In today’s fast-paced legal environment, in-house departments are advancing and facing immense pressure to deliver effective legal services. It is becoming increasingly challenging for in-house teams, outside counsel, and legal departments to meet these demands. Several legal departments are turning to enterprise legal management tools for a comprehensive suite of tools and features.
These features streamline the legal process, improve efficiency, and save cost for in-house teams. In this blog, we will be learning more about ELM software.
What is Enterprise Legal Management Software?
Enterprise Legal Management (ELM) Software is a cloud-based software that centralizes and automates various legal tasks and workflows. The software offers a wide range of functionalities, such as legal matter management, spend management, contract lifecycle management, e-discovery, motion, and legal analytics. ELM software is designed in such a way that it can help with managing all the aspects of an in-house legal team.
The Components of an Enterprise Legal Management System
Legal Matter Management Software
Law matter management software is an essential part of an in-house legal team and an ELM platform provides matter management features. Matter management software helps in organizing all the matter in one place. Legal teams can track the progress of matters, tag them, and easily access the necessary information.
Legal Spend Management Software
Spend management helps lawyers in assisting and tracking the budget of each matter. In-house teams can set a budget for matters, keep an eye on spending, and take the necessary action if the budget exceeds. One of the key aspects of spend management software is legal billing. With spend management in-house, the team can analyze legal spending, identify trends, and uncover cost-saving opportunities.
Contract Lifecycle Management
Contracts are an essential part of the in-house legal team and outside counsel. With the help of the contract management feature of enterprise software, teams can manage the entire contract lifecycle. From drafting contracts and negotiating to renewing contracts, the software helps with everything.
E-discovery
ELM software usually includes an e-discovery tool for collecting, processing, and analyzing electronic data for legal inquiries and litigation. Having all your data in place makes it easy to overview data and respond to inquiries.
Legal Analytics
The legal team needs to analyze data for improved decision-making. With the help of analytics features, the team can measure performance, analyze the overall progress of matters, identify trends, and make decisions on the basis of statistics.
Reporting Tools
ELM software usually has a dynamic dashboard that provides insights into various team activities, and reporting is one of them. The team can get real-time insights into legal operations such as spend, budget, billing, outside counsel expense, matter progress, and more. In-house teams can download and create customizable reports that are tailored according to their specific legal requirements.
How to Choose the Best Enterprise Legal Management Software?
When choosing an ELM software for legal departments, here are a few things that you should be considering:
Cost: Cost is one of the most important considerations when choosing any enterprise software for your firm. You can find different software solutions under different cost brackets. Choose the one that fits your needs and budget at the same time.
Security: For in-house teams and legal departments, using software with proper security measures is crucial. Having software that protects sensitive legal data.
Customization: Customization is another feature that you should be given importance while selecting ELM software. The software should be flexible to customize according to your specific needs and requirements.
Integration: When choosing ELM software, you should consider software that integrates seamlessly with the software that you are already using. This may include platforms like CRM, HR, financial systems, and communication tools.
The Bottom Line
Enterprise legal management software is a powerful solution that helps in-house legal departments in operating more efficiently. If your team is looking for ELM software, look for features such as legal matter management, spend management, reporting capabilities, e-discovery, contract lifecycle management, and more.
By implementing ELM software, legal teams can improve overall efficiency, reduce cost, stay in compliance, and mitigate risk.
