7 challenges faced by corporate legal departments

Lack of IT support

Inability to justify up-front expenditure on new technology.

On cloud, with no new hardware or software to install or maintain.

No IT involvement required. Quick implementation.

Turnover in the legal department Transition of work

On every exit the new staff spends time to learn about status, history of matters, find documents and information. Knowledge is lost and needs to be recreated. Many aspects are lost in communication or not transferred. Past experiences with outside counsel is lost in transition.

Status, documents, information, billing and expense incurred history, task history, communication, notes etc. are all linked and stored digitally for each matter, including all dealings, information and communication exchange with outside counsel.

Information not lost in the transition. Successors are able to add value and build on top of previous learnings and inputs. Knowledge about outside counsel preserved for later use by others.

Keeping track of deadlines

Inadequate time to prepare optimal responses, leading to poor results Missed deadlines resulting in penalties, lost opportunities.

Alerts and reminders for all dates, deadlines. Provision to set customised reminders. Automatic alert for dates and orders for a litigation matter integrated with court cause list.

Better results from planning and with adequate time to respond. No penalties or lost opportunities due to missed deadlines.

Identifying areas of exposure

Unable to identify departments that are generating maximum requests. Risks from concentrating litigation with few law firms, lead counsel.

Reports that show: which department is sending maximum requests, over various time periods. Exposure handled by each lead counsel, law firm so that same can be spread.

Pre-emptive action internally to reduce requests. Diversify risk by balancing exposure among outside counsel.

Collaboration amongst widely dispersed legal teams

Security risks from unencrypted email, Redundancy and overlap in work. Gaps in communication, Costly overnight deliveries.

Secure electronic files accessible by all team members from anywhere, as per what they are authorised to access. Encrypted transmission. Seamless collaboration leading to no loss in communication.

Immediate delivery leading to quicker responses, No delivery costs, Security, authorised access and confidentiality.

Inefficiencies resulting from handling paper documents

Wasted time copying, routing, filing, and finding paper documents. Retrieval costs.

myKase uses electronic documents which are automatically organized under respective matter. Reports, activity stats, audit trails all can be available on demand, without any data re-entry. Accessible anytime, anywhere.

Authorised access anytime, anywhere. Organized electronic files improve productivity of users Eliminate wasted time, mistakes, and costs of data re-entry Lower costs to maintain, store, and retrieve archived files.

Lack of metrics

Inability to compare outside counsel and consultant performances. Case load requests from different departments. Reliance on memory, gut and subjective analysis. Leading to less than optimal results.

Objective data captured on results achieved, spending, and predictive accuracy. Decisions can be based on data instead of gut feel and reliance on individual memory.

Collective company knowledge base is available for all to access. Optimal results from giving more work to counsel with the best track records. Better financial planning made possible too.