When you spend a bit of time at the “world’s largest gathering of in-house counsel” like we did, thousands of thoughts, concepts and ideas bounce around everywhere. After distilling what we had discovered, five key topics emerged from our four-day experience at the ACC (Association of Corporate Counsel) Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Here they are, in no particular order:
A) Deploying metrics is important.
Gathering and analysing data across the legal department was featured in several ACC sessions and in numerous conversations we had at the HighQ stand in the exhibit hall. It’s clear that in-house lawyers are beginning to recognise the importance of analysing legal operations data, such as legal spending, matter breakdown, litigation cycle times and more to surface critical operational insights. This data analysis is helping in-house teams to provide greater transparency to the business about the value they deliver and to optimise legal operations, decision-making and the value delivered by outside counsel.
B) Common pain points for in-house lawyers persist.
A presenting panel of in-house attorneys identified several common pain points for legal departments of all sizes, but noted that these problems can be resolved using legal technology. Cited examples included:
- Reinventing the wheel constantly, because a knowledge management system does not exist
- Failing to track contract milestone dates or contract approvals
- Knowing little about average rates for outside counsel
- Dealing with matter budgets that are inaccurate or nonexistent
- Struggling to manage in-house counsel workload or legal department resources
- Storing key documents outside of a secure, central repository
[Source: ACC 2017 Session. What to Deploy Now: A Candid Discussion About the What, Where, When, and How of Deploying Existing Technologies in Your Legal Department.]
C) Legal departments need technology roadmaps.
While there definitely is an appetite among in-house lawyers to better embrace technology to improve legal operations and service delivery, there still is hesitation about what technology to deploy and how best to deploy it. Interesting insights from panel speakers for overcoming this uncertainty were shared, one of which was for in-house teams to develop a technology roadmap to support business plans and strategy. It was great to see that some forward-thinking corporate legal departments are starting to implement comprehensive tech strategies that encompass e-billing, demand management, matter intake and management, contract management, data analytics and collaboration.
D) Departments need to evaluate the maturity of their legal operations.
With the rise of the legal operations function, a presenting panel noted that the ACC has published a useful model for benchmarking legal operations maturity in several core areas. Where does your legal department fall on the maturity spectrum in terms of knowledge management, metrics and analytics, contract management, financial management, information governance, and project and process management?
E) There’s value in driving innovation through collaboration.
Client-lawyer collaboration was an interesting theme that came up several times in ACC sessions, as well as in our conversations with in-house counsel at the HighQ stand. Corporate legal departments are increasingly looking to tap into the legal tech expertise of their outside counsel to collaboratively develop new tech-powered legal service delivery solutions. These partnerships are a win-win for both in-house teams and outside counsel—delivering efficiency and value for corporate legal teams while encouraging greater client satisfaction and loyalty.
