In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the opportunity to chat with Mat Jakubowski. Mat has over 10 years of legal experience at companies like Thomson Reuters and Dentons. This experience has given him a unique blend of skills that he now uses to both run a legal ops department and also provide world-class Legal Tech training and mentoring to aspiring lawyers and legal professionals at Silvertown Legal.

Part of why he made the transition was that he wanted to be involved in the ever-evolving world of legal-tech, branching out beyond the reach of just one company to affect change in a bigger way as the legal industry rapidly advances from manual to digital.

At the time that Mat graduated from law school, there was very few off his peers going into the legal-tech space, with the “standard legal path” being road most followed. Now, with so many alternative paths, he is excited to share his experiences working with legal-tech, and we hope that his advice can help both those looking for technology solutions to suit their contract processes as well as those seeking jobs in the vastly expanding legal technology realm.

Utilizing Free Tech at Your Disposal

To start things off, we first wanted to see if there were any free technology platforms that Mat could recommend for those who might be just starting to look into adopting legal-tech and are still in the process of evaluating their contract lifecycles. He began by stressing the importance of understanding your processes before looking into integrating a high tech contract lifecycle management (CLM) software, as technology cannot be used properly unless it is applied to good processes. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize smaller technology solutions during your evaluations as well.

One of the platforms Mat recommended checking out was the Microsoft Suite, particularly Microsoft Teams. Teams can be of great help when it comes to creating better communication between departments as well as planning out processes and assigning tasks to different team members. Excel, though usually overlooked, can also be used for planning or keeping track of data. It may not always be the most user-friendly experience, but it can still get the job done while you prepare to make the transition to a more detailed software.

Mat also suggested utilizing software like Miro in order to visualize your processes as you learn about them. It is much easier to pick apart the details of your contract processes when you have a map or graph of that process that highlights the dependencies, clauses, clients, and even points out who is approving what. This may also help you pick out processes that are currently being handled by senior employees which could be delegated to mid-level or junior employees instead, freeing up more time for senior personnel to devote to more pressing matters. All in all, free tools like these may be of immense usefulness in creating a big picture of your organization, your processes, and what you’re looking to change.

Hiring the Right People

But of course, no matter what tools you choose, they cannot be properly utilized without the right people. The next question we posed to Mat asked him to explore how he goes about finding individuals who fit an organization’s unique culture and who are excited to work in an expanding sphere like legal-tech. Conveniently, Mat broke down his answer into 4 key parts, outlining the different traits that he would look for when deciding who to hire:

Legal experience: Understanding the legal aspects of the contracting process is extremely important. Even if this legal experience boils down to just a few internships, it helps to have a handle on how legal processes work, such as redlining, the importance of clauses, limitations, liabilities, etc. Certain parts of the contract will be contentious and others will be simple, so you need to know where to spend your time in order to create the best quality contract without dragging out the process.
Project management: Innovation is almost always exciting at the beginning, but it is usually a long process, sometimes longer than anticipated. Individuals working to incorporate legal-tech solutions need to be able to keep up the momentum of the innovation project for the entire duration of the plan. Highlight the value that the innovation will bring to the company and make sure people know what they are meant to be doing at each step of the journey.
Business acumen: Business knowledge is not always necessary when incorporating CLM solutions, but it is helpful when focusing on a value-driven mindset. By knowing what a business does and how it operates, you can better understand which values to prioritize throughout the integration process.
Tech knowledge: Surprisingly, Mat considers tech knowledge to be the least essential of the 4 traits he mentioned. While it is helpful to know how the technology works in order to figure out the best ways to gain value from it, you can easily learn a lot about technology on the job or even by simply attending webinars. After all, Mat himself didn’t have much tech knowledge when he started either.

Searching for Solutions

So after you’ve evaluated your processes and hired the right people, how do you go about wading through the immense pool of CLM solutions available on the market right now? We asked Mat to walk us through the early steps of locating the perfect CLM tool for your organization. Laughing, he first explained how not to start your search: selecting a tool simply because one of the partners in the firm heard good things about it or knows someone who works for the software company. This could result in choosing a software that is completely unsuited to the needs of your organization, which would be a waste of money, time, and resources.

You first need to understand what you want your CLM tool to be able to do for you. Begin by making a clear list of your must-haves and what you want the software to help you accomplish. There are tons of CLM tools out there, and each one has to differentiate itself from others by offering various features, all of which can be helpful in their own ways. But, this also makes it easy to be drawn in simply by the features that would be nice to have while losing sight of the ones that are your organization’s priority. Mat recommends being realistic about your list and starting small. You cannot expect the software to fix every single problem in the legal department right away, so focusing on smaller goals at first allows you to choose a software that suits your immediate needs and that may adapt with you down the line.

Encouraging High User Adoption

And, once you have all your moving parts in place, the final question that many are left asking is how you get your employees to actually use the new software. Mat explained that support from various locations within the company throughout the implementation process is key. Leaders of the organization, whether they be partners or stakeholders, need to be the ambassadors of change, while a leader of the innovation group itself remains available to answer questions and make sure no one feels left behind. Having a handful of employees who catch onto the software quickly and can act as living proof that the new technology works may encourage others as well. Not to mention, it also helps to showcase success stories early on in the process in order to keep people feeling positive and motivated for the change.

For more exclusive chats with expert guests in the contract lifecycle management sphere along with valuable legal-tech advice, check out past installments of Contract Heroes and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode! If you have any questions for our guest, Mat Jakubowski, he is available on LinkedIn to discuss all things legal-tech.

Nic Brisbourne - CEO and Founder of Forward Partners