从法律支出管理到预测性支出

Control outside counsel spendwith better data Feeling the squeeze? Corporate legal departments are underincreasing pressure from multiple directions. Teams are facingexposure to greater legal risks and more complex matters whilebudgets remain stagnant. Meanwhile, the landscape in thecompanies they serve — as well as in the outside firms theywork with — is changing fast. Cultural shifts around work-life Legal departments must become more effective managersof their budget and staff time, which requires robust data,useful metrics, and effective analysis. Technology enables legaldepartments to maximize their budget by providing data thatextends beyond hourly rates. This informs decision-making, Best-in-class spend management technology offers thesedepartments end-to-end visibility, benchmarking, and processassessment, helping them more accurately assess andminimize legal fees while providing superior service. Explore The state of technology in legal departments The pressureis rising — the Over the past decade, Legal Operations (Legal Ops) and spend management haveevolved as legal departments have become more sophisticated. Legal Ops is now a Nearly 80%of legaldepartmentsreported anincrease inworkload over The need to be efficient and keep costs down is vital, as legal departments are almostuniversally being asked to do more with less.Year after year, finance departmentsare demanding better transparency into legal spending and more accountability Finance and C-suite professionals want to save, and Legal Ops istasked with seekingthe best way to do so. Legal department leaders are asking their Legal Ops teams •How much can we save by using tools and technology? •Are there ways to introduce technology to solve specific problems and get better •How can we reduce or better predict our spend with outside counsel? •Can we take a broader approach, examining how the department does things in all waysand engineering new processes across the board? Technology is at the heart of all of these questions. In-house legal departments areoften resistant to data and technology tools, butaccording toGartner, thatis beginning Yet this adoption is slower than it needs to be. Not all companies adhere to the standardindustry baseline of spend management and reporting on legal work. Smaller companies Regardless of size, legal departments require spend management technology thatoffers end-to-end visibility and comprehensive benchmarking, allowing more accurate An ideal spend management solution categorizes and analyzes legal work, ensuring theselection of appropriate legal resources for each project. For example, a high-risk casemay require hiring a top-tier law firm, while routine matters could be handled by smaller Problems and challenges for legal departments Turning to To fully integrate technology and maximize its benefits, legal departments must overcomeexisting barriers. Properly tracking andcontrolling spend is challenging when dealing The LDO Indexfound that 75% oflegal departmentssurveyed place Lack of transparency into legal spending: Without appropriate technology in place, legal departments are unable to accurately trackcurrent spending, predict future spending, or make data-driven decisions. This makes itdifficult to enforce billing guidelines and hold outside law firms accountable for their work.A critical component that is missing for many legal departments is internal performance Insufficient visibility into total risks associated with legal matters Legal matters often involve complex risks. Basing spending decisions on the mostapparent risks, rather than the overall risk profile, can lead to an inefficient allocation ofresources. Predicting the effects of regulatory changes is also challenging, as legal risks Unchecked and unrationalized spending The focus on legal cost control highlights the need to save and optimize in this area. Legaldepartments need to manage rate increases effectively. Traditionally, this can take a lot ofmanual work, which can be reduced with technology and tools. Technology can streamline Difficulty hiring and retaining staff Workers are actively redefining what they want from their work lives, weighingconsiderations such as remote and flexible work options that may not have beenpreviously available. With workers’ priorities in flux, legal departments may face staffing The proliferation of Legal Ops tech offerings Legal tech is a fast-growing field, presenting both opportunities and challenges, with moresolutions coming online all the time. Past negative experiences with low-quality vendors What defines best-in-class spend management solutions? “Now we have asingle workflow,one process,one route to gettimekeeper ratesapproved and As a powerful business tool, a premium spend management solution addresses thetop priorities of legal departments as found in the LDO Index. These priorities include: •Controlling outside counsel costs•Making workflows more efficient•In