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September 14 Ayfie attended a real in-person event again in Oslo. Nordic Legal Tech Day attracted around 120 people from Law Firms, Tech Companies and In-house legal departments alike. For many, it was the first time in quite a while since they have attended such an event and there was clearly excitement going around.
The agenda was packed with quality speakers and sharp panels, discussing a wider range of topics around technology in the legal practice.
Here are 4 key takeaways from the event that show the current challenges in the legal industry today - and our perspective on why what we do matters to the industry.
- Internal legal teams are still considered “cost centers” and their perception needs to shift to “value centers”
This has always been a challenge for legal teams. Providing the business with insight in how the department brings value is difficult. Because of this, it is hard to get the budget to make changes, whether that is acquiring talent, tech or services.
Leveraging the expertise from vendors and partners and their best practices could help you with some real examples of how others have been able to create real business value. This will make a real difference in how your budget holders value your next request.
- Since the pandemic, cost-cutting initiatives are putting pressure on internal legal teams to “do more with less”
This likely ties in with the fact that legal services are often still seen as cost centers by the business. For many businesses a natural first reflex to the pandemic was to think about how they could be managing costs more effectively. Halting investments in cost centers could a logical result of this.
- Assessing risk is becoming more difficult, as legal teams don’t have access to all company data
We still see many companies struggling with making data accessible to people. This challenge is only getting bigger as the amount of data that needs to be handled and reviewed is growing every year and that the data is more widely spread in (new) applications, private repositories and legacy systems that are hard to integrate.
This is at the core of what we do here at Ayfie. The solution we bring to the market is aimed at making all the data available to you from one interface. When all that data is available, you can do many more clever things to make workflows more efficient and drive down costs related to, for example, document reviewing.
- Improving processes and workflows should precede investments in legal technologies
For many reasons, buying technology can be tricky. Before you do, make sure that you have a clear understanding of what business processes you are looking to change, why, and who it will benefit. Is the goal to save time, save cost, improve UX, or all of the mentioned? How do you measure these factors?
Bridging the gap between past and future
Understanding the gap between your current state and your desire future state is fundamental. When you have identified the gap, work with your current partners and vendors to understand how you could potentially bridge the gap with what you already have.
This could either be smarter processes and workflows or adding additional features.
If the gap hasn’t been bridged after this exercise, you will at least have more insight to help you start off a new project with a new vendor.
Team Ayfie thanks all contributors at the 2021 Nordic LegalTech Day in Oslo!
Ayfie will attend the Nordic LegalTech Day in Stockholm
October 7. We hope to see you there!
