This article was originally published in Dentons global in-house legal insights survey 2023 – visit the full survey and report here.

Law departments, like all business units within an organization are expected to enable technology and realize efficiency and cost-saving benefits. The plethora of legal technologies that have emerged during the past five years can be overwhelming to review, understand and choose between. Given the cost pressures many are facing, and the challenges of getting investment cases through, now is a good time to understand what you have access to already and what can be achieved through these existing platforms.

As with any technology journey, before you can begin to assess the solution, you need to have a very clear understanding around what problem(s) you are trying to solve. Is your team spending far too much time looking for precedents or templates? Are you struggling to track and triage the work as it comes into the department? Take some time to canvas the legal team to understand exactly where the biggest pain points/bottle necks may be which might be limiting optimal delivery of legal services. Keep in mind that some of these friction points might be solved without technology but rather by simplifying an existing process.

There are obviously limitations with what your enterprise technology will be able to do so it's important to connect with your corporate IT department. You may wish to consider asking questions like:

  • What's available to us that is currently being used across the enterprise?
  • What is available that might require a bit of tweaking to fit our purpose?
  • What resources might be available to us to support any adjustments?
  • Are there future investments being made that might suit our needs?
  • Are there any barriers that we need to keep in mind when exploring other technology?

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