As technology continues to act as a change agent in the legal industry, the nation's leading corporate legal departments are showing no hesitance in embracing innovations and legal technology solutions that stand to help them capitalize on opportunities to be more efficient, enhance the value they bring to the boardroom and improve the legal competency of their operations.

Often in response to unrelenting pressure to manage their department with the bottom line in mind, certain in-house legal departments are outpacing their external counsel and are quickly embracing new technologies that improve outcomes for their organizations.

For instance, more in-house legal departments are dedicating staff to legal operations roles, looking to improve quality, flexibility, speed, efficiency and decision-making through more effective processes, operational oversight and interactions with the business and its law firms. Teams employing technological tools have already started to see the benefits of these efforts, not just in delivery of services but in terms of outcomes and enhanced value for their business.

These trends will only continue.

The rise of technology in the legal industry corresponds to an increased focus on legal operations. Technology is one of the foundational competencies of the Corporate Legal Operations Consortium's 12 competencies; however, in many ways it is a “cornerstone competency,” critical to the integrity of optimal legal operations performance.

Utilizing technology can deliver many benefits for in-house teams. For example, document management can surface risk and identify missed contractual value, while automated document assembly can reduce reliance on internal and external legal resources. Enterprise collaboration platforms are also improving internal and external communication, and are increasingly transforming the legal department's relationship with its outside counsel. Leading law departments are proof of the ways in which these new innovations are going to redefine the practice of law.

And while the in-house legal technology pioneers are more commonly among the larger corporate law departments in the nation, there are ways that even single-member in-house teams can deploy technology to streamline their processes, more efficiently manage their workloads and, in turn, deliver value to their businesses. Delivery models for legal services are now evolving faster than ever to keep up – and the status quo is just not a workable option anymore.

Corporate counsel can take the lead

Promoting the intelligent use of technology to transform and enhance legal service delivery remains the undeniable future, and there's no reason to hesitate in taking steps forward. Advanced legal departments that began their journey early are already seeing the benefit from numerous technology tools, including contact due diligence and analysis platforms, predictive risk systems, compliance early-warning systems, workflow and knowledge automation, advanced legal metrics and data analysis.

The digital transformation of in-house legal teams must continue in earnest. Legal departments should not wait for their business or external counsel to deliver the required change—the onus is on them to design and deliver the necessary transformation. Only the legal department can determine how best to deploy technology to optimize the efficiency and value of their legal operations. Nevertheless, research shows that in-house legal teams are not harnessing transformational technology.

According to an HBR Consulting survey, only 6 percent of legal departments sampled felt AI was a high priority. Despite the huge potential of machine learning technology, many considered AI a low or nonexistent priority. These results suggest that many legal departments are unprepared to implement new legal technology tools. In-house lawyers therefore need to find ways to embrace change and expedite their technology deployment.

Achieving a successful deployment

To help their legal department reach its 'ideal tech state,' legal operations professionals must first find ways to fully utilize existing IT systems before tuning to newer legal technology solutions. Regardless of what technology is identified for deployment, whether new or existing, it will be important to implement it as part of a broader strategy and “technology roadmap.” There needs to be structure and planning to ensure success, longevity and maximum value. It's also important to remember that technology must be integrated with existing systems and data to realize the potential.

Legal departments should focus on starting small and achieving quick wins without trying to tackle too much at once. Find small problems and solve them to provide success stories and show measurable ROI.

As the march toward a digitally driven legal team continues, we are likely to see the creation of new roles in the department. Legal technology professionals who can proactively guide their teams through a changing legal landscape will help optimize legal operations and guarantee sustained value. Legal teams should look to recruit lawyers who are tech-savvy and have advanced digital skill-sets to serve as legal technology managers, innovation officers and data specialists.

Prioritizing cloud solutions also offers secure access to tools from anywhere in the world, better integrations and scalability, and higher adoption rates, and providers are responsible for uptime and regularly introduce upgraded features and enhancements.

With careful planning and preparation, corporate legal departments can quickly embrace technology and begin to reap the benefits. Successful deployment does require appropriate budgeting and a plan to integrate the new technologies with existing systems, and that starts with choosing the right technology and bringing the team on board with the change.

The more ROI, the better.

Creating value with technology 

There are no shortcuts to digital transformation. Legal departments cannot simply go and buy the latest legal technology and expect immediate results. There is no “one size fits all” solution when it comes to deploying technology for in-house teams. Instead, a focus should be placed on identifying existing process pain points and then intelligently deploying technology to help improve the process and create the desired value and outcomes.

Technology serves as an enabler for new legal service delivery tools but can't be a solution on its own. Implementation of digital resources must be tied to the primary processes and goals of the in-house team and achieving outcomes for the business.

GCs and in-house attorneys must identify, monitor and mitigate risk while looking to maximize value and strategic advice to the business. Intelligent use of technology encourages legal departments to automate what makes sense to automate, productize work that can be commoditized and foster collaboration between lawyers and technologists.

Collaborate to transform

Corporate legal departments should be asking outside counsel to contribute to their digital transformation.

In-house teams generally have a limited budget, but technology-powered legal services have become the expectation in the marketplace. Law firms can benefit from the digital integration as well, creating “stickier” relationships with clients while establishing connective portals that offer consistent, efficient and effective legal service delivery and collaboration with their corporate counterparts.

A mutually beneficial digital model just makes sense.

Legal departments should look to leverage outside counsel's experience in reducing cost while maintaining high-level services. Technology should be included in RFPs to help foster collaboration on developing mutually beneficial tech-powered legal service delivery models.

Although there are no shortcuts to digital transformation, a guide does help.

Technology continues to transform the way in-house attorneys work and collaborate both internally and externally, and the 'digitization' of legal service delivery cannot and should not be ignored. Corporate legal departments have the ability to drive change, and in-house leaders would be wise to serve as industry proponents for technology and take the opportunity to start ahead of the curve when it comes to utilizing and leveraging the advantages offered.

Rob MacAdam is head of legal design at HighQ, which provides innovative enterprise collaboration and content publishing solutions to the world's leading corporate law departments and law firms. He can be reached at [email protected].