Legal Tech: How to make it work for your legal department

W H I T E PA P E R

Legal Tech How to make it work for your legal department

Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

www.legadex.com1

The typical problems we hear Almost every general counsel, corporate legal team or legal operations professional we talk to shares the same stories. They need to do more with less: carry out more admin, offer more advice, be more involved with strategic business decisions. And they need to do this on a restricted budget and with fewer people.

Alternatively, they tell us they are struggling to attract legal talent.

Or that other departments are pulling ahead in the drive to automate processes. Or that they can’t find information in their systems. Or that remote and hybrid working have shown them that things can be done differently.

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Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

Why this white paper on Legal Tech If you recognise any of these scenarios, then this white paper is for you. It aims to inspire you with the opportunities to become more efficient and make your job easier.

The legal maturity model Whether doing more of the same or carving out a fresh new role, the starting point in developing a good legal tech strategy is to think about what improvements you would like to see.

Typically, you should aim to make your department’s work eas-

We feel these insights are too often missing from any discussion

ier, more fun and more efficient. That gives you options. Saving

of the potential of legal tech. Adapting to relevant technology

money is a poor motivator unless the users also see a clear

is without any doubt a major challenge for legal departments

personal or organisational benefit as well. So start from the

these days. It is easy to hype technology solutions like legal mat-

benefit you want to see, identify which technology options could

ter intake/triage, legal entity management, digital signing, con-

deliver them and then filter those on their cost-saving potential.

tract negotiation, contract lifecycle management, AI document

This way you get a solution that works for your team and saves

review and workflow & knowledge automation. We cover all

you money.

these. But none of them mean much if you aren’t, in fact, going to use them or the benefits are marginal. In fact, for some legal

Once you know what you want to achieve, the next step is to

departments, simply improving automation with a few add-ons

identify the technological capabilities you have now and the ones

to your existing IT software, to Microsoft 365 or to Google Work-

you will require going forward. From there you can plot what you

space may be sufficient for the moment.

have now against the technology steps you will need to take.

So this white paper doesn’t only aim to list your technology opportunities, it also aims to help you plot them against where

A roadmap for your journey

you are on our version of the legal maturity model. So that you

Once you know what you have and what you want to have, it

not only know what opportunities are out there, but whether

is a small step to create a roadmap. But to make things even

and why you should take them up.

easier, you can use ours.

The Legadex legal maturity model combines legal operational

We hope this white paper will help you choose the right legal tech

maturity with appropriate legal tech solutions. This means you

journey for you. And if you think we can help, just get in touch.

can use it to identify your current legal tech capabilities and those you will need to get to your destination.

What’s driving legal tech innovation?

There are a number of trends behind the growing interest in legal tech solutions. These range from the increasing demands being placed on legal as you move from an administrative to a more strategic advisory role, to budget restrictions, time pressure, the war for legal talent and the shift to remote and hybrid working.

Benefits depend on organisational maturity Singly and together, these trends are driving the introduction

LEGADEX LEGAL MATURITY ROADMAP LEVEL 1 Standard Office software LEVEL 2 Document management and Collaboration LEVEL 3 Legal entity management LEVEL 4 E-signing LEVEL 5 Contract negotiation

of legal tech software within corporate legal departments. This should be good news. Unfortunately, we see many instances in which legal technology has brought few or no benefits to the legal department, or to the wider business. Or even worse, where its rollout has actually impeded the transformation it was supposed to support. Or damaged the department’s reputation for

LEVEL 6 Contract lifecycle management LEVEL 7 AI document review LEVEL 8 Workflow & knowledge automation

quality. We explore why this is in the next section.

Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

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LEGADEX LEGAL MATURITY MODEL

And many more

Sharepoint

Teams

Excel

Word

Outlook

Microsoft Office 365

And many more

Drive

Meet

Sheets

Docs

Gmail

Google Workspace

Triage/DMS & collaboration

Legal entity management

E-signing

Contract lifecycle management

AI document review

Workflow & knowledge automation

Legal Operational Maturity

Our legal maturity model has eight levels from left to right. In

the desired ways of working across the organisation. Quickly, the

the diagram above, we have coupled these to some of the legal

number of users falls, the system becomes orphaned and it dies.

tech software solutions on the market. There are many other

With those caveats, let’s explore the various levels of operation-

options available. These are simply the ones we endorse and

al maturity and the legal tech options that correspond to them.

know well and are given here as an example to help you on your way. You can pick and mix among these, depending on where you are in the model, your goals and your strategy. Generally, though, we find it is bad idea to jump too many levels in one go.

