Although a great deal of legal technology was developed with in-house counsel in mind, there are still very few examples where GCs can clearly identify the specific value expected to be generated if they transition to implementing legal tech.
As a consequence, there is little dependable benchmarking data available – there is no clear North Star guiding GCs towards their goal, reliably directing them towards what they should aim for, technology-wise. This makes it even more challenging for them to create a business case that articulates the costs of investing into legal technology.
One major concern voiced is that introducing new forms of technology is likely to give rise to high expenses during its initial implementation, maintenance, and upkeep. Therefore, in the context of business activity, introducing legal tech needs to demonstrate beforehand that it will generate benefits by improving cost or time efficiency in the medium or long term.
However, in addition to finding the appropriate type of technology set-up, there is a prior ‘people challenge’ that needs to be resolved: how do people relate to and interface with the technology? This question is important because people are always the starting point for implementing any new form of technology. It makes no sense to implement a form of technology that does not help accomplish those goals. As American psychologist Abraham Maslow once said, ‘if the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.’ This problem runs in the other direction as well: if the only tool you have is a hammer, no matter how aware you are of what goal needs to be accomplished, you can’t use a hammer as a hacksaw. In essence, you need both the right people and tools to do the job.
Very often, corporations owe their success to attracting and retaining the right people with the right skill sets and mindset in the right roles. Mastering this craft is essential as digital transformation can be a tremendous management challenge.
Consequently, although the digital transformation of in-house legal teams is unavoidable and even desirable, an integrated approach is essential for digital transformation to be implemented correctly. The angle at which GCs consider the approach must embrace their company’s organisational structure, people, and processes before implementation.
‘The first thing GCs must indentify is the problem they are trying to solve by precisely defining the issue and dig deep into what its root cause is. Sometimes, part of a problem stems from the process, culture, documents or something else which technology can easily have a solution for, but is just not clear at the outset,’ explains Roisin Noonan, chief operating officer and co-founder of oneNDA.
Once the appropriate considerations have been taken into account and GCs understand how their company functions, what matters to the business, and what their internal and external stakeholders want improved, they must avoid the mistake of introducing new ad hoc solutions to solve local problems. Instead, they should work backward from their objectives and the outcomes they are trying to achieve, and in the process, try to identify where they can use the appropriate tools and technologies that already exist within their company.
Legal operations do need to focus on the efficiency of the team and doing work in their own way. However, failing to understand the whole picture and what is of interest to the company as a whole can be a problem, for example, by acquiring a range of individual legal tech solutions that are siloed from one another to solve individual legal problems, will only increase the language gap between legal and business. This will in turn isolate corporate legal departments when the general desire is to see them more fully integrated and work in harmony with the business. This isolation could generate undesirable consequences in the long run. As Groenevelt suggests, ‘GCs should start with an inventory of their department’s capabilities and overlaps, and then only should they start thinking of ways to harmonise the work. So, in short, organisation is key; the technology often follows.’
‘Even when a GC has their house in order and is ready to implement a technology solution, choosing the right solution can be challenging given the proliferation of legal tech in the market,’ Noonan adds.
‘My decisions regarding technology implementation are always influenced by basic parameters,’ Srvatava explains. ‘User friendliness and ease of training my team are on top of my list. Data security is also very important, and so is the cost of course, but I will always opt for the tools which can be integrated into the company’s existing IT environment.’
‘I have noticed that many tend to sway too much by additional functionalities that do not offer a precise solution to their core problems,’ Noonan continues. ‘Instead, the most important thing for them is to stay laser-focused on both the problem which needs to be solved and their business’ highest priority requirements. This is the only way to isolate technology that will meet their needs or to accurately communicate their needs to tech vendors, who, in my experience, are typically transparent about whether they are the right fit for a department.’
One could argue that GCs should also proactively educate themselves on the available digital solutions, with the view that knowledge of what is possible may inspire them in the transformation process, sparking ideas on how to restructure their teams. In any case, the truth lies in the middle between complete restructuring and overhaul of a team in response to new technology and keeping the structure of a team fixed.
Once this analytical work is complete, GCs still need to select a suitable solution among the overabundance of available products. ‘GCs are constantly bombarded with emails from vendors to the point that they lose track of who does what. In my experience, even the benchmarks that are available are influenced by clouded marketing language’, Groenevelt says.
GCs around the globe have developed a favoured and increasingly popular answer to this situation: exchanging ideas with the broader in-house community.
Douwe Groenevelt
‘The key is to connect with peers. In fact, I have co-founded a network called Law & Ops whose mission is to gather GCs, legal operation professionals, or whoever is responsible for the legal operations, strategy and technology policy within their legal department, to openly exchange information and experiences. Amongst others, we organize so-called “PowerPitches” from tech vendors. One Friday a month, we invite one organisation to present their product. We allow attendees to directly ask questions to the pitcher and we record the session so it can be watched again or shared with colleagues. With everybody’s approval, we try to keep all the information open and accessible. The idea that whatever digital product one uses or whatever digital plan one is implementing should remain confidential is still very effective – understandably so, in a group of lawyers – but it does not have to be that way. We do not encourage peers to share their secrets with competitors, not at all, but at Law & Ops we assume that the whole in-house community can benefit from this information. In addition, Law & Ops works like a foundation and its activity is not commercial. The network covers the Netherlands, but I know GCs who have had similar ideas in other countries and continents. In my opinion, this is the only reliable way to benchmark the products that are out here.’