As legal costs continue to rise, organizations are constantly faced with developing and implementing legal spend management programs to control, budget and forecast future legal costs. As a result, legal operations units are often tasked with managing these highly critical initiatives. Although many new technical options offer solutions that appear automated and utilize artificial intelligence or machine learning, it’s important to note that at very basic levels AI will be incorporated to assist in program execution and create modest efficiency gains within the program. As many articles and data scientists have suggested, the data requirements and efforts needed for fully automated systems may have return windows that far exceed their value. Through varied partnerships with numerous organizations, the following key elements and secondary considerations, often overlooked, are of critical importance to successful legal spend management programs.
Enterprise Legal Management Software (Matter Management System/ELM) requires selection, development and implementation. Upon implementation of this critical software a number of additional personnel and process considerations are necessary for its successful execution. As a component of the intent of an ELM is efficiency, early process discussions of the following items will ensure the need for support will decrease in the long term.
- The creation and maintenance of matters. Do organizations rely on the firm for entry and maintenance of matters? If so, they must be prepared to train the firm on the style and coding appropriate to each organization. Even with precise instructions in the billing guidelines (discussed in the next section), errors occur and must be identified and corrected in order to create robust reporting and data analytics.
- Document filing. If the ELM is intended to be used as a repository and communication platform for all matters, then requisite time must be spent to create a document filing system aimed at loading and managing matter-specific documents. This is time well spent prior to an ELM rollout.
- The creation of a process to manage fee structures, alternate fee arrangements and rates, including obtaining approvals. The process includes the creation and maintenance of law firm timekeeper profiles. This is critical for identifying the use of first- and second-year associates.
- Who will manage the law firm onboarding process and resolve any questions from law firms regarding its use?
