As little as 15 years ago, the Internet and other digital technologies played a minor role in the operations of many corporate legal departments. Today practically all business processes in these departments involve the use of some sort of digital technology. The way attorneys work, both internally and with outside counsel, has moved almost entirely to digital from paper and fax. The best evidence of this is what happens when an office’s Internet goes down and work in the department grinds to a halt.
However, the application of digital technologies in the Office of General Counsel has generally been in narrowly defined solutions that automate a previously manual task, providing a faster version of business as usual. Spend management, for example, automates bill reconciliation and delivers clarity and cost savings to a previously manual process. But it does not really transform the day-to-day legal work being done by corporate lawyers, or how these lawyers deliver value to their company. Very few corporate legal departments have considered how to strategically leverage digital technologies to transform how they work and collaborate. Such true digital transformation uses technology to:
- Better understand and service internal “clients”, gathering and analyzing their interactions to better understand their needs, enhance services and enable new, more efficient ways of working with them, such as self-service applications
- Transform how work is done internally, enhancing productivity through powerful search and analytics, and by deploying smarter software that integrates many tasks into a seamless “flow” that can change as business needs change
- Collaborate securely and effectively with others inside and outside the company from anywhere and any device—so counsel can be out in the business and still fully productive all day