Another tip: in our experience, the biggest cause of legal tech remorse is to buy something that is over-engineered for your needs or which does not deliver on the promises made by the vendor.

The legal maturity model and legal tech One thing before we go further: we need to talk about legal operations, or legal ops.

The latter occurs when a vendor lacks the insight required to understand your needs and systems. A further cause of legal

This increasingly common term describes a concept whose pur-

tech blues is about the client not understanding the investment

pose is to make the work of in-house legal teams more efficient

– in time, skills and competences – that is needed to derive max-

and more satisfactory. Legal ops teams apply business practices

imum benefit from a particular legal tech solution, or to get it

and legal technology to improve the delivery of legal services.

up and running and keep going. Frustrated, people stop using it,

Typically, they cover strategic planning, financial management,

blaming the system for not being good enough. The third cause

project management and technology expertise.

of rejection is discovering that your shiny new software won’t integrate with your existing systems and does not match with

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The legal maturity model and legal tech fall within the scope

Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

of legal operations and can be tackled as part of a legal ops

A LEM solution is worth considering if you find it a challenge to

project. However, you don’t have to employ legal ops specialists,

maintain a single source of corporate information for finance,

or become one yourself, to implement legal tech in your team.

tax, legal, risk, treasury, compliance, audit and other stakehold-

Exploring the following levels will help you to map your legal

ers. Another trigger can be if you find that your obligatory public

maturity level to your legal tech opportunities.

filings are sometimes forgotten or made too late or incorrectly. Other reasons to adopt LEM include spending excessive

Level 1 – Maximise your Microsoft or Google solutions

amounts of time doublechecking information for accuracy,

Every corporate legal department is already at Level 1 as this in-

spending a lot of money on external advisors to do commodity

volves using either Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) or Google Work-

legal work, or if you find yourself struggling to maintain the

space (formerly G-Suite). What you may not realise is that even in

continuity of your processes while also reducing costs. Be-

their basic versions, they can do more than many people realise.

cause legal entity management forms a clear and well-defined

Even better, you can expand them with add-ons that are relevant

package of processes and workflows, it is increasingly seen as

to legal department users. That’s worth keeping in mind if your

an obvious candidate for outsourcing to a specialist managed

strategic ambitions could be met with a few upgrades to your

services provider.

Microsoft or Google programs. Two examples of useful add-ons are workflow automation and data visualisation. Microsoft Power Au-

Level 4 – E-signing

tomate and Microsoft Flow can both automate workflows. Power

One of the learning moments for many organisations during

BI can visualise data. They could be worth checking out.

Covid-19 has been the realisation that electronic signing can be of tremendous help in speeding up the process of signing con-

Level 2 – Document management systems and collaboration

tracts and other documentation. Also, it can help to automate the

Many legal departments complain about problems keeping their

multiple individual emails – and the inevitable reminders – just

paper and digital documentation organised and under control.

set an authorisation schedule for each agreement and the signing

Often, these are scattered around the organisation. The result

tool will include the correct signatories within your company.

is that legal, finance, tax, operations and other teams have

E-signing is also a step on the road to more integrated work

no overview and no common access. This leads to confusion,

processes that involve defining who does what. It can also be

miscommunication and to information being out of date or cir-

used to support corporate decision-making and provides a basis

culating in lots of different versions. It costs valuable time and

for more streamlined contract negotiation, for contract lifecycle

money. It also makes collaboration between staff, departments

management and for other legal tech solutions.

internal process for getting a contract signed. Instead of creating

and external parties difficult or impossible.

If this sounds like your situation and frustration, then you need a document management system. Employing a good document management system, you can share information among your team members – internal and external, within departments, across departments and across jurisdictions. In doing so, you can also be sure that all the relevant documents and emails are available and managed in one place, in one version. As simple as it may sound, it can be a huge step forward.

Level 3 – Legal entity management The next step up is legal entity management (LEM). The goal of employing LEM technology is to improve risk management and compliance so that your companies are always in good legal standing with the relevant authorities. Legal entity management solutions ensure this by optimising your routine corporate housekeeping, documentation and public filing needs. LEM technology typically supports full corporate database management, regular updates of corporate files, speedy drafting of corporate decisions and minutes and easy uploading of documentation, filing and reporting. Some solutions can also be expanded to support virtual board meeting capabilities.

Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

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AI solutions are ideal to make your entire process faster, more transparent and more efficient.

