What the World’s Top GCs are Focused On

Legal functions are largely missing the mark in client satisfaction.

A study of 2454 internal clients by the General Counsel Round table suggests that 74% of stakeholders are dissatisfied with the ROI they get from their Legal function.

The services provided by my Legal department were of sufficient value to my department to justify the time and resources we spent.

An ​‘old school’ response to this would be that of the doomed political leader: deny the poll is representative of your constituents, and convince yourself that some people just won’t ever ​‘get’ the good you do.

Fortunately (for Legal functions and clients alike), leading General Counsels recognise that amidst the confluence of internal pressures, market forces and emerging technologies there is enormous opportunity.

The backstory

We all know the depressing narrative: 92% of Australian GC are forecasting workload to increase, 74% believe leaders will expect more from Legal, yet only 26% anticipate any budget relief in the next two years.

Finally, the business requires legal to be more responsive, and reduce ​‘Legal Drag’.

The problem seems insurmountable: The business wants legal to be faster and better, but still be cheaper.

How do you do that?

The traditional approach would be work harder, tell your external firms they have to cut costs and deliver more commercial solutions while pleading for a bigger budget.

However, as Einstein said ​‘you can’t solve a problem using the same thinking that created it’.

The BIG opportunity

Research has demonstrated that creating effective self-service tools increases functional productivity by as much as 64% — while improving client satisfaction.

Ahhh, you think, we just need to give them more precedent templates. Sadly, most templates are a ​‘fools gold’ — the business thinks they are like a straight jacket with a lock only a Lawyer can pick. They confine the business’ range of movement and they don’t know how to use them.

Enter the new paradigm: Legal Automation

When 28 of the top 50 Australian GCs attended our Thought Leaders meeting last month technology innovation within the function was the hottest topic.

Take our Promotion Wizard for example. In under half an hour a marketer, with no Legal training, can generate perfectly customised terms and conditions for marketing promotions with no Legal support. It is a game changer for both functions.

If you are not sold on the transformational benefit of Legal Automation consider this:

1. The Chief Justice of the NSW Supreme Court has stated in The Australian that Promotion Wizard is ​‘400 times faster’ and more cost effective than any traditional alternative.
2. Our friends at Bendigo & Adelaide Bank just won a global ACC Value award in part for their adoption of Promotion Wizard to automate Legal tasks.
3. The SMH & The Australian have both described this as the most exciting development in the provision of Legal services in a long time.
4. The average Net Promoter Score for Promotion Wizard is 93% (the Law Firm average is 31%).
5. Over 42 companies have moved their Trade Promotion work onto Promotion Wizard in the last six months.
6. Leading General Counsel we speak to see a functional transformation ahead. They plan to adopt 5 ‑10 key technology enablers to automate ​‘routine legal tasks’, empowering the Legal team to focus on the interesting, strategic work while reducing external spend.

If you would like to know more about the application of marketing compliance tools like Promotion Wizard in your business please feel free to reach out to our team.