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Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions demonstrates positive impact of integrated e-billing and matter management systems
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WK logoIt’s increasingly common knowledge that Enterprise Legal Management systems can generate a positive return on investment. But a typical mid-sized corporate legal department could potentially benefit from a first-year savings upwards of $800,000 with a system that enables integrated e-billing and matter management.

That’s according to data contained in a new white paper from Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions, titled “Building the Business Case for an Enterprise Legal Management System.”

To deliver the necessary business value in an increasingly complex environment, executives are increasingly turning to legal technology solutions, notes Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions, which provides “transformational, technology-based solutions for the legal industry ecosystem.” With an Enterprise Legal Management system in place, corporate legal departments now have an opportunity to boost legal performance, improve efficiency, and more effectively manage and control legal spend. Enterprise Legal Management systems are comprehensive legal technology solutions and, arguably, leading systems are platform-based, flexible, and offer a holistic approach to efficiently managing the legal function. Such solutions effectively streamline workflows, connect disparate systems, improve business processes, mitigate risk, and help global teams work together in a collaborative and effective manner.

In fact, independent research backs this argument up. Analysts, such as Gartner in its 2016 Market Guide for Enterprise Legal Management Solutions, predict that those who have not yet seriously investigated the business benefit of Enterprise Legal Management risk falling behind. Conversely those adopting a system within the next 12 to 24 months will derive operational and cost benefits that can yield a competitive edge.

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“Modern legal departments are expected to operate more efficiently to help the organization achieve its financial goals. Interestingly, according to Consero’s Corporate Litigation Data Survey, Chief Legal Officers at 72% of Fortune 500 companies state that they are under increased pressure to improve legal spend management and, in my experience, General Counsels throughout the world are keen to identify tools and providers who can help them improve process efficiency, reduce risk, and establish data-informed best practices ,” notes Mark Stapleton, London-based Managing Director for EMEA at Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions. “Legal departments can make progress by enforcing the most effective workflows – such as single-click invoice approval – automatically checking invoices for compliance with billing guidelines, and leveraging real-time reports that highlight time and cost savings.”

Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions suggests that corporate legal executives should evaluate Enterprise Legal Management system providers against some key criteria. Firstly, they should be “a proven and responsive partner”, able to point to proven successes, possessing “a potent combination of thought leadership, staying power and innovation.” Both the provider and platform should also “be robust, mature and stable, with a clear roadmap for future enhancements and releases.”

Any decent systems should also provide a flexible and secure platform, Wolters Kluwer’s experts argue. “Regardless of delivery mode: on-premise, hosted, or SaaS, look for an option with a modular, flexible and scalable design that can grow and change with business needs,” the white paper notes “It should be highly secure, utilizing a variety of industry-leading technologies to ensure that each client’s data is protected from end-to-end. It should also be highly configurable, compliant with development and technology standards and easily integrated with other systems. Hosting providers must meet industry audit and compliance requirements.”

“The most useful tools integrate directly with software that staff members already use, such as Microsoft Outlook, streamlining change management and reducing the time spent on administrative work and switching between applications to perform day-to-day work. Lawyers are then free to concentrate on the higher value work that is better aligned with their career goals, increasing staff satisfaction and retention,” Stapleton adds.

Notably, Wolters Kluwer’s ELM Solutions has calculated that mid-sized corporate legal departments using an Enterprise Legal Management system with integrated e-billing and matter management can save an estimated $788,000 in year one and a total of $2,264,500 over three years.

 

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