Technology that continues to characterize the 21st century has tremendous and significant impacts on different sectors and industries in the economy. These technological developments are driving organizations to revamp how their departments have conventionally operated.
One department that is increasingly embracing technology in its daily operations is the legal department. Organizations have realized the benefits of implementing a variety of legal practice management software.
One fundamental reason is that it reduces paperwork and allows attorneys to dedicate more valuable time to their clients.
Ways in which Legal Departments can leverage on the Use of Technology
There are four distinct ways that corporate legal departments are leveraging technological innovations.
E-Billing
Legal e-billing dates back to the 1990s when legal firms were confronted with a series of challenges that required them to strategize their billing systems. Among other challenges faced included failure to a company with client guidelines, exceeding estimated budget, duplicating time charges, poor billing procedures and vague invoices (Busylamp.com, n.d).
To deal with these shortcomings, the concept of legal e-billing was introduced to streamline the billing services. E-billing software was introduced to allow legal departments and organizations to save time and money and help in-house counsel control outside counsel costs.
For instance, Suzanne Hawkins, who worked for General Electric, once said the adoption of the e-billing system enabled the company to save over $1m in its first year, accounting for 15% savings on money spent in wrong entries (Busylamp.com, n.d). Through e-billing, the department has an automated system for reviewing and approving invoices received in the legal department. Given the company receives several invoices in a year, the e-billing system comes in handy in ensuring relevant data is collected, including the timelines, timekeepers, activities and expenses. Legal departments can also use billing information to strategically gain important insight that fosters their future planning and management.
E-billing also allows companies to request payment on works in progress as each aspect of a project or expense incurred is recorded in the system. This further enables transparency among the parties involved in a project or contract. Lastly, automated processing of invoices reduces chances for errors, which human beings could easily cause.
The person in charge of the system can set budget limits for various items and also flag down those that do not contain the correct information or do not comply with the various parameters set in the system.
Matter Management
While the aspect of matter management is often used interchangeably with that of case management, the former relates to the process of gathering, tracking, assigning and reporting on legal work, including matter name, type, legal service providers and in-house counsel working on the case, budgets and invoices.
It is also quite extensive and comprises other practices such as document management and contract management. On this note, legal departments often employ various matter management software and tools to provide consistent, centralized and detailed tracking of a legal department’s work. This means that the different legal documents are stored in one database, fostering and enhancing retrieval and accessibility (BusyLamp.com, 2021).
Matter management applications are also being utilized to improve productivity through the automation of repetitive and manual tasks.
Regulatory and compliance management
Organizations do not operate in a vacuum but rather within a regulated environment. There are technological systems designed to give alerts and updates on various regulatory and compliance systems that a company is subscribed to. Through this management system, the company can track the expiry of licenses and have them updated. Some have also incorporated tax management systems, which enable the company to comply with the tax obligation without having any issue with their governments.
Legal Department Collaboration
Efficient and real-time collaboration is a vital component and element in the current business and workplace dynamics. Some of the notable technological innovations used to foster and enhance collaboration in legal departments include Emails, instant messaging, and video conferencing, among others (BusyLamp.com, 2021). These points notwithstanding, it is extremely vital that collaboration in legal departments is done in secure environments, hence, need for comprehensive and sophisticated technologies that offer security features.
E-Discovery
Corporate legal departments are also leveraging tech innovations in terms of electronic discovery. It is particularly concerned with the initial phase of litigation. It is worth sharing that the legal process of litigation can begin even before a lawsuit has been filed and includes the gathering and sharing of relevant information and evidence. In this line, electronic discovery entails diverse electronically stored data and information such as websites, databases and emails. E-Discovery is also associated with analyzing data that forensic investigators can still review (BusyLamp.com, 2021). Legal departments employ various tools and software to streamline the litigation process to assist in locating and processing and managing, and analyzing vast amounts of case information.
Trends in Corporate Legal Technologies
Undoubtedly, legal firms and departments have conventionally been adamant about automating their operations and services. However, the coronavirus pandemic that continues to decimate the globe has given the entire industry a wake-up call. The pandemic has flattened staffing budgets and increased legal workloads. In this regard, legal departments are increasingly examining technologies to identify what would assist them in driving business outcomes effectively. On this note, several trends are predicted in terms of legal technology investments.
To begin with, it is forecasted that corporate legal departments will increase their expenditure and investment on legal technology and software by about 30% by 2025 (Ambrogi, 2019). Among other areas where investment has focused greatly include board of director’s portal software, e-billing, contract management, matter management, litigation hold and document management.
With increasing workloads resulting from the pandemic, legal departments that invested and continue to spend on legal tech have found great success. As such, more entities are bound to increase their investments to meet productivity demands and support workflows.
It is also predicted that non-lawyer staffs will replace generalist lawyers in the legal departments in the next three years. They will enhance the legal technology and innovation capabilities within their teams by building skills within existing staff; borrowing expertise from other internal functions. There are also strong indications that legal departments will automate most of their core duties and functions by 2025(Ambrogi, 2019).. One notable function entails corporate transactions.
It is also predicted that with the saturation of the legal tech market that about 25% of the expenditure on legal applications and software will be channeled to non-specialist technology providers (Ambrogi, 2019).
References:
Robert J. Ambrogi (September 16,2019). At $1.2 Billion, 2019 Is A Record Year for Legal Tech Investments — And It’s Only September. LawSites. Available: https://www.lawsitesblog.com/2019/09/at-1-1-billion-2019-is-a-record-year-for-legal-tech-investments-and-its-only-september.html
BusyLamp.com. (2021). 4 Ways for Legal Departments to Leverage the Use of Technology – BusyLamp. Retrieved 17 July 2021, from https://www.busylamp.com/4-ways-for-legal-departments-to-leverage-the-use-of-technology/
BusyLamp .com (n.d). A history of e-billing – part 2: trends and future predictions. Busy Lamp. Retrieved from https://www.busylamp.com/history-trends-predictions-e-billing/
Rob van der Meulen, (Fen 9, 2021). 5 Legal Technology Trends Changing In-House Legal Departments. Smarter With Gartner. Retrieved from https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/5-legal-technology-trends-changing-in-house-legal-departments/
