Four Examples of In-House Legal Operations Excellence | Onit


It's no secret that the internal legal transactions were a year ago 2020, which was anything but normal. As the pandemic lasted far longer than expected, companies found new ways to do business by accommodating employees who now worked from home and implementing technology solutions that streamlined processes and replaced manual tasks and personal activities.

In many companies, internal legal advisors took the lead to figure out how to lead organizations through the pandemic. In some cases, this has meant revising processes and procedures that have existed for years or even decades. Simply put, legal operations teams have become masters of the new normal.

Below are four examples of how legal operations led conversations to success in difficult times of uncertainty.

1. Create a technology roadmap for legal success

Even the most established companies in the world faced unprecedented challenges and found new ways to surpass them.

When the pandemic broke out, fast food giant McDonald's responded and helped staff adjust top priorities. McDonald's internal legal department put other corporate goals aside if they did not immediately contribute to the crisis response. The first step was to interview the company's various business and legal teams to identify their technology needs and wish lists. From there, the legal department created an ambitious roadmap to get the most effective technology into the hands of the company's global teams.

The survey revealed three overarching needs:

  1. A workload balance
  2. A workload reduction
  3. A means of self-service

Using sophisticated platform technology, the Legal Operations team created systems to meet these requirements - systems that were flexible enough to react quickly to changed or changed requirements. Ultimately, a platform approach enabled McDonald's to develop the workflow and collaboration solutions needed to respond to the COVID crisis and move the company forward.

To hear the McDonald's story, visit here.

2. Embracing Enterprise Legal Management

During the pandemic, it was difficult enough for most companies to do their domestic business. However, companies with an international footprint faced additional unique challenges - especially if they did not have the right technology in place.

Jaguar Land Rover North America (JLRNA) is a perfect example. As a multinational company, JLRNA has to routinely respond to international inquiries from legal advisors. Unfortunately, however, they lacked the technology to do this efficiently at the start of the COVID-19 crisis.

JLRNA's in-house Legal Operations team quickly implemented a sophisticated corporate legal management solution that was customizable and enabled them to track and manage the various areas of the business as needed. Within the company's legal management system, they also created a document repository for storing contracts and capturing contract data, as well as a system for submitting legal service requests. By replacing rudimentary matter management processes with an ELM solution, JLRNA Legal Operations provided the company with a seamless transition to a new way of doing business that could adapt.

You can hear JLRNA share their journey on this podcast.

3. Internal legal processes that rely on apps

When the dust settles, and everyone looks back on the pandemic, it is widely recognized that technology has had one of the greatest effects on a company's success. Those who leaned on technology and explored new skills were the ones who claimed success.

For health company DaVita, apps were the technology that contributed to their success. DaVita's legal department needed a way to be more efficient and quickly adapt to ever-changing business needs. Before using apps, DaVita relied mostly on labor-intensive and manual processes - processes that just didn't work as smoothly as possible when everyone was working remotely.

With the help of apps, DaVita was able to automate these processes and at the same time optimize workflows and accelerate change management. By implementing a platform approach to hosting a wide variety of apps, DaVita's legal team was able to not only launch the apps needed to quickly address critical business challenges, but also combine that flexibility with the power of an enterprise legal management solution to to improve the legal functions in all areas of the organization. The apps created by DaVita supported the various areas within the company's legal department, from marketing recording to tracking down conflicts.

The company's Legal Operations team discusses the transformation in this on-demand webinar.

4. Adaptation of existing solutions to new problems

When discussing how organizations address recent challenges, the main focus has been on the introduction of new technologies. For some internal legal transactions, however, the answer was to use tools and solutions that were already in place. This was the case at Pearson Publishing.

Pearson had already implemented a comprehensive contract lifecycle management (CLM) solution to contain costs. In 2020, this CLM solution served as the foundation for Pearson's Legal Department to create the Transaction Services Center (TSC), an effective means of handling standard, high-volume, low-risk agreements. This freed the in-house advisor to focus on more complex agreements and activities that helped support the business. With a comprehensive CLM solution, Pearson was able to better process legal services requests, review and approve contracts, and respond to legal advice requests. At the same time, savings could be achieved, efficiency increased and an unprecedented insight into contract portfolios and internal workloads gained. The results were so impressive that Pearson won the Association of Corporate Counsel's Value Champions Award.

You can hear Pearson's story here.

Nobody can predict with certainty when the pandemic and its business impact will end. Until then, in-house legal advisors will continue to play a vital role in making your organizations successful. The stories above are just some perfect examples of how ingenuity and technology make this possible.


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