team need from a CLM? What about compliance? What about the marketing team that engaged doctors to speak on behalf of their therapies? 

“There is nothing more important for us than making sure those clinical trial agreements are operating smoothly. And so I brought in people from the clin-ops team who are working on those clinical trial agreements to work very closely with us on the design to help us to develop the requirements,” Eric said. A recent study conducted by Forrester Research validated the benefits of this approach, finding “that firms who involve coalitions of C-suite stakeholders in CLM decision-making and have more fully integrated solutions are better prepared and more confident in managing rapid change.” 

Notwithstanding this benefit, managing a large coalition of stakeholders can sound daunting and unwieldy, raising the specter of project scope spinning out of control. Yet Eric and the legal ops team were systematic in their approach, knowing that while a solution should be able to address needs across multiple functions, deployment of solutions would be incremental, with firm priorities and milestones. They broke the deployment into stage gates that have enabled them to iterate and create champions as they expand to more departments and agreement types—with learning and feedback occurring throughout. 

Of course, there is always more work to be done. Eric notes that as BeiGene’s adoption matures, he looks forward to trading best practices with other like-minded LDOs within pharma and life sciences. This type of networking will only improve CLM processes and practices for the industry. 

Today, thanks to the efforts of legal ops, BeiGene has a global approach to contracts that matches its global fight against cancer. 

About Icertis: With unmatched technology and category-defining innovation, Icertis pushes the boundaries of what’s possible with contract lifecycle management (CLM). The AI-powered, analyst-validated Icertis Contract Intelligence (ICI) platform turns contracts from static documents into strategic advantage by structuring and connecting the critical contract information that defines how an organization runs. Today, the world’s most iconic brands and disruptive innovators trust Icertis to govern the rights and commitments in their 7.5 million+ contracts worth more than $1 trillion, in 40+ languages and 90+ countries. Find out more at https://www.icertis.com  

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.