Digitizing Inhouse Counsel, Myth or Reality?

One of the greatest barriers to legal technology adoption (and ultimately digitisation) is the culture embedded within the legal industry and unfortunately inhouse legal teams though in the corporate world are not immune. Sometimes it is not their doing, other times this is because legal is not prioritized from an organizational perspective as one that could be able to leverage from technological tools.

In the context of the legal industry, digitisation simply means finding ways to digitally complete tasks, processes which were paper based. But what does that look like in a legal department?

Well as a General Counsel or Head of a Legal Department, here are a couple of things you should consider digitizing:

  • Your legal intake process – how are you receiving legal requests from the business? Is it centralized? Is it easily trackable and is the information provided to you in a such a way that you will be empowered enough to immediately action that legal request?
  • How you track matters – Are you able to immediately track where you matters are? Who they are with within your legal department, how far they are in finalizing them? Do you have immediate clear oversight over all your department’s matters?
  • How you report your matters – When its time to provide those board or executive reports, do you spend unnecessarily lengthy periods having to collect, analyses and then present your reporting?

I could go on about what else you need to start digitizing; I think what most miss about not digitizing, is how they fail to benefit on being able to collect valuable data which can be turned into actionable insights. Insights that you as a legal departmental head or GC could be using to demonstrate the value of your department.

Unfortunately, you cannot change or improve what you do not know and not digitizing increases the risk of you being unable to confidently advocate for yourself and the legal department in a language that the rest of the business understands: numbers and data.

Before you even commence your digitisation journey, you have to consider your organization’s maturity.

Here are some questions to ask yourself when assessing your organization’s maturity:

  • Are existing (and new) technologies integrated into your organisation, and are they helping you achieve desired business results?
  • Do these technologies tie in with key performance indicators? Do you have a process for evaluating outcomes?
  • How is your organisation prepared to keep up with changes in the market, and disruptions due to digital trends?
  • Do you have a technology roadmap and are you aware of the impact of digital maturity initiatives on the roadmap?
  • Do you know what tech features would help you achieve business outcomes? Do you have the resources (including budget, resources and support from leadership)?
  • Do you make informed decisions based on data and analytics?

And lastly, as a legal tech eternal optimist, I will probably always be swayed towards any legal department or law firm using a legal tech solution. The most important tip I can provide is the following:

‘Don’t follow the tech hype, rather assess your organisation first, by deeply thinking about the above questions and assessing your current legal operating model before you embark on a legal tech roadmap or implementing any legal tech solution.’

About the Author

Leah Molatseli – Head of Business Development, Legal Interact

Leah is a lawyer, published legal tech author, speaker and Legal Tech and Innovation Specialist and Head of Business Development at Legal Interact. She focuses on the intersection between law, innovation and technology, using her expertise to educate and empower the legal market. She is year’s ILTA Most Influential Women in Legal Tech Honouree and the American Bar Association’s Women of Legal Tech. A mother of boys only, she is a huge fan of chocolate Sundaes and painting.

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