Traditionally, many legal departments have been viewed as cost centers rather than revenue creators. Simply put, they don’t have adequate tools to manage their agreements efficiently and effectively. They are misaligned with the sales and procurement departments, and they’re constantly in a state of reacting to problems at hand instead of being proactive about them. The statements above characterize how most legal teams are perceived. Deidre Leone, VP Sales, ContractPodAi, discusses how your legal department can do more with the proper tech backing.
Until recently, some leaders lacked the willingness to seek out innovative solutions. Tech has not always been the most prevalent aspect of legal work – it is not without reason that we think of legal offices stacked high with ancient files, working on archaic processes and not easily changing. However, this mindset has slowly shifted as companies have become more comfortable with digital transformation. Leaders now realize that legal departments need the right digital technology to manage workflows, mitigate the disconnect between legal, sales, and procurement teams, and make more informed business decisions.
Three Tech Benefits for Legal Teams
Here’s how the latest technologies can make business processes and relationships smoother and more efficient.
1. Managing workflows smarter
Let’s face it – legal teams are understaffed and under-budgeted. As a result, contract drafting and review can take anywhere from four hours to six weeks, widening the gap between the legal team and the rest of the organization. Analyzing risk, for instance, tends to slow down organizational processes thanks to subjective risk assessments and subsequent redtaping. Implementing a legal technology platform helps streamline contract review by risk-scoring contracts, automating approvals, and tracking pertinent information. It also leaves less room for the inevitable facet of life: human error.
2. Aligning teams better
Adopting legal tech that can do all of the above leads to a quicker turnaround and a more transparent process. This, in turn, goes a long way toward creating internal alignment across legal, sales, and procurement departments. The processes of sales and procurement teams are different from those of legal. However, they all operate with a key objective in mind: efficiency around the drafting of contracts and the review of a third-party paper. Typically, when contracts are escalated to the legal department, additional parties lose visibility into the review process. When leaders utilize a legal platform, though, they have end-to-end visibility into the current state of the contract, along with the next contracting steps. This ultimately ensures that the legal, sales and procurement teams are held accountable throughout the contract management process. Leaders can also use a legal platform to set up playbooks, support contract negotiations, and empower sales and procurement to be more independent from the legal team by establishing controls that ensure compliance.
3. Making wiser decisions
Lastly, often legal counsels lack crucial legal information at their fingertips. This is where a legal tech solution pays dividends, too. Not only does it allow more time for higher-level, strategic tasks, it analyzes legal data and delivers valuable insights — to help legal counsels make more informed decisions about what is best for the company. After all, the natural role of a lawyer is that of an advisor and demands being thoroughly informed and proactive.
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“Teching†Legal Up a Notch
All in all, the business of improving contract drafting and review and analyzing legal data shouldn’t be in the hands of one lawyer, department, or CEO. Instead, it should be driven by the entire enterprise and facilitated by legal tech that fully supports the corporate mission.
Indeed, it’s hard to believe that — until very recently —  the idea of using advanced legal tech was a foreign concept to attorneys. They often viewed such innovation as a threat to their jobs instead of seeing the long-term value it would contribute to their organizations. But the good news is that the legal tech industry is meeting their need for legal technology implementation — one that will impact their daily business goals and processes rather positively.Â
What tech resources are you considering to enable your legal department, and why? Tell us about it on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We’d love to learn from you!