To realize ROI from their LegalTech, Legal need connectivity among their systems and business clients. The solution: An online legal hub.
Legal technology spending is on the rise, but sadly its estimated effectiveness is not.
According to Gartner, the average Legal Department is projected to spend 12 percent of its budget on legal software by 2025, up from approximately 4 percent in 2020
Meanwhile, during this spending spree, Gartner predicts that Legal Departments will capture just a fraction of the potential benefit of this investment. For contract automation, for instance, less than one-third of the value will be realized.
While many factors can affect this paltry ROI, there is one major issue: Too many apps exist in silos. Functioning independently, too many apps require tiresome toggling, double work or expensive extra licenses for any collaboration within the business. (Consider that the average company has a whopping 129 apps in use, according to The Wall Street Journal. That’s a lot of toggling).
To be of true benefit to the in-house Legal Department and its stakeholders, legal technology must be connected: to the company’s IT infrastructure, to other in house counsel legal software, to business clients and outside resources.
That’s where an online legal hub comes in.
A legal hub is a cloud based legal software solution that aggregates workflow, documents and tools in one central location. Unlike a static matter management system, a legal hub ties together all of the components of the in-house environment for a seamless and holistic user experience. (With all apologies to J.R.R. Tolkien, it’s one app to rule them all.)
Compatible with Microsoft Office or Google Workspace, a cloud based legal hub will allow users to track and update legal work directly from their inboxes. Moreover, a legal hub works with single sign-on – so you sign in one time, every time. No more plethora of passwords.
From document management to spend management to automation tools, a legal hub brings together your technology – making the whole substantially greater than the sum of its parts. Imagine a contract matter; from one central location, you can access templates, launch an automation process, and update all stakeholders.
A legal hub provides an end-to-end environment for the in-house legal team, but at the same time, business clients have accessibility without leaving their environment. Take the legal intake function, for example. An online legal hub like an internal client portal can empower business clients to request Legal Department assistance straight from the company intranet – while feeding all relevant project data directly into the legal matter management software. As the legal matter progresses, the internal client portal can even provide visibility for the business client: who has been assigned to handle it, the project status, key documents and more.
An internal client portal allows your business clients to collaborate and communicate with the legal team more efficiently. In addition, you can easily share important documents, FAQs and sensitive information in a private and secure portal without the need to send via email or discuss over the phone. An online legal hub, like an internal client portal allows you to also share progress updates.
A legal hub cuts the amount of time and money spent coordinating with outside counsel and alternative legal service providers. Given access to the legal hub, they can share key documents, update schedules, even upload their invoices. No more forensic investigations of long email strings or wondering “Where did I save that?” – with an online legal hub, even external work product goes straight into the matter file.
Consider the not-uncommon need to provide an update to company leadership – general counsel, CEO, board of directors – about the current workload of the in-house legal team. It’s also not uncommon for such requests to require a dig through calendars or Excel spreadsheets or email inboxes or all three; the proliferation of in-house legal software may need to check various platforms, too. All told, it’s tedious – and after all that, it still may not be correct.
Because this online corporate legal management software is the centralized home of the Legal Department, it remains current and correct – and it collects and collates the in-house legal department’s data and analytics behind the scenes. This makes reporting automatic and painless – while also easing the stress of managing deadlines and workloads.
Above all, a cloud based legal hub fulfils the very promise of technology in the first place: to make our lives easier.
Some of the benefits you'll enjoy include:
If you'd like to find out how Xakia's cloud based legal matter management software can help your in-house legal team, book a demo today with one of our friendly consultants, or try it for yourself with a free 14-day pilot.
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