We work with over 130 General Counsels worldwide which gives us a unique ability to see the key issues they have with implementing a transformation agenda.
Although 98% of General Counsel rate transformation as critical to their success, ultimately a vast majority aren’t implementing anything yet. In fact, only ¼ are and most of that are at the beginning of their transformation journey.
Interestingly when we look at the root causes of some of the issues General Counsel were trying to face, we found that they didn’t have a sophisticated system of record or technology tool to enable their function to do more with less.
As a result, these Legal functions are often years behind the expectations set by more mature functions. Most General Counsel know that they should be investing more in technology, but they aren’t quite clear on what they should be doing and – more challengingly – how to get it done.
When we look at how General Counsel are trying to get things done, we see common mistakes. We call it the Transformation Doom Loop. There are a lot of factors in the loop, but these are the most pertinent:
In other words, you are too busy. It’s ironic, we know. The reason to invest in technology is to get more done with less. Yet, often the Legal function is too busy to invest in the technology strategy. There’s always one more thing to do – getting the board papers off the desk or reviewing that contract – which pushes your project to tomorrow. And often, tomorrow never comes.
Most team members are already working too many hours, which means you fail to ring-fence the resources required to get the project off the ground. And trying to secure resources from elsewhere is one of the biggest challenges for a Legal tech project.
Most team members are already working too many hours, which means you fail to ring-fence the resources required to get the project off the ground. And trying to secure resources from elsewhere is one of the biggest challenges for a Legal tech project.
Even if you do get the initiative started, you fail to mandate the adoption, which means the rollout doesn’t happen as it should.