Level 5 – Contract negotiation The vast majority of contracts are relatively simple agreements requiring only limited negotiation. This makes it possible to au-

Contract generation

tomate much of this process. Employing a contract negotiation system, you receive marked-up versions of the proposed contract. Contentious issues and proposed changes are managed by

Obligation management

Negotiation & drafting

sending alerts to the people who need to see them. This keeps the legal team’s involvement to a minimum while still ensuring that everything is checked and that the contract is fully compliant with your internal policies.

Contract lifecycle

Level 6 – Contract lifecycle management Actively managing contracts throughout their lifecycle is the fastest way to ensure compliance, reduce risk, enhance efficiency and provide transparency around contractual rights, obligations and opportunities. Contract lifecycle management

Retention & audit

Approval flow

software (CLM) ensures the legal department and other company stakeholders have a full overview of key contracts and are alerted whenever they need to act.

Signing & execution

There are a number of scenarios in which moving up to a CLM solution is beneficial. A big one is when you have no central re-

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Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

pository for your contracts and these, whether digital or on pa-

Level 8 – Workflow and knowledge automation

per, are stored randomly across departments in people’s desks

This kind of legal tech software is used to define and implement

and computers. CLM can also help you to get a clear overview of

workflows for legal work that is done on a recurring basis. The

your contractual rights and obligations, along with insight into

act of defining and describing a process – which can include

associated risks and opportunities. CLM software further creates

visualising it by using legal design concepts – creates clarity.

a structure for people to pass on insights and information about

However, the next challenge is to link this ideal definition to a

contracts, and it makes it at once clear who is authorised to

new way of working. Workflow and knowledge automation can

negotiate and execute different types of contract.

help as it makes the link between your ideal process and how to implement it. In this way, workflow and knowledge automation

Going further, CLM software can be of use to create a work-

stimulates efficiency and transparency whenever you have large

stream to ensure that the right people are involved in both the

volumes of work or work that follows certain paths.

process and the sign-off. And crucially from a legal-team perspective, it can be used to standardise contracts through the use of templates and so reduce the number of emails and contract versions that are flying around. This makes it possible to safely and securely place more negotiating responsibility with people in the business, without involving the legal team. And it makes doing so less time-consuming for those people.

You’re not alone in this

Typical CLM solutions therefore cover the full contract lifecycle,

Venturing into legal tech, or expanding your use of it,

from drafting and negotiation through approval and signing to

can appear overwhelming. We therefore hope that this

obligation management, retention and audit. Artificial intel-

white paper, along with our Legal Strategy and Bud-

ligence is also playing a growing role in the contract review

geting white paper, available on our website, will help

phase, both to find and ‘clean up’ historic contracts – during due

you make a success of it and help you deploy solutions

diligence, for example – and to manage ongoing ones. Thing are

that fit your needs and strategy.

moving fast in this area of legal tech.

And if you do find yourself getting stuck or would like

Level 7 – AI document review

a sounding board, we can advise on legal tech strategy,

Reviewing large numbers of documents is an essential but

maturity requirements per level and suitable software

time-consuming task for many large legal departments. It is

or managed solution options. We can also help you set

especially important during M&A due diligence and high-vol-

up your solutions so you use the benefits fast. We can

ume document review projects. Typical documents that require

even help you make more of your existing software

review include Non-Disclosure Agreements, Data Protection

with only minimal investment.

Agreements and commercial operational contracts for purchase, IT, supplier, logistics and lease.

For more information contact:

Artificial intelligence or AI solutions transform large-scale

Peter Schepens

document review by performing the initial sifting and culling

pschepens@legadex.com

and then identifying which are the transaction-critical documents that need to be prioritised. It eliminates selective (and

Hans-Martijn Roos

risky) document sampling and makes the entire process faster,

hmroos@legadex.com

more thorough and more efficient. AI solutions are ideal when you want to improve productivity and reduce costs, to focus on

Legadex B.V.

activities and advice that add more value for the business, to

Antonio Vivaldistraat 64

tighten up your risk management process or to use legal AI as a

1083 HP Amsterdam

form of business intelligence. We expect AI to become increas-

The Netherlands

ingly integrated into not just project work but also everyday

info@legadex.com

legal work. Simply, the machine learning and document ana-

+31 (0)20 8208396

lytics aspects of AI imply that the more the software learns, the more widely it can be applied going forward, so saving time and

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creating transparency.

Legal Tech: how to make it work for your legal department

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