How Legal Teams Can Leverage Automation

For in-house legal teams, efficiency is everything.

Often short on staff, such departments don’t have the time or resources to get bogged down by manual processes. A recent report from Special Counsel’s Parker + Lynch Legal found that nearly two-thirds of in-house legal departments are made up of 10 or fewer attorneys.

That’s where making the move toward digital could pay dividends.

During a time when new technology continues to improve the way people work, embracing digital transformation has the potential to give in-house legal teams a leg up on the competition through automation.

While much is made of the difficulty of achieving digital disruption, such concerns couldn’t be further from the truth. From freeing up valuable time to cutting costs, Intelligent Process Automation (IPA) can bring about a digital transformation and introduce the efficiency in-house legal teams need.

Buying back time

When it comes to increasing efficiency, technology is often the top choice for in-house legal teams. Six out of 10 legal departments have used technology to ensure things run more smoothly. An IPA platform is one option that’s poised to make a significant impact on in-house operations – specifically, internal legal reviews.

A common source of frustration, internal legal reviews aren’t exactly a straightforward process. Whether it’s finding the right information or appropriately delegating each contract modification, there are more than a few steps to keep track of. With an IPA platform, however, much of that burden may no longer fall on in-house legal teams that are already strapped for time.

By automatically assigning revision requests to the appropriate attorney, an IPA platform can help shorten the time it takes to get things moving. Best of all, multiple copies of a contract can be created and stored following approval. Rather than focusing on administrative tasks that take hours to complete each week, attorneys can devote their attention toward providing top-notch legal services.

Bumping up bandwidth

Slashing operations costs is often easier said than done. But with fewer roadblocks standing in the way of in-house legal teams, extra savings may not be so far-fetched. More than 60 percent of legal departments have sought to control costs by increasing the efficiency of internal operations. An IPA platform promises to help do just that.

Time that may have been previously spent gathering relevant information or completing a repeatable process can instead be used to deliver services more efficiently. And the more bandwidth an in-house legal team has, the better chance they’ll no longer need the help of outside counsel.

Precious resources are often doled out to third parties when work begins to accumulate. . But by improving the efficiency at which they tackle new cases, in-house legal teams can begin to bring down costs. Although it may seem insignificant, freeing up just a few hours can make quite an impact on a legal department’s bottom line. After all, outside counsel doesn’t come cheap. Finding ways to work faster with the help of an IPA platform can ensure costs are kept to a minimum.

For in-house legal teams, repetitive administrative tasks cost significant time and money. With an IPA platform, however, that soon may change. Bringing automation into the fold not only aims to save some time, but it can also cut costs stemming from inefficient operations. Such advantages are crucial to servicing an organization’s legal needs and staying one step ahead of the competition.