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Matter management with in-house legal teams can be highly automated with enterprise legal software, or done manually with the customary and traditional spreadsheets, forms and email. The 11th annual CounselLink 2024 Trends Report: Dynamics Shaping the Future of Legal indicates the rising cost of Large Law share of wallet. In fact, over the last three years, legal spend with outside counsel has increased dramatically.
Moreover, matter management is increasingly staying in-house to save the cost of legal spend, and there is also a talent deficiency in the legal department. All of that adds to the necessity of utilizing automated matter management software to identify efficiency, collaboration and higher productivity.
The mantra that “what’s old is new” does not apply to legal matter management. Traditionally, matter management requires a breadth of tools and technology for its efficient operation. Many of the tools most familiar are:
• Work intake using email to manage requests from other business units • Intra-departmental communication with email for collaboration • Project management utilizing spreadsheets with Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets or another solution to track matter details and progression through the department and the matter lifecycle• Cloud storage to file documents and contracts for easy access (and, if the legal department is very un-automated, there may be filing cabinets throughout the office)• Disparate and isolated solutions that manage documents, contracts and e-billing• Use of PowerPoint to generate reports with an antiquated methodology of data pulls from a variety of sources delivered by email
The overall goal of matter management is to support legal operations. At the same time, optimization strategies come into play, creating high-level visibility into legal work, risk mitigation and the support of the legal department as a strategic and integral business partner to the company.
Looking from the top down, with a bird’s-eye view, matter management includes a breadth of legal work requested of the in-house legal team by internal sources or external factors. Whether the law department elects to keep the matter in-house or outsource it to law firms or alternative legal services providers, depends on time, cost, deadlines, extent of a matter, and other influences. It also depends on whether a legal department is equipped with the right technology to manage matters from start to finish.
Holistically, a legal department is the hub of a company. Imagine the various types of work that flow through the cost center with everyone from legal operations to lawyers and paralegals touching a matter. Communication emanates from the hub to the spokes. This back and forth requires matter management automation so the process is efficient, collaborative, productive, and focused on cost savings.
There needs to be prioritization of work intake requests, management of workflow and the ability to capture analytics to make actionable decisions. Reporting needs to be streamlined and immediate so that leadership requesting status can receive current and accurate reports efficiently.
Automation delivers a range of efficiencies, and it depends on whether a legal department intends to scale rapidly or maintain steady growth. When traditional methods are used to manage matters in the legal department:
• Time is wasted• Costs increase• Lawyers are pulled into administrative tasks• Communication and collaboration take longer and may be non-existent• Matter lifecycles extend
The following reasons support why traditional matter management falls short:
Technology solutions are specialized and require intricate moving parts to accommodate legal matter management. For software solutions to work in legal, for whichever function, the solution needs to be tailor-made for lawyers and legal operations so that opportunities are optimized. An enterprise legal management solution provides that customization with scalability.
Working with software that isn’t purpose-built for legal creates issues for legal operations. Time and time again, a tech glitch will occur because the functionality is lacking. One outcome of poorly chosen tech solutions occurs around data collection and reporting. If legal operations cannot click, click and create an analytical report that tells a story, what good are traditional methods? Streamlined workflow cannot occur.
Traditional methods of matter management involve email, primarily. Email becomes the mode of communication with attachments, images and a thread of historical information. Searching email becomes the modus operandi of the whole department and with it total time mismanagement.While email inefficiencies are at the top of the heap, moving unsteadily between disparate systems becomes a time faux pas, as well. Isolated technology creates lost time for lawyers wanting to find a contract that pertains to a matter, for example.
A growing legal department acquires software solutions as needed, obviously. Also, obviously, disparate software systems accumulate with growth so everyone is tapping into five different systems to do 10 different things.
Not a good use of time management, productivity, performance, or streamlined workflow, is it?
When a legal department attempts to function with non-integrated software platforms, everyone suffers, and most of all the legal operations team has the most challenging time determining a better way forward with enterprise legal management software instead. https://www.lexisnexis.com/en-us/products/counsellink/default.page
Any time “manual” systems take the place of technology, users lose valuable time. This includes legal experts who represent the company and service the legal matters. Legal operations also suffer as the immediate status of matters is unknown without enterprise software to inform with valuable updates.
With so much happening in the law department, the importance of data-driven and analytical reporting cannot be understated. Manual reports take hours to gather data, dissect and analyze it, and then add it to a report in a high-level snapshot and in-depth presentation.
Manual reporting is untenable, and no law department operations professional can manage without an enterprise solution to generate the quality of reporting, with a few clicks, that stakeholders anticipate and expect. Without a robust enterprise legal management solution that includes financial management tools for the law department, analytical reporting is non-deliverable.
Everyone knows how critical security and data protection are for an enterprise. Doesn’t matter the size of the company, protecting confidential documents becomes more important each day. Hackers enjoy targeting law firms and legal departments due to the significance of the data stored in disparate software systems. Isolated software that forms the foundation of the law department cannot be protected from risk as well as an enterprise solution. With the high numbers of user entering and exiting software, there is greater risk for a back door to remain open. The IT department is also challenged to serve the various software and ensure the organization is protected.
Traditional matter management does not bode well for the legal department, and the reasons why, stated above, provide good reason to implement an enterprise legal management solution to mitigate all of the risks associated with traditional matter management.
Contact CounselLink to set up a demo and learn more about protecting your law department.