Increased workload due to shrinking budgets and personnel are causing additional pressure on in-house legal departments to function more like other corporate business divisions. Also, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article, the future of work is hybrid, where employees could be working from anywhere. This requires them to think, plan and execute differently than how they have in the past. The only way to address this is by incorporating technology to help them meet the new and intensified legal demands of the modern corporation.
Unfortunately, few corporations, including technology companies, have in-house development resources to help build technology solutions for their own legal departments. Therefore, they must look outside the company to find the right tech solutions they need to help them work more efficiently.
Corporate legal departments must have clear communication with their technology solution providers about their needs. The solution should seamlessly address the requirements, workflows and challenges they have, with little to no training or education necessary. Any required help should be built into the product to assist a smooth transition to the new tech solution.
One of the challenges corporate C-level executives worry about involves integrating the new tech solution with the company’s existing tech stack. Any established legal department will already have some technology (such as Salesforce, DocuSign, Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, Box, etc.). Ideally, the new technology should integrate seamlessly with the company’s existing tech stack.
Another concern C-level executives have is keeping the appropriate people updated and informed of progress or lack or, or any critical failure in the process. The solution should have appropriate notifications built in, which assigns ownership and increases accountability.
The new trend and way of working where employees can work from anywhere has introduced an immediate need for corporations to incorporate additional security and compliance at the platform level. Employees have access to sensitive corporate and client data. In the past they worked from behind the safety of the corporate firewall, but now there might be no such thing.
Lastly, the User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) are super important for the modern solution. It should help users complete the same tasks faster and accurately. It should be highly customizable and fuse with the existing corporate software, so users do not think of it as a separate solution. It should allow analyzing data and generate customized report to provide actionable insights that help make better decisions.
Considering the above, it is imperative that an organization engage with a solution provider that has an attorney as an integral member of the team, who has lived the pain and clearly understands the workflows and requirements. They should work with a provider with experience in developing enterprise-grade SaaS platforms and solutions that are highly compliant and secure.
