Law Department Management

Learn 39 contract management software packages when you let me know the one your department uses

If you are interested in knowing more about software for contract management, you can get my compilation of 39 of them. My list has the trade name of the package, the vendor’s name, and a website address. While it can’t claim to be the definitive list of software geared toward production, retrieval and analysis of contracts and agreements, it can certainly claim to be long!

To get it, e-mail me and tell me what software for managing contracts you use in your law department. I am asking neither about generic document management software nor about workarounds (e.g., Word and directories and naming conventions). I want to know about software that is purposefully designed for creating, tracking, and storing contracts. If enough people respond, I will write a summary blog post, disclosing no specific information but only aggregated results.

So, to get the list, write me about your department’s software that helps prepare and administer contracts. rees@reesmorrison.com

Posted by Rees Morrison at 7:46 AM in Technology | Permalink | Comments (0)

Rees Morrison’s Morsels #165: the long and the short of it

UK matter management software. The UK’s largest friendly society LV= (aka the Liverpool & Victoria) has implemented Proclaim case management software from Eclipse Legal Systems for its inhouse legal and secretariat team to support internal clients. This item comes from Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012. Also, the legal services team at South Lanarkshire Council has implemented the Civica Legal system to improve case management, time recording and court bundling (See my post of Feb. 5, 2012: 11 matter management systems at LegalTechNY.).

CPA Global acquired by private equity firm. European private equity firm Cinven is to acquire the global IP management, offshore document review, LPO, and LSO (legal services outsourcing) business CPA Global for an undisclosed sum. The transaction is expected to be finalised over the next couple of months, according to Charles Christian’s Orange Rag, January 2012 (See my post of Nov. 1, 2011: Mitratech acquired by private equity firm.). Project Leadership Associates, which has a legal business consulting arm under partner Dan Safran, also sold itself to a private equity group in late 2011.

News of executives in the law department vendor space. Jeff Hodge has left doeLEGAL where he had served as Executive Director, Corporate for about a year. In late January, Wolters Kluwer promoted Richard Flynn to Group President and Chief Executive Officer of its Corporate Legal Services (CLS). CLS is a portfolio of businesses offering legal compliance and performance management solutions under brands that include CT Corporation, CT Lien Solutions, Corsearch, and TyMetrix.

Contract management software’s growth prospects. Forrester Research estimated in a Sept. 2011 webinar by Andrew Bartels on “The 4 Stages of Value from Contract Management” that sell-side contract management systems will grow 9.2% in 2011 and 8.5% in 2012.” That forecast comes from Exari’s white paper, Corporate Counsel Contracts Survey Report, Dec. 2011 at 2 (See my post of Feb. 5, 2012: list of 39 contract management offerings.).

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 9, 2012 in Thoughts/Observations | Comments (0) | Permalink

Government regulations can help law departments, too!

Very commonly general counsel and business executives complain vociferously about “regulatory overload.” Spewing out every year hundreds or thousands of new laws, regulations agency practices hobble business. The burden rises – but you know about every cloud. Four silver linings balance the picture a bit.

Were it not for governmental regulations and their enforcement, many in-house lawyers would not have their current jobs. If specialists in environmental issues, utilities, power transmission, food additives, transportation systems, or insurance products, to name but a few domains of ubiquitous regulations, were able to abolish their agencies and output, their jobs would diminish or disappear. Regulations protect the careers of regulatory lawyers.

Regulations clarify or set rules, so that businesses can plan, can design their products and offerings, and can rely on competitors honoring them at least partly. No executives thrive on chaotic unknowns; all of them like some anchor points because there still remain multifarious opportunities for innovation and improvement. As appellate decisions resolve legal tangles, regulations resolve business-practice tangles.

Regulations allow lobbying. Companies with more alertness, clout and skill can shape regulations to boost their prospects. Alternatively, to find a regulatory loophole can make all the difference to a fledgling MCI, for example. Regulations create both winners and losers.

Regulations advantage larger companies. If small players still have to collect data, spend, file forms and pay for expensive counsel, yet perhaps only have to comply with a regulation every now and then, they lag in productivity behind their larger competitors who develop processes and accumulate internal expertise. If cost per compliance with a regulation were expressed as a percentage of revenue, economies of scale likely benefit bigger companies. Regulatory regimes create barriers to entry.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 9, 2012 in Showing Value | Comments (0) | Permalink

Curious lack of interest in e-billing software, according to recent survey

ALM Legal Intelligence compiled responses from 107 senior in-house counsel, about three-quarters of which were general counsel. The summary of the report, in Law Tech. News, Feb. 2012 at 24, says that almost two out of three of the respondents come from companies with annual revenue of less than $1 billion, so many of the respondent departments have only 1-5 lawyers.

Size matters when it comes to e-billing software and its advantages. So, perhaps it is not as surprising as you first think to read that of the 107 law departments “none plan to install e-billing software to track outside counsel and fees.” You don’t benefit sufficiently if you are only two or three in-house lawyers if you have to choose, install, learn, roll out and maintain e-billing software. Even with larger departments the respondents might have thought of matter management software packages as more suited to “track outside counsel and fees.” They might have read the question as speaking merely to the method of transmitting invoices of outside counsel. The short summary also does not indicate what percentage of the respondents already uses e-billing and so don’t “plan to install” it.

In short, a survey finding that suggests an utter lack of interest in e-billing software among law departments may be an artifact of the respondents’ smallness, the question’s ambiguity, or the absence of a revelatory, complementary question. Other data tells us, after all, that e-billing capabilities are spreading.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 9, 2012 in Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

Behind the proliferation of awards to law departments – cherchez la buck

The reason there are so many awards handed out to law departments is that vendors and service providers pay handsomely for the publicity. If you are a software vendor, for example, you rejoice when one of the law departments that has installed your software bags an award (See my post of Feb. 9, 2012: litigation hold vendor’s client honored.). Not only do you rejoice, you take out an ad in the publication that gives the award. Or, if you are a law firm’s marketing department, you love having a client identify you as their partner in an award-winning activity, plus you plump down a bundle as the “sponsor” of the the black-tie ceremony. Even law departments swell up and feel good about themselves to be recognized as the Best Something – and they too pony up for a table at the gala bestowal ceremony.

The award givers make money from content, ads and tables and sponsorships. The awardees feel good about themselves and the marketing hype rises and rises all around.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 9, 2012 in Showing Value | Comments (0) | Permalink

“Most Innovative Technology in a Corporate Law Department” – a choice of legal hold software?

Something is amiss if the distinguished Legal Tech. News of ALM proclaims that the year’s most innovative law department, from the standpoint of technology, achieved that distinction because it selected a litigation hold system. The February 2012 write-up, at page 15, unquestionably describes something new and unheard of: the “extensive 430-point rating system to assess various vendor offerings” that Deere concocted. The vendors invited to participate, and there are a slew of them vying for playing time, must have gnashed their teeth at the bloated set of questions. A Request for Profusion shouldn’t win the blue ribbon.

The explanation for that unimaginably lengthy RFP, which spewed huge replies almost impossible to assess by Deere even if the vendors answered honestly and completely, was “because the system needed to work in the company’s current technology environment, integrate with existing technology, and be highly configurable.” That is what all law departments want of their software. Nothing innovative there nor in the function itself – litigation hold software. Ultimately, Deere selected Fusion Legal Hold from Exterro.

Unless there was a paucity of submissions, why does licensing a commercial package to handle litigation holds merit such recognition?

As far as litigation hold software goes, this blog has only a few mentions (See my post of Feb. 6, 2007: PSS Systems’ Atlas for litigation hold management; April 27, 2008: Motorola developed its own hold software; and Feb. 7, 2009: five categories of software capabilities under “litigation hold.”).

