Four signs of growing out of a legitimate tech stack (and what to do about it) | Mitratech Holdings, Inc

Often, legal teams think that growing — both in terms of staff and functionality — is the only factor that will force an upgrade to the technology stack. But the reality is this: with many of today’s lawyers forced to do more with less, strategically choosing the right technology can help fill the gaps, allowing your team to put energy where it matters most – driving the business forward.

No organization is independent of the current macro environment; Cost-cutting, budget restrictions and industry cutbacks are ever-present. Still, as a leader in your organization, you have control over how you prepare your team. With the right technology, time-consuming, repetitive tasks can be replaced with self-service workflows, helping your departments focus less on administrative tasks and more on valuable work. Beyond simply growing in size, here are four signs that it’s time for a strategic legal technology stack upgrade.

Your processes are getting too complicated.

As legal ops professionals work quickly to streamline their processes and strategically address administrative workloads with fewer resources, they can often feel like they’re stumbling in the middle of a Rube Goldberg invention. In other words, they feel like things are more complicated than they need to be. “What do you mean I have to email so-and-so so that they can email X to find out if the Sharepoint site needs additional permissions before NDA? Will it go through?” Processes that once made sense now feel clunky and cumbersome, and focus on more important initiatives, background tasks that need to run smoothly.

Take the topic of rush rate for example. When the process resides with people rather than technology, change creates knowledge and process gaps. And when technology is implemented in a stagnant way, processes become stuck and difficult to break apart. Instead of being able to see the process through to the end, looking through the lens, various stalling technologies and circuitous ways of approval have shrouded the process in mystery. Workflow automation not only streamlines processes but also creates a digital audit trail for unlimited visibility.

As your team’s needs evolve and more cross-functional collaboration is required, a spreadsheet that was once considered a “single source of truth” will become riddled with errors. Too many people with access to an Excel spreadsheet to track issues, claims, NDAs—you name it—can lead to duplicate and outdated information being spread all over the place. Setting permissions around access to mission-critical data is critical, but not the whole story.

When a team has a spreadsheet that constantly goes through new data or additional line items, the ability to accurately audit the data is reduced, data integrity is reduced, and simply tracking is a pain. The team. And to that end, when your spreadsheets are less reliable, it’s a sign that you want to move away from spreadsheets and into a contract lifecycle management system.

By starting fresh, your data will be more secure by automatically formatting your data, keeping a history of all changes over time, and allowing the right people to have access (but only when they need access). The result? Your team can reduce risk and ease your workload.

As legal and sales work hand in hand, it should always be a partnership. However, most legal teams don’t have a single entry portal for sales teams to go with questions — or simple, templated questions, for that matter, that don’t have buttons built into Salesforce — which means they can be overwhelmed by simple questions from sales. Examples may include contract questions, third-party reviews, frequently asked questions, or asking for answers to questions not covered in the FAQ.

When legal teams are inundated with these requests, they can easily be automated or templated with emails that take their time away from higher-value work. Strategic Legal Group offers a legal portal for sale to resolve high-volume, low-complexity questions, saving both parties time and headaches.

A recent Forbes article makes the point clear: “Don’t try to save money by doing ‘quick and easy’ home fixes.” Quick and easy fixes may be what got your team stuck in the process in the first place. As your team’s needs evolve, it’s critical that your foundation platform is robust to offload tedious administrative work and facilitate time and cost savings.

When solving for an emerging technology stack, it’s critical that you shift your mindset to an emerging technology stack. This means thinking one step ahead; A point-and-click solution that solves one problem right now may one day become overwhelming and complex as your needs change. Not to mention, finding an individual solution to each challenge costs more money than having a centralized solution.

To overcome the challenges of an overwhelming legal tech stack, teams stop looking for single solutions to address systemic challenges. Instead, they go right to the source, looking for either:

1. A robust platform solution that keeps all data in one place and aggregates this data through interfaces, not spreadsheets, so it doesn’t get corrupted
2. A blue chip vendor that provides the necessary platform or solution, and will be along for the ride as the legal team grows. \\

Today’s legal teams are faced with the challenge of strategic investment – ​​time, money, attention, etc. And challenging times call for creative solutions. While new technology may feel like a “nice to have” these days, it’s a critical way to ensure your team has the tools to do more with less. Both Now and in the future.