A report released by international law firm Morrison & Foerster last week outlined that “in terms of legal department workload, 3 out of 5 of respondents say their current workload has increased as an immediate result of COVID-19, while 1 out of 5 report that workload has remained the same but changed, evidencing that companies are shifting their regular business priorities to deal with these new and more immediate priorities. Many reported that this increase in workload is expected to continue for the next six to 12 months."
When asked about the top legal risks posed to their businesses as a result of the current health crisis, 86% of legal counsel answered that employment and human resources issues are the biggest risk, followed by contracts (67%) and supply chain disruption (56%).
Uncharacteristically for the legal industry, legal risk issues related to data security (29 %) and privacy (18 %) ranked lowered than they traditionally do, highlighting the importance of the trust we place in suppliers. “Security appears to be lower on the scale likely because the other risks are paramount at the moment. Unfortunately, the number of data security incidents is likely to rise in the near future which may impact many organisations,” said Morrison & Foerster Privacy & Data Security partner Miriam Wugmeister.
These statistics tell us that corporate counsel leaders need to plan how to empower their team to focus on the right work, along with managing increased workloads while operating remotely. For this, technology is crucial.
Technology can serve to minimise administrative work, and increase efficiency, but crucially, structuring your team’s data to capture metrics such as time spent on different types of work, matter types, track progress and external counsel spend will enable you to demonstrate your team’s value to the business.
In the tech world, the importance of data has been a hot topic for years. In 2006, mathematician, Clive Humby said “data is the new oil”, it is now time that corporate counsel start leveraging their own valuable data. This is the backbone of legal operations.
EOFY introductory offer
LawVu is a legal operations platform designed to enable legal departments to manage their matters, contracts, and external counsel engagement in one connected platform.
Because LawVu is cloud-based SaaS platform, there is nothing to install and we can configure your system and have you live, capturing new instructions and working on matters and contracts in as little as a few days.
Given the increased pressure legal departments find themselves under, LawVu is offering free implementation up to the value of $10,000 AUD to new customers who enter into an agreement with LawVu before 19th June 2020.
If you would like to learn more about this offer:
Email brid.heffernan@lawvu.com or call +6145107720
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