Taking the Pain out of Routine Legal Work

What are the costs of high-volume legal work?

Negotiating and managing recurring legal documents, such as non-disclosure agreements, joinders and engagement letters, can impose significant costs on companies, but established solutions—whether handled internally or outsourced to traditional law firms—are imperfect.

Corporate law firms were created to address complex matters, not routine legal work. Such work is usually delegated to junior staff, and negotiation turnaround time is negatively impacted by competing, higher priority tasks. Plus, the work is usually billed at costly rates. Some companies assign in-house counsel or employees in business roles to handle the work. Unfortunately, routine processes face speed and efficiency issues while they compete for time with higher impact tasks. Employees in business roles often lack formal legal education, which may result in subpar negotiation outcomes and increased noncompliance.

Without standardized processes or systems, inefficiencies will arise. People in an organization may take different positions on the same document type with the same counterparty and be unable to answer critical compliance questions. And they cannot quickly reference and benchmark against historical precedent to improve the efficiency and outcome of future negotiations.

How is legal tech solving these pain points?

Alternative legal service providers, or ALSPs, offer solutions to help companies address the opportunity and monetary costs imposed by routine legal work. These solutions utilize a range of technologies, including cloud computing, document management software and data management tools. Some ALSPs use one technology to address a single pain point, while others offer comprehensive solutions to automate entire processes. Implementing a legal technology solution can unlock abundant benefits. For example, document management software can improve workflow efficiency and allow companies to track the status of ongoing negotiations. Cloud technology enables scalable, cost-effective solutions by creating virtual networks of experienced corporate attorneys.