As a legal tech consultant, I sit at an interesting intersection between law firms and corporate legal departments. Every day, from this vantage point, I explore how to best achieve the goals of both groups, which can at times seem to oppose one another—law firms look to expand business and in-house teams aim to bring more work “in house.”
To best serve our clients, I spend a lot of time asking questions and learning about how legal teams apply technology to solve real-life challenges. I also try to discover what else our clients would like to use technology to accomplish. For many corporate legal teams, the answer is simple—more.
This desire to find ways to do more with technology is why I was so excited to have the opportunity to speak with Larry Oleksa, assistant general counsel of Cirrus Aircraft, during our recent webinar, Bring litigation management in house and deliver value with technology.
Larry’s experience also offers him a unique perspective on litigation matters and the relationship between law firms and corporate legal departments. His impressive résumé includes 15 years of legal experience. Larry started his career in law at Perkins Coie, working on litigation matters for tech giants like Google and Microsoft. Larry later moved to the in-house sector as a member of Garmin’s legal team, and he currently serves as assistant general counsel at Cirrus Aircraft.
During the webinar, I asked Larry about corporate legal litigation management, how technology can help bring more work in house, and how to better manage relationships with external counsel.
Our discussion revealed several noteworthy insights:
Deliver more as a strategic business partner
Every legal department is different, but no matter the size, a few core tenets apply to every legal department.
Legal teams must:
- Understand the business’s goals and play their part in driving revenue
- Anticipate legal issues and reduce risk so that business partners can focus on their main purpose
- Find creative ways to achieve the business objectives and avoid being the department of “no”
True and meaningful collaboration is vital to achieving these three tenets. The legal team should work closely with all departments, maintaining an open door to create an environment that encourages all areas of the business to come to the legal team to collaborate on solving the business and legal issues they may have.
Demand more from your technology
Begin to leverage technology to enhance partnerships and communication between the legal team and other departments. There’s a lot of great technology available to improve efficiency for in-house teams.
When evaluating legal technology, it’s important to prioritize:
- Ease of adoption and user interface
- Return on investment potential
- Enterprise-wide application
- High-level data security
- Pricing and scalability
The future of legal tech within corporate legal teams will almost certainly involve the use of AI to improve efficiency, but even as technology advances, these five factors will continue to be crucial to selecting litigation solutions that deliver more.
Drive more collaboration with outside counsel
More involvement and active collaboration with outside counsel should ultimately result in reduced legal spend and empower more work to be brought in house. Corporate legal teams are driving legal tech adoption in law firms as they demand better transparency and visibility into their legal matters. Cloud-based solutions with a great user experience, mobile access and enterprise-grade data security are helping to meet this demand and bring internal and external teams closer.
Cloud-based collaboration benefits for litigation:
- Offer real-time updates on litigation status and manage budget spend
- Retain knowledge and legal research gathered during litigation for analysis
- Improve access to litigation data, such as pleadings, exhibits, transcripts and productions
- Put your valuable, shared data and content to work, driving process efficiencies
Don’t be afraid to take a hands-on approach with outside counsel, asking them to work within your preferred collaboration platform. After all, your team is responsible for providing the business regular updates that will improve communication and trust between departments.
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Corporate legal teams wear two hats, business and legal. It’s tough to look good donning them at the same time without the right approach to technology. As I outline above, technology provides the support system that empowers your legal team to do more—much more. It can enhance your partnership with the business, provide additional value to all departments and strengthen your relationships with outside counsel.
Discover how technology can help you deliver more. Watch the full webinar here:
