The quarterly publication of the International Legal Technology Association
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/21494
inside iLTA Globalization of Law Department Technologies G lobalization of the corporate legal department is not a new concept. It has been occurring naturally and at pace with the globalization of corporate structures and the accelerated pace of technological innovation and growth of the world economy. We may be seeing a gathering trend in law department globalization that will impact every aspect of how a law department manages itself with legal spend being just one component. One marker which tends to validate the globalization trend is the sharp increase in global e-billing and legal spend management initiatives outside of the U.S. Since the sanction of electronic billing by the European Union in 2004, Europe has seen a sharp increase in the purchase of legal spend technology by non-U.S. companies. Accompanying this growth is a complementary surge in legal spend management implementation migrations by U.S. companies (or U.S.-based international law departments) to Europe and beyond. In terms of both the size and complexity, international implementations and migrations are the largest growth areas for legal spend management vendors and their technologies. This will likely continue to be the case as legal e-billing, legal spend management and legal matter management continue to evolve to serve a growing and more complex global legal environment. Implementing these legal technologies is a smart first step for law departments wishing to globalize, but they are only a small, although very important step and must not be viewed as the solution to globalizing a corporate law department. In addition to technology, the following areas must be considered and dealt with as well: • Centralization of legal department organization • Transparency into global legal spend • Visibility into global legal risk • Visibility into global matter/case portfolios 122 www.iltanet.org Peer to Peer • Global compliance coordination and standardization at the operations level • Coordinated and transparent lines of communication • Standardized processes and procedures As always, the business of law is driving technical adaptation and innovation –– not the reverse. CHALLENGES Globalization of law department technology will evolve and grow to meet the business demands of increasingly globalized corporate law departments. That process has begun, but it is far from complete largely because technology is leading the way. Law departments that purchase these technologies are, by and large, not taking on the listed business challenges in parallel with the implementation of these systems. Legal technologies, including legal spend systems and global e-billing, are intended to optimize processes, not replace them entirely. Change management and standardization should be accompanying the adoption of technology. For example, at the moment, legal spend management adoption is outpacing both internal change management and, to a lesser degree, standards. This has resulted in some growing pains for firms. Examples of those can be seen even today in the following spend management implementations: • Law departments looking to have remittance information in the matter description field of an electronic invoice issued by law firms — This is totally unnecessary, not a legal requirement in Europe, and already contained in resident systems at the law department. • Law departments seeking to have client entity, name and address in the matter description field in an electronic invoice file — Again, this is totally unnecessary and duplicative as this information is already contained in the header-level information for the electronic invoice.