Business technology.

 

Implementing legal technology within corporate legal departments takes more than just IT resources and a whole lot of time. For any project to get off the ground, it needs support from the C-suite and managers of an organization.

But gaining support can be one of the greatest barriers for a legal department, not in the least because of how corporate law is perceived, said Matt Todd, vice president of business solutions at Elevate Services.

Much of the technology funding in an organization, he explained, goes to projects that help the company's bottom line, and legal is usually not seen as a revenue-generating team.

Indeed, “oftentimes the legal department is viewed by the other leadership of the company as kind of like an in-house or captive law firm” that operates strictly in an advisory role, Todd said. And this leads many C-suites to wonder: “What kind of technology support could a purely advisory section possibly benefit from?”

The key to changing these perceptions, and securing support for in-house legal technology, rests on how the legal department explains the benefits of its projects in the first place.

Framing projects around three core interrelated benefits—lower costs, lower risks and greater interdepartmental efficiency—will allow the C-suite to understand the broad, companywide effects legal technology can have. And moreover, it will help the organization realize how the legal department, while often not a revenue generator onto itself, plays an essential role in enabling and protecting the company's essential business functions.

Take, for example, e-discovery. Implementing e-discovery technology can be vital in “reducing the overall cost to participate in the litigation process,” Todd said, by making it easier and less time-consuming to find pertinent information.

But the benefits of such technology go beyond just cutting legal costs. Legal departments can point out, for instance, how deploying more advanced and accurate e-discovery review can help limit the amount of data they turn over to opposing counsel or regulators, thereby potentially “safeguarding the reputation of the company” and mitigating data security risks, Todd added.

What's more, e-discovery solutions can prove useful for cross-departmental processes. For M&A due diligence, for example, the need to deploy e-discovery is vital in “helping those deals go faster and be less risky,” Todd explained.

The benefits of lower costs and risk with greater efficiency can likewise be tied to other legal technology projects, such as information governance and contract management, as well. Both Information governance and contract management, for example, help companies gain better insight into their data, streamline workflows between different departments and reduce regulatory or cyber risk, Todd noted.

But while investing in legal department technology can provide core business benefits and sow new respect for legal departments' work, due to specific corporate realities, such in-house projects may often still fail to gain support. After all, support for many projects will depend “on the size of the company and legal department, and their priorities and resources,” said Olga Mack, general counsel at ClearSlide.

However, there are certain projects that different-sized companies will usually be more receptive to fund and implement. “For large companies, it tends to be knowledge management, e-discovery, and budget tools, while smaller departments tend to prioritize management of more niche areas such as [automating] NDAs, and similar solutions,” Mack explained.

But there are also legal tech projects most organizations are receptive to, regardless of size or spend. Cybersecurity investment, for instance, is fast becoming one constant reality among organizations.

“I think most C-suite members are extraordinarily aware of the cybersecurity risk these days,” said Harriet Pearson, a partner at Hogan Lovells and moderator of the upcoming “Speaking a Common Language with Your C-Suite When Setting Risk Responsibility Across the Organization” session at ALM's CyberSecure.

She added that in organizations with limited resources, legal departments may be able to piggyback off cybersecurity investments, and the increased focus on cybersecurity risk, to obtain support for their own projects.

“If a cybersecurity solution can also service other functions and help with e-discovery and retention or with information governance, then by all means it is helpful to show those corollary benefits,” Pearson said.

She noted that multifunctional cybersecurity platforms that serve broader needs in addition to cybersecurity risk can oftentimes be the more cost-effective and smarter choice. “It does make sense to call those auxiliary benefits out and to realize them across the board. Silo planning and silo thinking are not helpful to organizations,” she added.

But should that not be possible, and should there be little, if any, resources or support for legal technology in-house, it is not exactly the end of the road. Legal departments can look beyond technology to less-expensive options in order to secure the support and services they need.

“Legal tech is one of many levers, along with outside legal providers, offshoring, outside nonlegal providers, and numerous other options that general counsel and their legal departments have these days,” Mack said.

“Understanding all options, educating your business colleagues and ultimately making a right decision in a context of your business are important parts of running an effective and efficient legal department no matter what legal solution, tech or not tech, is considered,” she added.