Digital Transformation has become a buzzword over the past few months. Ever since we were embroiled into a devastating pandemic of global proportions, the urgency to digitalize only escalated in leaps and bounds.
However, if there has been one department which has so far remained at the side steps of such moves, it is the Legal Department. The legal departments of corporations in particular and legal counsels in general remained at bay from any such plans.
All this is changing now, as the digital transformation avalanche is all set to bring this yet aloof department into the fold as well. So, why is this change happening in the first place? Well, the answer is that when every other department is doing so, why not Legal?
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While there can be an objective debate on the timing and extent of digitalizing the legal departments of corporations, there cannot be two opinions on whether this step is required or not anymore.
So, as we conclude that digital transformation is now an unavoidable reality for the corporate legal departments, lets discuss the key considerations that need to be kept in mind when undertaking such initiatives.
The Customer Experience
While the “customer” in the case of most corporate legal departments will be internal, they still expect a certain level of progress from the legal department as well. This becomes increasingly important due to tighter regulatory controls.
Another trend that has rapidly picked up pace over the past few years is Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). Enterprises have come to realize that this is the fastest way to gain access to new markets and achieve synergies like never before.
If anything, M&As are nothing short of a nightmare for the legal teams of the involved parties. There is so much information, data and scenarios to keep in mind that a digitalized legal department seems more of a necessity rather than an option.
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Quantifiable Performance
Unlike the marketing and sales teams, whose performance reflects in clear numbers that the top management clearly understands, the performance of the legal department is altogether a different affair.
However, the increasing pressure from the top management to “quantify” departmental performance has finally trickled down to the legal folks as well. By digitalizing this section, the performance and ROI metrics could start to make more business sense.
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Data Analytics Via Smart Tools
Enterprises want to introduce data analytics to the legal departments as well. Although its form, input parameters and outcomes might not look anything like those of the sales or production teams, these will still be quantifiable figures or numbers.
By digitalizing the legal departments, enterprises want to introduce data analytics tools that are powered by the capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI). There have already been decent results when AI powered tools were pegged against human law experts.
This by no means implies that the element of human expertise and decades of experience of corporate law experts will go to waste. These AI powered tools will help a great deal in taking on tasks that are of a monotonous and repetitive nature.
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Conclusion
So far as the implementation side of any digital transformation initiatives within the Legal Departments is concerned, things will more or less remain exactly the same. It all begins with visualizing where you currently stand and what you want to achieve.
Then comes the implementation phase, which is likely to be marred with even more bottlenecks and challenges as compared to digitalizing the easier functional areas like sales, marketing, human resource management (HRM) or production.
However, the time has now come when the legal departments of corporations will also have to ride the digitalization bandwagon. With proper planning and the right technologies like Cloud Computing and AI, there is no reason why the results would not be good.
Contact dinCloud for highly secure and compliant cloud solutions for the digitalization needs of your law firm or legal department.