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 9, 2012 in Showing Value | Comments (0) | Permalink

Survey data regarding the distribution of in-house lawyers by practice area

The most recent ALM Intelligence metrics survey asked about 26 practice areas, including “Other.” They allowed me to examine data provided by about 70 US legal departments. Of them, eight practice areas accounted for two-thirds of all the lawyer positions. Litigation and Commercial each accounted for around 15%, while Intellectual Property and Regulatory were next most common (7%). International as well as Labor/employment both had around 6%. Securities, Healthcare, and Insurance, at 4% each brought the total of the most common practice areas up to two-thirds of all the lawyers.

From a different perspective, with the exception of Insurance, which was influenced by the participation of a large insurance company, the other seven specialties of law are generic, in that any company might have lawyers who practice in those areas. To learn more about the Law Department Metrics Benchmark Survey of ALM Legal Intelligence, click here for ALM’s website.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 8, 2012 in Talent | Comments (0) | Permalink

Rolling averages as a way to show more accurately the current trend

Not many law departments calculate rolling averages, such as for what they spend per month on outside counsel, but it is a useful tool to show up-to-the-month patterns in time-interval data. Rolling averages can show your progress since they convey recent trends rather than overall averages. I write about rolling averages and how to calculate and display them in my Morrison on Metrics column, published Jan. 30, 2012, with InsideCounsel.com. The full column about rolling averages is available online.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 8, 2012 in Benchmarks | Comments (0) | Permalink

Matter management dominates at LegalTech NY for in-house lawyers, and a few consultants appeared

If you are with a law department, and if you are not interested in document review products – litigation support products, the pickings were slim at LegalTech NY other than matter management (See my post of Jan. 5, 2012: 11 matter management systems with booths at LegalTech.).

Even consulting assistance was sparse. Huron Consulting Group had a booth as did Kierested Systems. Epiq, which now has a legal consulting group headed by veteran Jim Mittenthal, a refugee from the diaspora of HildbrandtBakerRobbins, was also on the floor.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 8, 2012 in Technology | Comments (1) | Permalink

SharePoint and offerings built around it were plentiful at LegalTechNY

By my rough count, at least six vendors at LegalTechNY offered SharePoint applications. For example, Handshake Software explained to me that its software can draw on the structured, SQL data in any matter management system and put that data into SharePoint. It sounds like the ubiquitous software takes a step toward a portal, or a platform, or a data warehouse.

Handshake also explained that their PageGum application lets an in-house lawyer personalize SharePoint. Tools that personalize what is on the screen for a user have great appeal, if the users take advantage of those features.

I note three other SharePoint vendors from the show. CLM Matrix offers a SharePoint application related to contract administration and Business Integrity http://www.business-integrity.com/ promotes its integration with SharePoint for contract creation and management with Contract Express. The third is Dolphin software, which swims in the same pool as CLM Matrix and Business Integrity.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 8, 2012 in Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink

If your department creates specialized software, two reasons to relinquish it – cost and continuous improvement

Every now and then law departments request software written especially for their own purposes. Usually they are very large departments and they conclude that there is no suitable package available for license. Custom software that holds promise as precisely targeted to solve a need may be the perfect solution, or it may belong better elsewhere.

For example Cisco developed the platform that it decided eventually to spin out to LegalOnRamp. According to an interview of Cisco's Steve Harmon, Senior Director of Legal Services, on July 25, 2011 by LegalOnRamp, Cisco did so in part for economics. "Over time, … we could license the technology from LegalOnRamp … more cheaply than I could continue to pay my own staff to maintain and develop that platform."

As a second reason, one applicable to every law department that creates bespoke software, "every dollar that I spend on maintaining existing applications is a dollar that I'm not free to spend on other innovation." Look in the market for vendors spurred to innovate and use your own dollars for different purposes.

Posted by Rees Morrison on February 8, 2012 in Technology | Comments (0) | Permalink